Excellent but underrated film

Boring

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One thing I hardly thought I'd think about a biker film is that it was dull, but oddly enough, that's how I felt about "Chrome and Hot Leather". This is because although the plot sure sounds exciting, the film is very tepid--far more so that you'd ever expect.The film begins with a biker gang, the Wizards, out having fun. One of the gang members goes too far and ends up killing a couple innocent girls. One of the dead girls was the fiancée of a Sergeant and when this military man finds out, he and his friends vow to find those responsible and punish them. So far, all this sounds pretty exciting. However, the next half hour or so of the film is very slow and nothing happens apart from a stupid montage (complete with BAD music) showing the soldiers learning to ride motorcycles as well as them asking folks a lot of questions about the killing. Eventually, something does happen--but by then my attention began to wane because I kept waiting for action and it was so slow in coming and the biker gang sure turned out to be a bunch of wimps! What EVENTUALLY comes is not very satisfying and not enough to merit spending all this time watching the movie. About the only interesting thing is seeing Marvin Gaye (yes, THAT Marvin Gaye) playing one of the soldiers. That, and the line where William Smith (the leader of the baddies) tells Gabriel "...can't you see I am trying to menace someone?!" That was pretty funny. Otherwise, you could do better--even with another biker film.By the way....some of the soldiers needed haircuts and NEVER would have been allowed to sport such hairdos! And, you'd think with Marvin Gaye in the film that there'd be good music, but instead the producer got some talentless folks to provide crappy music.

The saddest thing about "Chrome and Hot Leather" (1971) is that it could have been a fairly decent film; at least by American International biker film standards. They seem to have had a large budget; at least enough to cast in quantity if not quality; and to outfit their biker gang (Wizards) with Harley's-something that was often beyond the budget of these things.They had William Smith, the best movie baddie of the day, for their gang leader T.J. and Michael Haynes for the chain-throwing mama slapping Casey. In fact the whole biker thing is handled pretty well by the standards of the early 1970's.Then they had an extremely young Cheryl Ladd (she looks about 16 although she was 18) and former Miss Ohio and Miss America Runner-Up Kathy Baumann (note the John Havlicek Basketball Camp t-shirt she is wearing). In high school she dated someone I knew and she also looks about the same in this film as she did then. Unfortunately neither actress gets to show much in the way of acting skills or exploitable assets. .This is one of those movies the Army and Air Force Exchange Service saw fit to show us GI's at posts and bases around with world back in the early 1970's. To us at the time virtually everything military related was unintentionally hilarious, from Peter Brown's non-GI haircut (if it was a paying role couldn't he at least have cut it enough so you could see a portion of his ears) to the moronic combat training. It got laughs from us for months whenever someone brought up the topic. On the other hand what was supposed to be the film's comic relief, sequences of Peter Brown and Company learning to ride motorcycles is funny only to those amused by things totally lame and stupid.In retrospect the film never had a chance given its director Lee "The Man With Two Heads" Frost and its star, the aging Tony Young. When you look bad in comparison to a non-actor (Marvin Gaye plays Tony's pal) it is time to find another line of work. Young lined up the financing for this baby and hired Frost on the condition he be given the lead. You won't find a more wooden actor than Young, whose character looks like an extremely dour 55 year-old man and is supposed to be the love interest for the two teen actresses.Several times they appear headed in the self-parody direction (if that is what they had emphasized the film would be a classic) and Smith lets you know that he is playing this thing for laughs. But this tiny attempt at real humor is dwarfed by the unintentional hilarity and the giggles you will get from the many continuity errors that occur throughout the movie.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

A biker gang led by William Smith has one bad cog(Michael Haynes), who runs two girls off the road. Both are killed, one being the girlfriend of a Seargent(Tony Young) in the Green Berets. The Sgt. and few of his buddies, including singer Marvin Gaye,set out to do what the local authorities are having trouble doing...hunt down the biker gang. Buying motorcycles and "borrowing" some Army weapons and a truck, the small group of Green Berets seek out the gang, The Wizards, to deal revenge and justice. Also in the cast: Peter Brown, Katherine Baughmann, Herb Jeffries, Bobby Pickett, Cheryl Ladd and Dan Haggerty.NOTE: Pickett is the same Bobby "Boris" Pickett whose original "Monster Mash" hit the Billboard's Top 100 on three different occasions. Motown artist Gaye does not sing in this his one and only film appearance.

I appreciate the cheesy and inept exploitation flick as much as the next person--in fact, probably a good bit more--but even by by basement standards, "Chrome and Hot Leather" is a piece of crap. The whole story of Green Berets vs. Bikers is lame and unconvincing on all sides, the bikes are nothing special, nor is the riding done on them. But one thing does set this film apart and that would be the presence of the legendary Marvin Gaye as one of the aforementioned military types. And it makes one a bit sorry that he didn't do more acting (his only other dramatic role seems to have been alongside Lee Majors in a similarly forgettable film): Gaye's on-screen presence is as relaxed and charming as his musical style and he was certainly easy on the eyes. Still, what drove him to make supporting appearances in drive-in fodder escapes me--probably the same thing that drove him to train with the Chicago Bears. But, if it's biker trash you want, I suggest the classic "The Wild Angels" or the magnificently sleazy "She-Devils on Wheels." And, if you want to appreciate Marvin Gaye's talent, you might be better off tracking down one of his "Shindig!" or "T.A.M.I. Show" appearances.