The Spikes Gang
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Harry Spikes (Lee Marvin) is an aging bank robber of the fading "Old West." Injured and near death, he is found and mended back to health by three impressionable youths who are lifelong friends -- Wil (Gary Grimes), Tod (Charles Martin Smith), and Les (Ron Howard). They refuse any payment from Spikes for their efforts, and when he's healed he leaves saying he won't forget their kindness. Later, after enduring a beating from his father, and encouraged by Spikes's reminiscences of the 'good life', Wil decides to run away from home seeking excitement and easy living, and the other 2 boys decide to follow.
The three boys eventually make it to a Texas town, hungry and despondent, and in a moment of inspiration attempt to rob a bank. In the process Tod accidentally kills a man, and Les drops all the money, but they manage to escape and cross the Rio Grande into Mexico. Arriving in the Mexican town of Piedras Negras penniless and unable to find any work, Wil pawns his grandfathers antique watch for $10, enough to buy them a meal. That night, they attempt to steal the watch back, but stumble right into the sheriffs office, and land in jail.
After suffering in jail for 8 weeks, they happen to glance out the window and see Spikes and call him over. Good to his word, Spikes bribes the jailer, buys them baths, food and drink before saying his goodbye. He also tells them the man they killed was a state senator, and they now each have a bounty of $1500 on them, dead or alive. The boys stay in Mexico and attempt to go 'straight' working a succession of menial jobs, before again coming across Spikes who offers to take them into his 'gang'.
They plan a bank robbery back in the US, with Spikes first testing their mettle on a dry run in the Mexican bank. Crossing the border they camp out outside the town and are come upon by an old man who has deduced their plan and wants into the gang. When Spikes tells him no, he attempts to badger the boys into a gunfight to prove his worth, and Wil accidentally shoots him dead. Everything begins to take a turn for the worse: the bank robbery is a colossal failure, Tod is shot in the back, and they have a shootout with the Posse. Momentarily safe, Spikes knows Tod is dying and encourages the others to abandon him and look out for themselves. Wil and Les refuse and Spikes leaves them, saying "Good luck." Attempting to find a doctor, Wil attracts another Posse, who descend on them as they finish burying Tod.
After riding back to Mexico, Wil leaves Les as he wants to deliver a final letter to Tod's family, saying he will meetup with Les in the 'Big Church' back in the Mexican town of Piedras Negras in exactly two weeks. Arriving back from the journey, Wil enters the church and encounters a man who says Les sent him, and that he's been sorely wounded, shot four times by 2 men, bounty hunters by the name of Morton and Spikes. Killing Morton outside the infirmary, Wil attempts to leave with Les only to have him die in his arms.
He heads to the Hotel to confront Spikes, and appears to surprise him in his hotel room with his gun still hanging on the bed post. Spikes tells him he met with the Governor of Texas himself, who promised him a pardon for all his crimes if he brings in the boys. He then says he respects Wil, and wishes it didn't have to be the way it is, saying he didn't mean to kill Les, but he drew on him and had no choice. Wil demands he stand up so he can kill him 'fair', but Spikes throws his hat at him and pulls a hidden gun, shooting him in the chest. However, Wil manages to get off a succession of shots and kill Spikes, before stumbling out of the hotel and to the train station. Wil imagines boarding the train and returning home to embrace his father, before he collapses dead.
The film ends with a montage of the boys in the 'good old days', when they first set out on the adventure saying 'C'mon, Let's go get lucky!'

Review: Good and unknown western shot in Almeria , Spain , with a great cast by young man actors and a sensational Lee Marvin.
After escape home , three young man friends (Gary Grimes , Charles Martin Smith , Ron Howard) form a strong alliance , a dynamic trio combining raw untamed youth .
Later on , they meet an old man named Spikes (Lee Marvin) with the experience only a master gunfighter can offer .
As three boys wanted to be like their hero and they got their wish .
Then , the lawmen form a posse and engage to hunt down the gang.This exciting film packs Western action , rider-pursuits , thrills, emotion , shootouts and results to be quite entertaining .
The young players who wear extremely low holsters are phenomenal , they will have too much successes in their future , especially Ron Howard (American Graffiti) with a successful career as a nice director (Beautiful mind , Cinderella man , Da Vinci Code) , Charles Martin Smith as a prestigious secondary (Starman, Untouchables) , and Gary Grimes (Summer of 42, Class of 44) as a Western starring in similar role as a naive cowboy (Cahill US Marshal , CulpepperCattle) , though he is nowadays retreated .
