The Rebel Rousers

Plot synopsis:
Filmed in Chloride, Arizona.Frank "J. J." Weston (Bruce Dern) meets a high-school mate, Paul Collier (Cameron Mitchell). JJ hangs out with a gang of motorbike riders, but Paul is a successful architecht in LA. Paul is following Karen (Diane Ladd), an ex-lover pregnant with his child.The riders (Jack Nicholson, Neil Burstyn-Nephew, Phil Carey, Earl Finn, Lou Procopio...) meet at the canteen, where they dance and make too much noise. Barmaid Carmela, (Helena Clayton) calls Ringo Álvarez, (Harry Dean Stanton), the local sheriff. Ringo has to convince Pancho, his fat, lazy deputy, to help him finish the mayhem. Ringo tells them to go away. They leave, but stay at a beach nearby.Paul wants Karen to have an abortion, but she refuses. So he asks to her to marry him. She wants to have the baby and stay single. He wants to have fun; she wants to settle down. Their car breaks down, and the riders frighten them. JJ saves the couple.Later on, some riders attack Paul, who defends Karen. Frank saves them, but as a consequence, Paul needs a doctor badly. The riders want to rape Karen. Paul runs away. Just to win some time for Paul to bring the sheriff, Frank proposes a race, and whoever wins can have sex with Karen, although she doesn't agree to that.Paul contacts the sheriff's officer. Only Pancho and a priest are there, and they're so afraid that they won't help Paul. Paul goes to the canteen, where nobody wants to help him, and Carmela tells him to go away. Outside the canteen, a gentle boy tells him to follow him as he knows somebody who can help. The boy takes Paul to Miguel (Robert Dix), a Mexican farmer who's celebrating his birthday. Miguel's daughter (Rita Reinhardt) goes out to the beach on her own for some dumb reason, where she's assaulted by the bikeriders. Miguel, Paul and more Mexican people go to rescue Karen and Miguel's daughter.The race had already taken place. JJ performs a mock-marriage ceremony for the winner rider and Karen, reading an instructions manual for Harley Davidson motorbikes. Paul blacks out as soon as the rescuing team reaches the riders (that's a cavalier!).Frank and the winning rider fight, telling everybody else not to get between them, avoiding a bloodbath. When Frank wins, the riders promise to go away. Because of everything which has happened, Frank doesn't feel like a rider anymore. He just wanted to have fun, not to kill somebody.

Tags: violence, revenge, sadist, melodrama

Review:
good for a curio, not so much as a exploitation/biker flick.
The Rebel Rousers a few times feels like it could be aiming for something more on its lunch-money used for a budget.
It's got a very simple crux to the story- Bruce Dern and Cameron Mitchell as old school friends (hey, they may be oh two decades apart, but it was college I guess) say hello and go their separate ways at the start of the film, the former being a biker club leader and the latter a soon-to-be father of a possibly illegitimate child by Diane Ladd's character.
Then, some of the bikers one day find the two in a car, take them down to a beach, and beat the crap out of him for just, well, being there.
He slugs off to get help while the other bikers race to see who'll get their 'time' with her, with Jack Nicholson's Bunny (ho-ho) vies for the prize.
Nicholson is given the top billing on most VHS releases of the film, but his is a supporting role that is like RP McMurphy from Cuckoo's nest with his wonderful sarcasm replaced by striped pants (which the director decides to use to block some shots).
It all leads up to a climax that includes a fight, but also a letdown in not having the bikers square off against the Mexicans who show up with their pitchforks on the beach after finally being alerted.All of this is up for good times in the B-movie guilty pleasure sense by the sound of it, and everything that can be made as 'surface' as possible is used for dramatic or just 'there' effect; Mitchell and Ladd's characters have not much else to say except the baby and marriage; the bikers, aside from Dern and possibly Nicholson (who when he does have a line or something to do is very funny), are hard to discern with any distinguishing characteristics; the police are (amusingly) very limited to a Deputy who's never around and a lummox with bricks for brains.
There's even a very good scene where Mitchell gets no response from a bar full of patrons even in his beat-up, bloodied state.
But the problem with all of the expended effort put into The Rebel Rousers is that it's too amateurish to be taken at all seriously as a fun time, if that makes sense.
There is also the issue of lighting, to which it looks like the filmmakers didn't have enough money for or just didn't give a crap about- the climax is a letdown mostly for how you can't see a damn thing that's going on.
