The Hellcats

The Hellcats

1968 "The cycle-gang gals... scratching... clawing any guy who gets in their way!"
The Hellcats
The Hellcats

The Hellcats

1.9 | 1h30m | R | en | Action

The brother and fiancee of a dead policeman infiltrate a female-led biker gang to uncover his murderer.

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1.9 | 1h30m | R | en | Action , Thriller | More Info
Released: May. 08,1968 | Released Producted By: Crown International Pictures , Gemini American Country: Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:
Synopsis

The brother and fiancee of a dead policeman infiltrate a female-led biker gang to uncover his murderer.

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Cast

Ross Hagen , Tony Lorea

Director

Karen Teichmann

Producted By

Crown International Pictures , Gemini American

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Reviews

Red-Barracuda This incredibly shoddy 60's biker flick is a real mess. It features Ross Hagen as a man who infiltrates a bike gang called The Hellcats in order to find out who killed his brother. The plot has about as much focus as the blurry camera-work. It's all over the place. Random events sometimes happen for no discernible reason, for example, the scene where the artist and his model are attacked by bikers doesn't seem to have any relevance to anything. On the other hand, when a potentially half-interesting moment is about to happen, it's not shown at all; like when the bike race between to two gang leaders happens off-screen, wow the excitement. The scenes with The Hellcats are pretty sloppy in general and often just seem to consist of them muntering around while the psychedelic pop of the never-popular Davey Jones and the Dolphins plays endlessly in the background. The theme tune may nefariously make its way into your subconscious, so please beware. Despite the presence of authentic looking bikers, this is not exactly convincing stuff. When Ross Hagen first meets The Hellcats, he wins their respect by defeating their leader by simply pushing him over. I'm not certain that manoeuvre would've worked with The Hell's Angels to be perfectly honest but hey this is the movies eh? Our gang do incorporate some harder initiation rituals however, such as the strange limb stretching procedure so fair play but, sadly, they also have a member who goes around annoyingly playing a bugle at every given opportunity, so less respect on that score.At the end of the day this film is all over the place. The camera-work is out-of-focus and badly framed, with peoples heads often off-screen. The acting is really terrible. The story is badly put together. And the action scenes are terribly presented (you would be forgiven for not even noticing when The Hellcat leader is shot, it's so shoddily done). Overall, it wasn't all that entertaining and can only be described as a truly Z-Grade counter-culture clunker.
phillindholm Well, at least the advertising's great-as is the original poster, which features a one-eyed blonde, swinging a motorcycle chain amid a bunch of female bikers who look like they're heading for Hell-hence the title. With the smash success of ''The Wild Angels'' ''The Born Losers'' and other counter-culture quickies, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Trouble is, ''The Hellcats'' has got to be one of the best cases for deceptive advertising ever foisted on the movie-going public. The first film about a female motorcycle gang, (so they said) it's almost nothing of the kind. The few female ''bikers'' in the film are so outnumbered by the males, they make no impression at all. Even worse, the ''script'' co-written by Robert F. Slatzer (yet another Hollywood lowlife who claimed he not only ''discovered'' Marilyn Monroe, but married her) and Tony Houston, is not only terrible, but unintelligible.And Slatzer, who also directed it, turned this mess into a ''novel'' which he probably ground out in the less than two weeks it took to film. ''Production Values'' are rock-bottom (even for a Biker movie) especially the stock library music, which sounds as if it belongs in a cheesy Mickey Spillane potboiler, or a Billy Graham film. In order to attract a young audience, a few forgettable rock numbers by a couple of equally forgettable bands are thrown in. One of them-''Somebody's Chyldren'' got their start playing background in Mae West's first rock and roll album-it was downhill from there for them. As for ''Davy Jones And The Dolphins''', there is a rumor that Jones went on to stardom as none other than David Bowie!.Talk about starting at the bottom. And, yes, there is a Title Song- THREE different versions, each one worse than the one that preceded it.All were featured on a ''soundtrack'' album from biker music specialist (and future Lieutenant Governor,) Mike Curb's ''Tower'' label..One of the musical numbers titled ''Mass Confusion'' (which sums up this thing so well, it should have been the movie's title) includes the lyrics: ''I can't take no more of this-no- no- no- no- no!'' A sentiment which probably sums up what audiences felt, if they made it that far. As