PinkAngels

Pink Angels (1971)

This movie is about a group of bikers riding along fighting the man. Only in this movie they are gay bikers riding to the big city so they can attend a party in drag! Along the way they are hassled by the cops, “rumble” with another biker gang (watch for Dan Haggerty TV’s Grizzly Adams), and pursued by the military. After getting all dressed up of the party the “girls” head off only to be caught in a trap. This leads to a very shocking and abrupt ending that is without a doubt one of the most memorable ending to any movie I’ve ever seen.

This is an interesting movie for me to review. For the most part the movie is a straight (no pun intended) forward road picture from the late 60s and 70s. All of these movies had a couple things in common and this one is no different. You have characters that live outside of society traveling the highways and interacting with the “normal” people they meet along the way to mixed results. Of course there are the typical conflicts with the man, who won’t just leave them alone to live their lives. This conflict and unwillingness to conform of course leads them to a bad end. This is again not an uncommon theme in these road pictures. What I did find interesting is that the characters are openly gay and in the audiences face. This movie was made in 1971, which is long before the days of Ellen and Will and Grace. That took guts even for an exploitation/drive-in movie to tackle. Alone I didn’t think that the story was anything special but the gay characters made it different from other movies that used the same formula. That alone is makes it worth checking out the movie.

The cast is actually very good, especially the men in the Pink Angels gang. The characters are really stereotypes, especially in the scenes where they are shopping, but you have cut them some slack. This is a technically sound movie that looks pretty good. The filmmakers did a good job with what is clearly a low budget movie.

I’m amazed that even in the counter culture 1960s that a movie like the Pink Angels was made and distributed. Again while it isn’t the greatest movie I’ve ever seen I think it is a must for all of us who consider ourselves fans of drive-in and exploitation cinema to have seen this movie at least one time. For those who aren’t big fans of this sort of movie you might skip this one and watch something more easily accessible to someone new to the genre like Vanishing Point or Easy Rider.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer