Motorpsycho! (1965) – Film Review
Director: Russ Meyer
Cast: Haji, Alex Rocco, Steve Oliver
Certificate: 18
By Sarah Morgan
Get your motors running for Russ Meyer’s 1965 biker movie, made just before the genre really took off with the likes of The Wild Angels, Hells Angels on Wheels, The Girl on a Motorcycle and, of course, the grandaddy of them all, Easy Rider.
So while you may think that writer-director Meyer’s work is only about bums and breasts (both of which feature here), you could say he was ahead of the curve in some respects too. And it’s not just his early adoption of hell-raising bikers that deserves credit – the film also features a disturbed Vietnam war veteran, one of the first times such a character was depicted on the big screen.
“Joins forces”
Made shortly before arguably Meyer’s most famous movie, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Motorpsycho follows the crimes carried out by a biker gang. One of their victims is the wife of a veterinarian; incensed by the way in which they carelessly toss her aside after raping and beating her, the vet joins forces with the widow of someone else who got in their way, to track them down and exact revenge.
The task is far from easy, however, and involves a cross-desert journey where everything, including the local wildlife, seems to be against them.
Alex Rocco, who would later find fame playing Jewish mobster and Las Vegas casino owner Moe Greene in The Godfather, makes his big screen debut here as the vet, alongside former exotic dancer Haji, appearing in her first Meyer movie, as his sidekick; she would go on to appear in several more of his works, often writing her own dialogue.
“Somewhat uneven”
The rest of the cast is made up of people Meyer seems to have plucked from obscurity, who probably rarely worked again, at least not in mainstream cinema, which results in the performances being somewhat uneven. Having said that, it’s no worse than in some of Roger Corman’s early productions.
Motorpsycho was a huge hit for Meyer, and is one of his most accessible, conventional works, with the sex and nudity dialled down a little. As a result, it’s the perfect introduction to his oeuvre for anyone yet to sample his idiosyncratic style.
Sarah Morgan studied film journalism at post-graduate level with the BFI and has been writing about TV and film for PA Media’s newspaper, magazine and new media customers since 1996. She’s also written for a wide range of other publications, both online and in print, including the book Offbeat and Intermission magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Talking Pictures TV podcast. When she isn’t watching movies, she’s collecting and reading vintage crime and horror paperback books or, for her sins, watching her beloved Sheffield Wednesday.