for the ''background score'' it consists of library music composed back in the 1950s, where it was used for B movies and budget-deprived shows like ''The Adventures Of Superman''. And it's played at ear splitting levels through the film-probably to keep audiences awake (it didn't work-at least for me) I saw this years ago on a late night TV broadcast, and when I saw it on DVD years later, I could hardly remember ever having seen it previously. The ''Hellcats'' are a group of no-name ''actresses'' most of whom were making their film debut, and, probably unknown to them, their film farewell. Most prominent among them are Dee Duffy as the ''heroine'' who is out to avenge the murder of her Police-affiliated boyfriend who was investigating a gang of drug runners headed by Slatzer. and Sharyn Kinzie, as Sheila, leader of the ''Hellcats''. Duffy had previously appeared as a ''Slaygirl'' in a couple of ''Matt Helm'' movies, which starred Dean Martin. Kinzie was a newcomer, allegedly discovered while riding a motorcycle down Sunset Boulevard. Both are hard -faced unsympathetic and pretty long in the tooth for their parts. It's no wonder they were never heard from again. The only vaguely familiar names are Ross Hagen a Biker Movie staple by now,(playing the brother of the murdered man) Sonny West (once a bodyguard for Elvis Presley as the leader of a male cycle gang) and Gus Trikonis, who, aside from a role in the film ''West Side Story'' is best known as the ex-Mr. Goldie Hawn.Since the ''plot'' has been discussed elsewhere, just let it be said that aside from unintentional hilarity, this is strictly from hunger, and just when you think it can't possibly get any worse, on comes Slatzer himself, playing the role of the Villain, and speaking his lines right off cue cards.Strangely enough, James Gordon White who penned ''The Mini-Skirt Mob''(which also features Hagen) that same year, is'' credited'' with the original story for this one. And, while it's not exactly'' Quality Entertainment For The Discriminating Viewer'' either, at least ''Mob''more or less delivers what it promises. How did ''Hellcats fare upon release?. Well, as the critic for the San Francisco Chronicle put it, way back when,: ''The Cast is unknown, the direction is hack, the script is pathetic, and the acting stinks. It should play Outer Mongolia''. And that was probably as good as it got, review wise.A double-feature DVD which include ''The Hellcats'' and ''Chain Gang Women'' was released a while ago, and offers a decent transfer of both films-better, in fact, than the notorious MST3K version. But the upgraded image somehow makes ''The Hellcats'' look even worse. And, as for what ''MST3K'' did to it, the truth is this film is such an unintentional parody, a deliberate one is just redundant-and much less funny. The DVD's ''co-feature'' ''Chain Gang Women'' is (among other things) yet another example of blatantly false advertising. But, that's another story...
zombizombizombi This movie is one of the best bad movies ever I love this one.So over the top cheesiness you got to love the soundtrack its a 60s trippy/Beatles music or something like that!Also I hella dig the characters you got six pack, snake, zombie, and much more out their characters the dialog is cheese perfection you will chuckle a lot man they don't make movies like they did back then this movie is available threw BCI its apart of their Welcome to the grindhouse DVDs on the DVD is this one if course and another exploitation classic Chain Gang Women!!It looks like a lot of people hate this movie I think this movie is to fun to hate how can you not like this movie if your a fan of b-movies and exploitation check it out and don't listen to the haters this is the best movie on the bottom 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Johann This is the reason why some people should not make films. What can I say about this "movie?" I first saw it on MST3K, and for some reason I decided to watch it without the constant jokes. This may be even worse than "Eegah!" There is no plot. No really, there is no plot.They had some kind of back story involving a cop being killed and his brother and fiancée deciding to take revenge on dope syndicate that killed him by infiltrating the biker gang than runs dope for them. However, the interim between the ultimate show down and the intro is filled with a bunch of bikers drinking, fighting, drinking, smoking pot, being pulled behind bikes, drinking, sneaking off into the woods, and more drinking. Some how, the female bikers trust a woman (the fiancée) that they've just met enough to go down to Mexico with them to pick up some heroin (this has to be the loosest gang in history). Ultimately, there's trouble that leads the brother and fiancée to the leaders of the dope ring.Look for Ross Hagen (as someone else defined him, the budget Steve McQueen) in the main role (the dead cop's brother) and a small role for Gus Trikonis (the former Mr. Goldie Hawn, who hasn't done anything in a while) as the dope connection in Mexico.Forget trying to watch it on its own. It's not worth losing brain cells over.