And , of course , the great Lee Marvin , he gives a terrific acting as a tough gunslinger .
The movie will appeal to Lee Marvin fans and twilight Western enthusiasts..
I happened to catch this film on a late night showing on a classic movie channel.
I have seen other comments on it that refer to the movie as "under-rated", and I couldn't agree more!Lee Marvin does a fantastic job portraying bank robber Harry Spikes who meets and befriends three teen aged boys who gradually come to admire Spikes and his lifestyle.
After Spikes leaves the boys, circumstances lead them to run away together and begin what they thought would be the adventure of thier lives.
They soon find that adventure, life, and Harry Spikes are not all they seemed to be!
Ron Howard, Gary Grimes and Charlie Martin Smith play thier parts perfectly.
This is probably Richard Fleischer's last good movie;it's considered polite to say that all he did after "solyent green" is worthless.Richard Fleischer made lots and lots of great movies from " follow me quietly" to " the narrow margin" ,from "20,0000 leagues under the sea" to "The Vikings "and from "Barabbas" to "the Boston strangler" to the stunning (and perhaps his masterpiece) "10 Rillington Place" After "Solyent green" which featured the extremely moving scene of the death of Edward G.Robinson (who eventually died some months after),only "Spikes gang" shows something of the unqualified brilliance that accompanies Fleischer in his career through "Solyent green" .It is a western which has nothing to do with the epics of Ford,Daves or Walsh or Mann.It has also (fortunately) nothing to do with Peckinpah.Filmed in Spain,its spirit is actually close to that of Arthur Penn,particularly "Bonnie and Clyde".When Grimes is daydreaming and sees his father tell him :"you're no longer my son;you're dead" ,it recalls that scene when Bonnie meets her mom for a picnic and the old lady says "you're already dead ,Bonnie Parker" .The three lads are in search of a father ,which is very Pennesque ,notably in "the left handed gun" .even in a non-western film such as "the miracle worker" Ann Sullivan was Helen Keller's second mom.
Grimes' father was a religious man ,perhaps not far from being a fanatic (his part is too underwritten).Remember that scene in the bank where the ticking of the clock merges into the memories of the whip coming down .Lee Marvin is their new father and I go as far as to write that Grimes is some kind of father to his two mates too when he is absent.The three lads are amateurs and cannot free them of the concept of right and wrong ,coming from a religion which does not give any answer;when they're eating hosts and drinking sacred wine,one of the youngest speaks of blasphemy but their leader tells them so "Christ would give them to us if He were here" .Lee Marvin's character is extremely interesting.Lee Marvin never overplays and the discovery that he was once married to an educated wife ,a teacher who spoke several languages and played the piano comes aside as a shock.This memory is necessary ;without it,the ending would not make any sense.An inferior director would have made "men" of the three teenagers ;but they can't :their dreams ,their remorse,the letter one of them sends to his mom,the trust they put in Marvin,all indicates that when they die they will still be big children.Like this?try this....."Run for cover" Nicholas Ray 1955.
I saw this movie about two years ago while I was up studying at around 4:00 A.M. Lee Marvin plays an outlaw that takes three runaway teens under his wing.
The movie takes on a surprising twist towards the end.
Three miscreant youths, Gary Grimes, Ron Howard, and Charles Martin Smith find a wounded Lee Marvin on the road and take him to the barn of Gary Grimes father's farm.
That doesn't sit well with Grimes' father who has lied to a posse about Marvin not being around.
Grimes runs away then and there and the other two join him.Like a lot of youth back then, when I was young, when this picture was made and today; these kids are bored.
Life was hard on those homestead farms, Grimes' father is a hard man, he had to be.
They take up bank robbing like their new hero Lee Marvin and make a botch of it.
Fleeing to Mexico, they meet up again with Marvin who takes them under his wing now, to show them how to do it right.The rest of the movie is the unfolding of their disillusionment.
Lee Marvin does not turn out to be the hero they had in mind.
Lee Marvin strikes the right note in a difficult part.
In some ways at first he appears to the kids to be just like his character in Monte Walsh, a rugged individualist who lives by his own code.
Marvin is not like Liberty Valance in this film, a sadistic bully.
But he does what he has to in order to survive as an outlaw.The kids fail their apprenticeships, but they and Marvin give the audience some great entertainment..
Imagine, a movie that gives a lesson right from the bible, 'Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword'.
