Arrested adolescent Marlon Brando created an iconic character for the ages as motorcycle rebel Johnny Strabler in The Wild One. Far from his finest performance it may well be his most identifiable role as the brooding biker, given his real life anti-establishment moody ways parallel to a degree the rejection he held for old Hollywood. Scandalous in its day (banned in the UK I believe) it comes across as more of a parody these days with its gang of overgrown kids wreaking havoc on small town America.
Johnny and his breakaway gang of bikers are out to have a blast when they cruise into a small town and shake things up with the local squares. Things get out of hand though when Chino ( Lee Marvin) and Johnny's former gang cross paths and the town begins to go full Seattle. Johnny in the meantime distracts himself with a local chick (Mary Murphy) when tragedy strikes, death resulting.
The Wild One was 50s cool at the dawn of juvenile delinquency with Brando as its titular figurehead. Rejecting the post war economic boom and all its trappings he responds to a query to what is he rebelling against with "Whaddya got?" James Dean would in brief time supplant Brando's thuggish angst with a more sensitive teen but the established loner bad boy created by Brando was here to stay.
At times it is hard not to find Brando's phlegmatic original as a comic stereotype of itself today, his lugubrious pouting somewhat childish. Murphy as the babe interest is inconsistent, dull at times while Eva Marie Saint like in other moments. Lee Marvin steals the show however as Johnny nemesis high spirited Chino that under the bland direction of Laslo Benedik burlesques a hint of homo-eroticism between the two.
An informative antique of the period with a lot of rust.
Johnny and his breakaway gang of bikers are out to have a blast when they cruise into a small town and shake things up with the local squares. Things get out of hand though when Chino ( Lee Marvin) and Johnny's former gang cross paths and the town begins to go full Seattle. Johnny in the meantime distracts himself with a local chick (Mary Murphy) when tragedy strikes, death resulting.
The Wild One was 50s cool at the dawn of juvenile delinquency with Brando as its titular figurehead. Rejecting the post war economic boom and all its trappings he responds to a query to what is he rebelling against with "Whaddya got?" James Dean would in brief time supplant Brando's thuggish angst with a more sensitive teen but the established loner bad boy created by Brando was here to stay.
At times it is hard not to find Brando's phlegmatic original as a comic stereotype of itself today, his lugubrious pouting somewhat childish. Murphy as the babe interest is inconsistent, dull at times while Eva Marie Saint like in other moments. Lee Marvin steals the show however as Johnny nemesis high spirited Chino that under the bland direction of Laslo Benedik burlesques a hint of homo-eroticism between the two.
An informative antique of the period with a lot of rust.