His music choices are mostly awful, at least a few supporting actors brought on look like they're improvising on the set (and not for the better of the actual script), and any real guilty fun (ala Angels Hard as They Come) of seeing a bunch of bikers being really mean and ruthless is compounded by the Mitchell/Ladd moments which are un-evenly paced.But even with all of this, as a pre-Easy Rider kind of spectacle (shot before it but not released till after it came out, a shelved movie for three years), it's not bad to look at as a curio piece for some of its main players.
For fans of the actors who got their feet wet in these kinds of pictures it's of a little interest to see Dern as the unlikely protagonist and Nicholson as the grizzly heel, or Stanton in his sometimes whacked out state.
'The Rebel Rousers' sat in the can for two years before eventually being released to cash in on Jack Nicholson's success in 'Easy Rider'.
It's awful, only good for some cheap laughs, and playing spot-the-character-actor.
Nicholson is actually only one of the supporting players.
His biker Bunny is mean and nasty but by no means the focal point of the movie.
Bruce Dern plays the biker's leader, and as always he is good, even if the movie isn't.
B-grade legend Cameron Mitchell ('Hombre', 'The Toolbox Murders') plays an architect who is trying to convince his pregnant girlfriend (Diane Ladd - 'Wild At Heart') to marry him.
The two get caught up in the mind games of the anarchic Rebel Rousers.
Harry Dean Stanton joins Dern and Nicholson as one of the bikers - quite possibly the strangest movie biker of all time!
It's almost like he stepped in from a completely different movie and provides some cut rate surreal touches and comic relief, often unintentionally.
The rest of the bikers will be familiar to b-grade exploitation fans, and keep an eye out for 'Forbidden Planet's Bob Dix as a Mexican no less.
If you want to see a good 60s biker movie starring Dern try 'The Wild Angels', and Nicholson is much better in 'Hells Angels on Wheels'.
'The Rebel Rousers' is a watch once and file under forgettable trash kinda experience, that's about it..
This late carefree, but crudely gruff low-cost b-grade biker exploitation (that was shelved for a couple of years before being released because of the fascinating performance of Nicholson in the 1969's biker flick 'Easy Rider') is nothing more than a minor curious piece for its well oiled cast, who would go onto better things.
Namely Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton.
Stanton who engages with his little screen time (one of the rowdy bikers who are far from threatening with their clown-like appearances), looks totally out of place though.
Many of the dialogues are awkward, stiff (although a spirited Bruce Dern admirably tries his best to infuse life) with the padded nature only making the short running time meander even more.
A sombre Cameron Mitchell could be mistaken for a wooden plank and Diane Ladd is there too look all worried.
Nicholson (in some eye-boggling pants) laps it up as the low-brow, cruel biker, but his performance is pretty much on the fringe.
A couple is terrorised by bikers and the town's folk want nothing to do with it when the husband escapes looking for help.
I can't imagine anyone would think this was actually a decent film.
The best (best meaning worst in this case) part of the film was when one of the men escaped from the biker gang, got a car, and drove into town to the police station.
Bad Biker Flick.
Ahh, bad biker flicks.
Bad biker chicks in underwear.
Bad Jack Nicholson before he got any respect.
Bruce Dern is the star of this piece, and he's an actor in search of a plot.
His wife (in real life) Diane Ladd, has a thankless role as a damsel in distress, at the mercy of a juvenile motorcycle gang.
Cameron Mitchell is no help.
Jack Nicholson leers and trys to look menacing.
And I believe Harry Dean Stanton plays the comic hipster biker in the 1940's be-bop suit.
The strange behavior of various characters in this movie made me wonder if this might be a parody of biker movies.
The bikers could have taken over and terrorized the town.
It was like there was an on-off switch deciding whether the bikers were going to be violent, or funny, or whatever.
What really made no sense was the reaction of Cameron Mitchell's character to the bikers.
At first I thought he and Diane Ladd were giving good performances.
I can say this much: I enjoyed the music that was played in the scenes where Cameron Mitchell and Diane Ladd were together, and of course the funny deputy.Other than that, what was this?.
Many times as I sat watching this god-awful film it sure looked like there really wasn't a script.
In many places, it looked as if the director, if there was one, just told everyone to 'wing it'--and often the actors talked over each other, spouted gibberish or just talked to hear themselves talk.