After doing some of the dumbest things imaginable for young boys and doing it badly you would thinkthey were smart enough to realize they weren't cut out for being out on their own.
Anyhow, the movie was well done, gave you a real feel for what it musthave been like living in the 'Old West'.
Lee Marvin plays himself and does it superbly..
The Spikes Gang is a very good western that shows what probably happened to a good many youngsters who struck out on their own in the expanding west.
It is one of three westerns that Gary Grimes starred in that gave a darker and truer view of life in the old west for teenager.
The others are The Culpepper Cattle Co., 1972 and Cahill, U.S. Marshall, 1973.Lee Marvin plays a wounded bank robber, (Spikes) on the run from a posse, whom three teens find (Grimes, Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith) and nurse back to health.
The three youths, small community and under the heavy hand of discipline, become enthralled with Spikes and soon strike out on their own soon after he departs.After a series of misadventures, the youngsters meet up with Spikes again, who, against his better judgment, takes them under his wing.The Spikes Gang is a fast paced movie and seems to play upon the anonymity of three teenagers, ill-prepared for a brutal and unforgiving way of life.
The one drawback to the pace is that it does not give a good sense for the passage of time, but is effective in emphasizing the few sparks in mundane lives.As part of the Grimes Western trilogy, one can get a good look at an overly romanticized part of history..
I'm a bank robber boys..
The Spikes Gang is directed by Richard Fleischer and adapted to screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. from the novel The Bank Robber written by Giles Tippette.
It stars Lee Marvin, Gary Grimes, Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith.
Happening upon an injured man, three boys nurse him back to health and learn that he is bank robber Harry Spikes (Marvin).
Enchanted by his tales and way of life, the boys decide to form their own gang and eventually linking up with Spikes who then teaches them the tricks of his trade.
However, the outlaw life is not as romantic as the boys first envisaged...
The Spikes Gang is ripe with a foreboding atmosphere about the innocence of youth corrupted by stretching too far for romanticism.
The boys home life out there on the frontier is painted as sad, even grim, with bad or absent parents featuring strongly, it's not hard to buy into the fact these impressionable young men in waiting yearn for adventure.
Hooking up with Spikes seems the cool thing to do, he becomes a surrogate father and he at least gives them skills to survive a basic outlaw way of life.
Well what we do know is that it builds gently, with Fleischer adroitly forming his characters and garnering superb performances from his cast (one of Marvin's best turns actually) in the process.
Once the finale plays its hand, it's of such sadness to leave an indelible impression that anyone of sound heart will find hard to shake from the memory bank.
Judged harshly by the jaded critics of the time and mostly ignored at the box office, The Spikes Gang may just be one of the most under valued Westerns of the 70s.
A gem of a movie.Very realistic and exciting.A good combination of an established actor (Marvin) combined with up & coming actors (Grimes,Smith & Howard).It portrays the american west in a realistic manner (like most westerns from the late 60's & early 70's).
Lee Marvin has played the role of crusty gunslinger many times, and he does not disappoint here.
The story of three farm boys throwing in with the wily bank robber is both believable and different.
The film is never dull, with Marvin spewing forth quotable lines throughout.
"The Spikes Gang" is one of those movies that far exceeds expectations, is worth seeking out, and not easily forgotten.
From a time when the western was trying to appeal to a younger audience by making movies that featured boy protagonists rather than men, ("The Culpepper Cattle Company", "The Cowboys" and here, "The Spikes Gang").
This time the boys are Gary Grimes, who wisely gave up acting, Charlie Martin Smith and someone called Ron Howard who appeared in a popular tv series and I believe went into directing.They're runaways from home who prove to be pretty useless at everything they turn their hand to until outlaw Lee Marvin takes them under his wing, at which point they become pretty good at killing.
It's a typically amoral tale where even killing is played largely for laughs, at least at the beginning before it turns tragic along the lines of "Bonnie and Clyde", though this is never in that class and while it may not be the best thing Richard Fleischer, or for that matter Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr, ever did it is still an unusally grim tale which might account for why it's now almost totally forgotten when others of its ilk are more fondly remembered..
So-so western with the great Lee Marvin.
A wily old bank robber takes three boys under his wing in this decent, at times entertaining, yet, ultimately, unremarkable tale of life on the lam in the Old West.
Lee Marvin plays the titular Harry Spikes, a wise, cold-hearted, yet, generous when he wants to be, veteran of the art of the unauthorized withdrawal.
