Before Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda hopped on their choppers and discovered their own brand of America in Easy Rider, they each made a biker film. Fonda’s was The Wild Angels; Hopper’s was The Glory Stompers. Fonda made out better in terms of director (Roger Corman) and production personnel. Hopper’s opus (which he didn’t direct; Anthony Lanza did) had a very weak story and not much in the way of acting talent or directorial expertise to support him. The Glory Stompers may provide incidental amusement to see someone like Casey Kasem playing a biker, but it’s otherwise an incidental footnote in the career of Dennis Hopper.
The Glory Stompers (MGM MOD)
Directed by Anthony Lanza
Studio: MGM/UA
Year: 1967
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic
Running Time: 85 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 mono English
Subtitles: none
MSRP: $ 19.98
Release Date: available now
Review Date: October 6, 2011
The Film
2/5
Chino (Dennis Hopper) is the head of the biker club Black Souls, and when he attempts to harass Darryl (Jody McCrae), one of the Glory Stompers, a rival club, his gang members stomp and kick Darryl believing they’ve killed him. Darryl’s girl friend Chris (Chris Noel), who witnessed the beating, is kidnapped by the Souls with the plan to sell her in Mexico to a group looking to get girls to serve as prostitutes. Along the way, though, Chino and his brother Paul (Jim Reader) both take a shine to Chris but so does the hulking Magoo (Robert Tessier), so it becomes a test to see which one can win her favor and if they can make it to Mexico before Darryl and his buddy Smiley (Jock Mahoney) catch up with them.
With Chris obviously not interested in any of the Black Souls, the long ride to Mexico is prolonged in a vain attempt to create a little tension about whether she can prevent being raped or if she can escape her captors by using her own wiles. That’s not much on which to base the dramatic through-line of the story, so director Anthony Lanza and writers James White and John Lawrence waylay the plot by having the Black Souls attend a biker rally. This offers a great opportunity to stage a series of time-consuming and (hopefully for the audience) titillating events: a (rather discreet) orgy, some girl-on-girl fighting, a bad acid trip, some nude bathing, and lots of body painting so girls in bikinis look exactly like the female co-stars on Laugh-In. Director Lanza really isn’t able to ratchet up the tension concerning Chris’ safety, so a four hour head start by the Souls after the rally quickly evaporates as the heroes catch up with them. The action, whether it be on the choppers or off them, is poorly staged and shot, and there’s never much doubt how things will turn out. The director does attempt some arty touches late in the film as the Black Souls head to Mexico over some exotic looking sand dunes with the bikers in black relief against the sky while strangely soft pop music plays on the soundtrack. It’s quite a jarring counterpoint to the hard rock-infused messy zoom photography used during the rally.
Dennis Hopper seems to be improvising a great deal of his dialogue throwing in the word “man” after every few words, but there is really not much of a character for him to act. Jim Reader as Chino’s younger brother is every bit his nickname in the film (“Clean Cut”), so much so that he’s about the least authentic biker you’ll ever see. Much more realistic are Robert Tessier, Casey Kasem, and Lindsay Crosby as the other members of the Souls. Jody McCrae and Chris Noel make a pretty plastic pair of protagonists. Jock Mahoney seems to have wandered on to the set from some other movie. He seems ill-equipped and rather useless in the film as an aging biker who has turned in his colors and opted for a different life. (We’re to assume that Darryl will follow his lead, but that certainly isn’t made clear by the film as shot.)
Video Quality
3/5
The film’s theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio is faithfully delivered in a transfer that’s anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. After the opening credits which look very worn with soft focus, dated color, and lots of scratches (the credits are also tacked on to the end of the film, but they look much better there), the image clears up and sports some decent color and flesh tones which vary but are usually realistic. Sharpness isn’t always consistent; some of the road shots get very hazy and soft while other shots are much better defined. There are dust specks and some reel change markers, but it’s a reasonably clean transfer. The film has been divided into 9 chapters.
Audio Quality
2.5/5
The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack is decoded by Dolby Prologic into the center channel. There’s a goodly amount of distortion whenever the twanging electric guitar music swells up on the soundtrack (it’s overly treble in quality which is part of the problem), but that usually disappears as soon as someone starts talking. Dialogue is always discernible (unfortunately), and the other effects never get in the way of the speech. There is some mild hiss when things get quiet, but as there aren’t many quiet moments, it’s not much of a problem.
Special Features
0/5
There are no bonus features on this made-on-demand disc.
In Conclusion
2/5 (not an average)
The Glory Stompers doesn’t bring much glory to the early career of Dennis Hopper. The made-on-demand disc looks reasonably good for a fairly neglected film from the 1960s. Fans of Easy Rider might want to see what Hopper was up to a couple of years before he made history with that road movie.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