In addition, sometimes the actors did things that made almost no sense--giving further evidence to the idea that there was no script...or even plot.
This is especially true for at least the first half hour of the film where most of it just involves a biker gang running amok.
Amidst all this, there is a plot that keeps trying to appear that involves Cameron Mitchell trying to get his pregnant girlfriend to marry him.
Amateurish and silly throughout but not outlandish or silly enough to make it fun for bad movie buffs..
More Than Meets The Eye. A quick once over and The Rebel Rousers seems nothing more than a good guy versus evil biker gang midnight movie.
But,look closer and you see a story about the conflict of conforming to the norms of society or rebelling against them.
The star of the film is a heavy-set Cameron Mitchell who plays a middle-class businessman in a stormy romance with Diane Ladd.
Mitchell meets a former high-school buddy played by an intense Bruce Dern(kind of weird pairing here as Mitchell is 18 years older than Dern in real life)the leader of a gang of misfit bikers.
A rugged looking Jack Nicholson is Bunny, a psycho member of the Rebels.
The main focus of the film is Nicholson's attempt to rape Ladd, with both Mitchell and Dern preventing it.
Ladd's character represents the family values of the 1950's and Nicholson's Bunny is symbolic of the devil-may-care 1960's lifestyle that may destroy it.
If you like movies with a "meaning' The Rebel Rousers is for you..
"I think that's what it's all about" - Jack Nicholson pretty much sums up this movie, "Rebel Rousers".
Cameron Mitchell....
J.J. Weston: A stereotypical Architect businessman whose character embodies the prevailing male, city dweller of his time..
Jack Nicholson....
Bunny: The Rebel Rouser whose independent stand takes him all the way to the end.
Townspeople: Simple life of the 60's hero."Rebel Rousers" is a faithful rendition of the crazy party life of a small California gang of bikers.
Magnificent acting that captures the essence of a day as a "Rebel Rouser"..
As another commenter stated, I believe this film sat on the shelf for a while, not being able to get a release since it was so bad.
Then, once Jack Nicholson's career break-out occurred, this was rushed out to the drive-in circuit.The 74 minute running time of the film gives away its intentions: classic B movie fare, bottom-of-the-bill, baby.
This film looks like it was shot in two days on a budget of two cents.
Bikers, led by Bruce Dern, menace Cameron Mitchell and pregnant ex-paramour Diane Ladd, taking her prisoner and beating him up.
But Dern doesn't like it.
He tries to keep his sadistic buddies in line, he just wants to ride around and party and doesn't like all this violence, man.
So how did he end up leading a group of violent bikers?
Lame!The only positive thing I can say about this movie is the acting.
Watch Nicholson, you'll begin to see why has the legendary career he has today.
Diane Ladd is quite believable as The Post-Feminist Woman Who's Gonna Have Her Baby By Herself, Dammit.
Also seen are Robert Dix and the omnipresent (if you watch genre movies) John "Bud" Cardos, later director of the William Shatner clas-sick "Kingdom of the Spiders"!!I give this movie a four only for the acting.
Unless you are a biker movie completist, you should give it a pass.
Other biker movies I would recommend: The Wild Angels, The Tormentors, Satan's Sadists..
J.J. Weston (Bruce Dern) belongs to a biker gang that includes a man named Bunny (Jack Nicholson).
He runs into an old college buddy named Paul (Cameron Mitchell).
Paul is living with Karen (Diane Ladd) who's pregnant with his baby.
The biker gang get Paul and Karen alone on a beach.
They beat up Paul (for no reason) and propose to marry Karen to Bunny.
Boring and stupid biker flick.
The biker gang acts and sounds like no biker gang I ever heard of.
It has a pre-stardom Nicholson (wearing the most annoying striped pants I've ever seen) and a very young Dern and Ladd (who I believe were married at the time).
Their acting is great but it can't help the horrendous script.
Rebel Rousers, The (1970) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Silly but mildly entertaining biker flick about a man (Cameron Mitchell) who travels to a small town to try and get back his pregnant wife (Diane Ladd) but while the two are talking he's beaten and she's kidnapped by a biker gang led by Bruce Dern.
The highlight of this film is the wonderful cast as we get not only Mitchell, Dern and Ladd but supporting performances by Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton.
