Wednesday, March 21, 2012

So bad it was almost good

Yes.

Yes, this is a film about a gang of gay bikers.

And yes, it's as bad as you'd imagine a film about gay bikers made in 1972 would be.

The gang meets up at a pipe yard, and these are huge pipes we're talking about. I'm guessing they met up there because they like to lay pipe when not riding around on the least butch looking motorcycles ever. Anyhoo, they all mount up and they hit the road but quickly they spot a hot young male hitchhiker and they pick him up. And as we all know, when you pick up a hitchhiker you immediately get hungry so our gang of gays stops at an A & W for some fast food. They do their best to keep their gayness under wraps but as most of them lovingly deep throat hot dogs, yeah, I said hot dogs, it quickly becomes apparent that the lads are homosexuals. This of course horrifies their hitchhiker and he runs off screaming so the gay bikers engage in a condiment fight. That is to say they squirt each other with ketchup, mustard, and mayo while screaming and giggling like 10 year old girls at a Justin Beiber concert.

Suddenly the film cuts to a military type getting out of a car. Turns out he's a general and he's the head of some shadowy organization that employs a woman who's got a hairdo that's the size of Delaware. This guy is supposed to be a take off on the crazy body fluids obsessed general from Dr. Strangelove and he reappears through out the film but all he does is drag the film down.

After the condiment fight our gang of motorbiking gays hits the road but soon they get stopped by some heavily armed cops who search them and their bikes. The cops figure out the guys are gay which of course freaks them out so they let our lads go after ascertaining that they're going to move along all the way to LA where they plan to attend a drag cotillion.

Next stop for the boys is a grocery store because nothing works up an appetite like getting hassled by the man. They load up on food and horrify the locals and quickly hit the road again. Soon they find a nice place for a picnic and two of them set a fine table complete with candelabras, champagne, and more fancy stuff that we all know all gays must have at a meal. It's during this scene that the best line of the film is delivered. One biker says to another, "I never knew my father." His pal says, "Oh heavens, why not?" The other guy says with a straight face, "Because he was always in drag!" I nearly laughed out loud but then I didn't.

However their picnic happiness is quickly upended when another gang of hairy chested butch looking straight bikers show up and they demand to know why the gays don't have any broads with them. One gay volunteers to go back to the town where they bought groceries so he can get hookers and they all agree it's a good idea. And quick as a wink he's back and the straight bikers quickly get drunk on the champagne and they proceed to screw the hookers and then pass out. When they wake up the gays and the gals are gone and they figure out they've been dabbed with make up by the gays who also put ribbons and bows in their long biker hair. This of course incenses the bikers who vow revenge on the 'cupcakes.' They can't bring themselves to call them fags or gays. So off they ride on a mission of vengeance.

Our heroes meanwhile have ridden into LA and they've discovered that a dress that one of them was going to wear to the drag ball is missing so they have to go out to buy another, and while their at it, they have to get make up and shoes for him as well. Locals are horrified by the gays and two of the gays who stayed behind at the hotel are given the evil eye by the naked and obviously randy room service waitress. But when the all the guys get back to the hotel they all get dressed for the ball because we all know all gay men live to dress in drag.

The other gang catches up to our gay heroes at their hotel because obviously in 1972 there was only one hotel in LA. The desk clerk rats our gay bikers out to the other gang so they decide to go up and smash those cupcakes. But first, the hotel bar beckons. And who do the straight bikers spy in the bar but a table full of women who are really our gay biker buddies in drag! Not noticing that their dates are really dudes in dresses, they decide to spirit the 'girls' away to a party which happens to be at the house where the general is plotting to do away with all hippie types who are going to ruin his America. The bikers and the gay bikers in drag are ushered in but once the general figures out the women are really fags in drag, he has them killed, hung in a tree in the yard to be exact.

That's it.

That's the film. Well, toss in almost every limp wristed stereotype gay gag imaginable and that's the film. Well, add to all that a really shitty soundtrack of obnoxious electric folk songs by a really shitty band called The Cutters and that's the film. It's all one big ball of weirdness that is at times cringe worthy and astounding. About the only people you'd recognize who are in this film is Dan Haggerty, he starred in Grizzly Adams, and character actor Michael Pataki, trust me, you've seen him in one of his thousands of film and TV roles.

Watch this one for laughs and to see how far they've come in depicting gays on screen but don't expect much in the way of plot or character development. It's odd and kind of funny but mostly it's just stupid as shit.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sound you hear is my jaw dropping on to my desk.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

The entire film is on You Tube Kirby. Check it out.

Anonymous said...

Man, that's a big "almost."

Barbara Bruederlin said...

It sounds rather magnificently bad!