“Roses are green... violets are red…”

Great, another biker movie from the 1960s. This can’t possibly be a good thing for my health. Well, let’s try and get this over fast. Here’s 1967’s The Hellcats, AKA Biker Babes. A movie that was originally supposed to be about lesbian bikers that was apparently rewritten.

Goddamnit.

Story
Well, there’s a crime boss named Mr. Adrian (director Robert F. Slatzer as “Bob Slatzer”) who uses a biker gang that hates him to run drugs for him (usually in broad daylight). An undercover cop investigating the crime ring is killed by a sniper and his brother, Army sergeant Monte (The Sidehackers’ Ross Hagen, who was also the voice of the retired badass gunslinger Landon Ricketts in Red Dead Redemption, which is a neat fact) and the dead cop’s girlfriend Linda (Dee Duffy) join forces and infiltrate the biker gang to get to the bottom of the killing. That’s pretty much the plot and most of the movie involves Monte trying to get in good with the gang and/or bang their women, and there’s some motorcycle driving and a whole lot of padding before the cartoonish ending. Hagen’s not terrible, but the movie sure is. Aside from Hagen, a few other actors/crew were also involved in Sidehackers.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Robert F. Slatzer the movie doesn’t do a whole lot during the duration. We get some biker partying shenanigans, some motorcycle stuff and eventually some stuff in Mr. Adrian’s very low budget offices. There’s really nothing going for it here aside from a really trippy opening credits background that is inappropriately cosmic.

There is however one scene that bears mentioning. A few bikers menace a painter and his model who are out in a park at one point. It comes out of nowhere, has no bearing on anything and is just a nonsensical temporary diversion that never gets mentioned or explained.

Writing
Based on the original story by James Gordon White and screenplay by Tony Houston/Huston (who worked on Sidehackers) & Robert F. Slatzer. Again, there’s not much here. Dialogue is boring, the characters stiff, underdeveloped, unlikable and usually have one character trait that is about all the characterization they get. There’s an eye patch chick, a bad poet, a guy who carries a trumpet around all the time, etc.

Sound
No original score, but we get some songs by Davy Jones and the Dolphins and Somebody’s Chyldren. Yeah, there’s a reason you’ve never heard of them.

Conclusion
Another sentence I never thought I’d write: Sidehackers was a better movie than this. The Hellcats suffers most from simply being really boring without enough action scenes to get you through. At least Sidehackers, with all of its nihilism and stupidity at least tried to mix things up a bit here and there with action scenes.

Not recommended.


Somehow the trailer manages to be both better AND skeezier than the movie itself.

“Is there any intelligence in that head of yours?”

Sports Films! Yeah, that’s a genre that isn’t overwhelmed by clichés. But today’s entry in the bad movie canon avoids a lot of sports clichés in favor of crime and biker movie clichés.So…I guess this is Sportsploitation then. Here’s 1969’s Five The Hard Way, AKA The Sidehackers. A movie so bad they named it twice.

Goddamnit.

Plot
So apparently side-hacking is/was a real thing, as the opening credits hammers home. Apparently you take a motorcycle and add a little sidecar platform with a few handrails to hold onto and then drive around a dirt track at high with a guy dangling on the side for dear life.

Anyway, after winning such a race, our hero and his fiancée spend five minutes or so frolicking through an idyllic hillscape in the most saccharine way imaginable. Sort of like the meadow scene in Attack of the Clones only more convincing. The Villain shows up, gets some maintenance on his bikes, asks the hero to ride with him and gets turned down. The villain’s girl hits on our hero, then gets rejected and falsely accuses Hero of doing naughty things, which then prompts the villain and his crew to beat the shit out of our hero and rape and murder his fiancée.

…Um. Remember when this was about the sport of side hacking?

Anyway, our hero decides to go on a murderous revenge spree to avenge his dead lover which culminates in a big shootout with the villain’s gang.

Spoiler….And then everybody dies. No, really.

You know, maybe this isn’t the best way to advertise a new sport.

Characters
Rommel: Ross Hagen plays a gravely voiced anti-hero with a shady past. Now he runs a small bike repair shop and side hacks on the weekends. Then he gets really mad (for good reason) and decides to kill the bad guy, but he tells the gang “no guns” which…well…I guess this Rommel isn’t a magnificent son of a bitch who’s book I should read.

Rita: Diane McBain plays Rommel’s ill-fated girl. Nice enough for a two-dimensional love interest.

Luke: Dick Merrifeld plays Rommel’s buddy/teammate. Luke’s a happily married family man and tries to dissuade Rommel from his murderous course of action. Being the only sensible character in the movie makes him the film’s badass.

J.C.: Michael Pataki plays the Villain with a great deal of scene chewing. He comes to Rommel’s shop to get his bikes maintained and then takes an interest in side hacking. Wears ugly medallions has tremendous mood swings and beats his girlfriend. He’s a complete ASSHOLE.

Paisley: Claire Polan plays JC’s abused and not very smart girlfriend that falls for Rommel, gets rejected and accuses Rommel of assaulting her, which causes the whole ugly snowball of the plot to roll down the hill. Kind of hard to feel sympathy for her.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Gus Trikonis. We get some scenes of side hacking that aren’t very interesting and this happens twice during the film. And only twice. They side hack twice in the entire movie. Which is about side hacking. And one is the opening credits. Then there’s the infamous “meadow scene” that is nothing but padding. It’s a fairly ugly film.

Writing
Larry Billman on story and Tony Huston as writer and I can say very little in their defense. Let’s see. There’s, uhhhh, tertiary characters with memorable nicknames like Nero, Crapout and Cooch/Gooch (varies depending on who’s talking). Yeah. I’ll settle with that.

Sound
Original music by Mike Curb, Guy Hemric & Jerry Styner. The song, “Five the Hard Way” plays over the credits. I have no idea what is the “five” in question or why it can’t take “the easy way.”

Conclusion
The Sidehackers/Five The Hard Way is pretty damn awful. It’s a bleak downer of a film where nothing good happens to anybody, and there isn’t a whole lot for the audience to do for the running time. Not exactly the most thrilling endorsement for the obscure motorsport of side hacking.


No trailer, just a clip of really, really bad dialogue to give you a taste of the hurting.