As far as biker films goes this one here is a long way away from titles like EASY RIDER and THE WILD ANGELS but there's enough mild charm here to make this worth viewing.
The film runs a fairly short 78-minutes and I do wonder if there's some stuff on the cutting room floor as there are a few side plots that never really add up to much and we even get some questionable moments from start to finish.
We're told that Mitchell and Dern played football together but this never really adds up to anything.
We get the escape scene with Mitchell taking off yet it's never quite clear why his wife doesn't try to escape with him.
The kidnapping leads to a pretty good ending when some Mexican guys with rakes show up to get back Mitchell's wife as well as one of their daughters who was delivering tacos to the bikers!!!
Ladd is charming as the wife and it's always fun seeing Stanton no matter how small the role is.
Dern clearly steals the show as the "mature" biker who is always saying the right thing even though it's hard to trust what he's saying.
Finally, there's Nicholson wearing some zebra colored pants that are a real hoot.
I think that "The Rebel Rousers" is not even close to the worst biker movie ever made.
I think this is quite good on a low budget.
Bruce Dern is always cool and my hero Jack Nicholson is the best "Rebel" I think this beats the hell out of "The Wild Angels" which even though the talented and groovy duo of Dern and Peter Fonda were in it.
I think "The Wild Angels" is the worst biker film ever made, not "The Rebel Rousers".
Granted that I wish that there were more scenes of actual motorcycle riding and that most of the movie took place on a beach.
I enjoy the opening music of the movie and the location in which the film was shot.
Jack Nicholson is delightfully sadistic as "Bunny" especially where he beats the hell out of Cameron Mitchell.
The biggest kick I got out of seeing Jack in this movie is his black and white striped pants.
Bruce Dern is out of sight as the "Rebels" leader, "J.J." Bruce is much better in this part than his role as "Loser" in "The Wild Angels" which reminded me of Terry Kiser in "Weekend At Bernie's" where they all drag Bruce's dead body around..
"Paul Collier" (Cameron Mitchell) is an architect who drives into a small town in search of his girlfriend, "Karen" (Diane Ladd) who is noticeably pregnant.
As it so happens, a gang of motorcyclists known as "the Rebels" rides into this same town and begins causing trouble.
J. Weston" (Bruce Dern) is an old high school acquaintance of his and because of that they are on good terms with one another.
J. doesn't quite have as much control over some of the more violent members of the gang and when they take an interest in Karen things begin to turn extremely ugly.
Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this film wasn't nearly as fun or exciting as it should have been due in large part to the chaotic script and lackluster direction.
In any case, I would think that having a cast which included Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton and the aforementioned Bruce Dern and Cameron Mitchell would have been more than enough to ensure a somewhat interesting biker film.
Cohen) wasn't up to the task and because of this I have to rate this film as below average..
Great Actors In An Exploitation Flick.
"The Rebel Rousers" is a short, sloppy biker pic from 1970 that showcased future stars like Harry Dean Stanton, Dianne Ladd, Bruce Dern & Jack Nicholson.
The cast is so good they give gravity to an otherwise disposable film.The plot is silly...
a biker gang terrorizes a young married couple because...
It's Nicholson and Ladd who steal the show...
when they're on screen you see no one else, and they're simply ten times more Watchable than anyone else around them.If you're a huge fan of Jack, Diane or biker flicks you may want to check this out...
So-so biker exploitation flick.
Architect Paul Collier (an incredibly insipid performance by Cameron Mitchell) stops off at a small Arizona desert town to visit his headstrong pregnant girlfriend Karen (a sound and sympathetic portrayal by Diane Ladd).
Paul bumps into old high school buddy J.J. Weston (the always solid Bruce Dern), who's now the amiable and laid-back leader of a gang of rowdy bikers.
Cohen's bland direction, working from a drab and talky script which he co-wrote with Michael Kars and Abe Polsky, relates the meandering narrative at a draggy pace, fails to bring any real tension or vitality to the proceedings, and gets further bogged down in a sappy love story between Mitchell and Ladd.
The cast do their best with the sub-par material: Dern and Ladd contribute respectable work, Jack Nicholson sports an amazing pair of gloriously ghastly striped pants and makes the most out of his regrettably minor role as volatile rotten apple Harley hound Bunny, and Harry Dean Stanton is a hoot as flaky hipster Randolph Halverson.