Everyone knows that a biker movie includes two things: badass action and hot women. But where did biker movies come from and why did they become a genre? Not only that but how did hot babes come into the mix? Let's talk about the history of babes in biker movies!
The Beginning
Biker clubs began forming in the late 1940s, shortly after the end of the World War. Biker culture was really popular along the West Coast, with many bikers being seen as outlaws. While Easy Rider is considered one of the most popular biker movies and road movies of all time, it was not the first. Far from it!
The first biker movie was 1953's The Wild One starring Marlon Brando which was loosely based on a real 1947 riot called the Hollister Riot where a biker rally got violent. The film was a hit and it led to an entire genre of low-budget biker movies that were mostly aimed at teens. 1957's Motorcycle Gang and The Hot Angel were very popular. However, the genre exploded after the Hells Angels became widely known in the mid-1960s and Hunter S. Thompson wrote a book about them which was published in 1966. From there, interest in biker gangs reached great heights!
The 1960s
These early films didn't go nude...but that was to come very shortly. Jack Nicholson starred in A LOT of these films including 1967's Hell's Angels on Wheels and The Rebel Rousers which also starred Bruce Dern and Harry Dean Stanton. Roger Corman produced The Wild Angels which gave Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich their start as they were tasked with punching up the script. Bruce Dern starred as did Kim Hamilton who showed off her nipple in a see-thru bra.
Jack Cardiff's 1968 film The Girl on a Motorcycle is considered a lost classic. I've written about it before, but it is a shame that this film was not given its proper release for decades. It starred Marianne Faithful as our heroine, a badass woman who leaves her life behind to hit the road on her hog.
This is all to say that by the time Easy Rider came along, there was actually over a decade of these kinds of films. Easy Rider stood out, however, for showing off hippie bikers and for being a true indie movie (albeit one that had a Fonda behind it). Easy Rider did define a generation. There was also a lot of nudity including a young Toni Basil who proved how fine she was before she ever sang about Mickey.
Fonda was really into hippie filmmaking. Not only did he star in The Wild Angels, but he also starred in the acid-laced The Trip before making Easy Rider. Easy Rider is important to its era for infusing some of that hippie aesthetic - along with French New Wave jump cuts and montages - into a biker movie. And that's why it became a classic. The babes didn't hurt!
Interest in badass babes on bikes was certainly growing. The Mini-Skirt Mob put women at the center of the story which would go on to become a popular spin on the biker movie for another decade.
I would be remiss if I didn't include Russ Meyer's many movies - including his infamous Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! about a band of female outlaws. Right before that film was released, he made 1965's Motor Psycho which did include nudity. Haji starred in both films while Holle K. Winters kept us warm with her cleavage.
The 1970s
Corman continued to produce a variety of "angels" films about female Hell's Angels such as the wildly nude Angels Hard as They Come. It's as sexual as that title suggests with a ton of nudity!
He also produced the 1971 film Bury Me an Angel directed by Babara Peters - whom we recently highlighted as an early female director of sleaze. Dixie Peabody had a skinnydipping scene in the middle of this biker babe film that gave Peters her start.
Werewolves on Wheels was made in 1971 and I think it heralded what was to come in the 80s which is mixing horror with biker gangs. Before that mixture got campy as it would in the 80s, this made a gang called The Devil's Advocates transform into werewolves after a biker babe high priestess in a Satanic cult cast a spell on them. Yup! That's the plot! D.J. Anderson plays the lovely lady who makes being bad look so good.
The 1980s
Oddly enough, the 80s took the once badass genre and made it goofy with horror comedies. Movies like Chopper Chicks in Zombietown and I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle made clear fun of the genre with these ultra-low-budget indie horrors. None of them did very well and they are all semi-difficult to find now.
The 1990s
The 90s saw a few biker films with actual credit behind them, including the 1992 cop film Beyond the Law which starred Charlie Sheen. He infiltrates a biker gang that Linda Fiorentino hangs out with. Charlie goes undercover, but he falls for the girl and gets sucked in - causing him to act beyond the law!
The 2000s
The 2000s made bikes cool again with the wild action film Torque from 2004 and the FX series Sons of Anarchy. Sons of Anarchy became very popular with seven seasons of pure biker badassery. The dudes in the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club pulled some seriously beautiful babes such as
Of course, Sons of Anarchy led to a spinoff: Mayans M.C. which only just ended. This show followed the Sons of Anarchy's rival biker gang and dug into the world of Latino biker gangs which was previously unrepresented in TV and films. No wonder the show was so popular! People were fascinated and the babes that were featured in this show were HOT.
Between the two shows it is clear that biker boys love big asses. Hey, so we do we all!
Present Day
Biker movies are still being made today. Jodie Comer stars in the upcoming film The Bikeriders about a 60s biker gang in the Midwest. I wonder if that film will continue to inspire more biker movies. Let's bring the genre - and its hot women - back!
