Marlon Brando is the main, bike straddling, Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953). The tough, pig-hating, leader of ‘The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’ (Not the rock band from San Francisco, but the originals); who travel through California on their bikes, causing trouble and disruption wherever they go. The local elders, or “squares”, are intimidated by their loud careless behaviour and despise their lack of boundaries for society.
They turn up to a small town where the film is set and indulge in street races and brawls. So, to a certain extent I understand the towns peoples preoccupation with the state their town turns into and their frustration with the lack of police action. However, through the classic editing and cinematography, the small town, conservative, redneck attitude of the locals, the BRMC’s charisma and Marlon Brando’s superb acting, one feels rather fond of the gangs and builds a strong relationship with Johnny as a character; beginning to feel rather empathic with his feelings of helplessness as he struggles to contain the hooliganism of his drunken crew. Especially when some local men of the town decide to take matters into their own hands and begin to torture him.
Johnny is full of cool wit and charm with the ladies too, but won’t take any crap or forget his morals. “What are you rebelling against?” Asks a local blonde chick in the bar, “Whatcha got?” Johnny quickly replies with attitude, for one of the most famous quotes in early Hollywood cinema. After a drunken monologue from an ex-girl of his, outside the bar he replies; “What do you want me to do? Buy you flowers?” He also has a fling with the weak sheriff Harry Bleaker’s daughter, which leads to some all-round confusion for her and her community. The film as a whole is rather simple, although the narrative was extremely original. There are however some great jump cuts and editing such as the sharp transition from the sheriff dropping his gun into his draw in frustration, to the local men trying knock into Johnny’s skull a sense of damnation.
The social construct of the term ‘Teenager’ had only just come about in American 50’s popular culture, and this movie really represented them. It paved the way for movies such as ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (1955) and ‘Blackboard Jungle’ (1955), with strong juvenile delinquency themes. Also the narrative of the innocent girl and the badboy biker gang with their leather jackets and slicked back hair in ‘Grease’ (1978). The Wild One is therefore an iconic film, with regards to its themes of buckling the rigid systems of small town life and counter-police culture, which led to its late release in Britain in 1968, 15 years after its release in the U.S. Also in terms of fashion, with Marlon Brando in his tight leather jacket on his classic Triumph motorbike becoming almost as iconic an image in film as Che Guevara’s face in politics.
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