The boys - Gary Grimes, Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith - are fair to good.
Lee wasn't Marvin at this.
I ran this film in my cinema as a double feature with a western called BILLY TWO HATS.
Anyway, THE SPIKES GANG is a rustic teenage crime drama from the B grade school of drive in movie-making that saw Bonnie and Clyde...Bloody Mama...
A Good Movie.
The Spikes Gang was made back in the days when Ron Howard was your prototypical golly gee whiz teenager, just a number of months after American Graffiti, and in the same year which Howard's TV sitcom Happy Days premiered.
Or, on the other hand, maybe it's for the best that he didn't, since he actually did go on to have a remarkable career behind the camera.The point being is that there is a bit of a surprise here, a difference between this and other Ron Howard acting vehicles, because here Ron Howard actually plays slightly against type, not entirely the innocent lad we usually see.
This story has an edge, a serious steely edge, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, but definitely always there, and Les (Ron Howard's character) and his two buddies learn some things about life the hard way, harder in fact than one might have expected in a Ron Howard movie in those days.
He knew what he was doing, and he did it well.Lee Marvin is very good in this movie, as he usually was in most all of his performances.
Ron Howard learning hard truths about life from Lee Marvin.
Ron Howard learning hard truths about life from John Wayne.
I recommend The Spikes Gang..
good movie with real morals.
Instead of leaving the movie thinking "I could do that, I just won't make those mistakes," the way other gangsta flicks make people feel, you leave thinking "maybe this isn't at all what I thought or want.".
A little more background and foundation on the character of the young ones would have made this a much better flick, otherwise it was a good watch..
THE SPIKES GANG is a moralistic, low budget western and something of a vehicle for the great Lee Marvin, playing his usual drunken, ne'er-do-well character.
The western is also a showcase for a number of youthful stars including Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith, moving on from their work on American GRAFFITI.
The story sees bank robber Marvin taking the youths under his wing as part of his gang, but of course the story gets complicated after that.This film is one of the less well-known works of director Richard Fleischer but at times it's just as interesting as something like TORA!
Marvin is great value and the young actors do well, and the narrative structure which begins with idealism and ends with pessimism is handled adroitly.
Here's something you wouldn't expect but it's true for the moment, Charles Martin Smith has four more acting credits to his name here on IMDb than his contemporary Ron Howard.
You'd think the three farm boys would eventually come around to the error of their ways, and they did actually, but in one of those 'careful what you wish for' sort of ways.
At least one of them should have been wary enough to figure Spikes (Lee Marvin) would turn on them after he told them about killing his wife.
OK, in a convoluted way he made it sound like she had it coming, but that would have been a hint that once there was a bounty on their heads, all bets of friendship would be off the table.I wonder if it was inadvertent or intentional, but at one point Spikes tells Will (Gary Grimes), Les (Howard) and Tod (Smith) that the citizens of Uvalde "ain't expectin' a wild bunch like us".
Either way it was kind of a neat tribute to the 1969 film.One thing I noticed here is something I never had before, and it's probably due to Lee Marvin's look as the outlaw Spikes.
As she lays there dying she asks, "Why have you done this to me?" He answers while slithering off, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake." "The Spikes Gang" begins with three teenage boys finding outlaw Lee Marvin (Spikes) wounded and dying on the ground, and they hide him in the back of the barn where they can nurse him back to health.
Instead of killing them, he thanks them kindly and departs- but maybe his poison seed has been planted because soon the boys abandon their home and set off on the road and an eventual life of crime.That's the story, and much of it works, but just as much fails.
There is a pervading heavy-handed morality lesson at work here, and it takes the joy out of what could have been a great film.
The three boys- desperate, penniless, and starving for food- finally decide to rob a bank.
In the next scene they're penniless again begging for food.Hold the phone, but isn't movie crime supposed to be FUN?
Naw, we know the boys are Hellbound and therefore incapable of joy.The joy comes from Lee Marvin.
Marvin plays Spikes as a human being, the product of his environment.
he is as he says, "just a man trying to survive." (As a side note I must nominate this film for "Worst Blood In A Motion Picture" category.
One character uses his hand to clot a wound but looks more like he's squeezing a tomato through his fingers.)By the time the film comes to its' drawn-out finale (the movie's at least twenty minutes too long) I had given up hope for a happy ending, given up hope for a satisfying ending...
Guilt-ridden, morally tortured, spiritually defeated cowboys rarely appear in good Westerns.There's a reason.GRADE: C+