The Vintagent Classics: The films that inspired us. 

THE LOSERS aka Nam’s Angels (1970)

Run Time: 1:35:00
Director: Jack Starrett
Writer: Alan Caillou
Cast: William Smith, Bernie Hamilton, Adam Roarke

FILM MAKERS

It’s The “Dirty Bunch” on Wheels!
Director Jack Starrett is known for his complex ‘B’ movies, including several other ‘biker flick’ classics Run, Angel, Run (1969), and Race With The Devil (1975) that go above and beyond the genre standard.

A bit of Biker Flick trivia, the gang that appears in the film, “The Devil’s Advocates” also appears in ‘Run, Angel, Run!’ and ‘Werewolves on Wheels (1971)’.Incidently, Director John Milius is quoted as saying that this film was a “big inspiration for Apocalypse Now”.

ART IMITATING LIFE: On 19 November 1965, Sonny Barger the “Maximum Leader” of the Hells Angels motorcycle club sent a telegram to President Johnson offering the Angels as “gorilla fighters” (sic) in the Vietnam War. Though the President turned them down, the idea became ‘Nam’s Angels’ (later renamed The Losers) made in the Philippines using sets and crew from ‘Too Late the Hero’. Listen to Sonney reading that telegram to Pres. Johnson HERE.

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SUMMARY

NY Times film review, Aug 6, 1970
Screen: ‘Losers’ Arrives: Motorcycle Gangsters at War in Vietnam
Sooner or later it was bound to happen a picture about American motorcyclist supermen pitted against the Vietcong on enemy terrain. Brought together overseas by a wary Army command, these five super-tough civilians include two veterans of Vietnam. Their mission is to rescue a Presidential adviser held captive in a remote village.

RELATED MEDIA

Read more at Cine Meccanica

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