Stone

Stone (1974)

Most of the time I know exactly what a movie is going to be in the first five minutes. But sometimes a movie will really surprise you and Stone is one of those movies for me. The movie begins with a group of bikers crashing a pro environment rally in a park where the speaker gets killed by a sniper. One of the bikers sees the sniper’s face, but wanders off in a drug-induced haze. The sniper sees only the biker’s jacket, but doesn’t know which one saw him. So he starts picking them off one at a time, which gets the attention of the police. Stone, an undercover cop, convinces the bike gang, The Grave Diggers, to let him ride with them so he can catch the killer. They do and Stone finds himself admiring the unruly gang as he tries to figure out who wants them all dead. But what will he do when the gang corners the killer? Will he allow their justice or bring him in, as his job requires?

A couple of things really surprised me about this movie. First is that the bikers are at times sympathetic, but unlike many American bike gang movies they aren’t romanticized. These are some violent, messed up dudes who will kick your teeth in as soon as look at you. That said the movie does show the gang as an honorable group in their own way. There is even a part of the movie where they try and explain to Stone that they have their own laws and if you break them you get slapped around. Though they are quick to point out that unlike Stone and his laws they don’t try and push theirs on anyone else. I also love that just when you think the movie is over there is a final brutal scene that is shocking, but is quite consistent with the rest of the movie. The cast is better than I expected, though not fantastic. Director and Writer Sandy Harbutt is good as the Undertaker, the leader of the Grave Diggers (makes sense). I also thought that Ken Shorter is pretty decent as Stone, though the gang members are much more interesting characters.

Technically I was impressed with the look and sounds of the movie. The soundtrack is populated with the sort of groovy rebellious rock and roll from the late 60s and early 70s that you would expect. It works really well to set the scenes and fits with the mood of the story. The shots of the bikes tooling around and the stunts are very well done and add an authenticity to the movie that I really dig. But what really surprised me was how beautifully the movie caught the surrounding scenery. There are some shots of the ocean that are captured beautifully, as well as a few shots of the bikes cruising the highways from a distance that are really unexpected. I’m sort of shocked that according to everything I’ve read this was director Harbutt’s last project as an actor and director. That is a real bummer.

This is the first movie from Severin that I’m reviewing for the site and I started off with a good one. For more information about Stone and the other great movies that Severin distributes go to http://www.severin-films.com/ I really do recommend that everyone check out Stone.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer