The Wild Rebels (1967) User Reviews

It's like getting hit in the head with a surfboard of INCOMPETENCE!

[zmaturin · 1/10 · 10 October 1999]

Legendary pop star Steve Alaimo ("Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying") stars as an unlikable stock car racer whose career has hit the skids (ha ha) because he constantly crashes his car (or as he laments, "I'm tired of being run down by every grease monkey that gets behind the wheel"). He falls into a bad crowd of humorously inept Nazi bikers, improbably named Jeeter, Banjo, Fats, and, er, Linda. Fats is the most likable of the bunch; he took a surfboard to the back of the skull and now only communicates through grunts, sort of a Harley Davidson Leatherface.

Anyway, Steve is fooled by the cops into catching the dastardly crooks in the middle of one of their bank robberies. The gang only robs banks for "kicks, man". I guess they give the money to charity. Steve fails constantly, the bikers get greasier, and the whole thing never comes off as daring because it's so dull. This movie looks like it was filmed through a grease-soaked paper towel. Not since "Necromantic" has a movie so trampled my soul.

The guy who played Fats went on to direct "Deranged", the Ed Gein biopic starring Robert Blossom.

Anyway, in summary: Wild Rebels: Hilarious on MST3K, dreadful everywhere else.

Not so much "Wild" as "Retarded"

[Rob_Taylor · 2/10 · 1 September 2003]

Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!

To think that films such as this were made, and probably enjoyed by thousands at drive-ins really boggles the mind. How innocent we were in those days.

To put it bluntly, this film is crap. The hero is so wet you can hear his squishy damp footsteps in every scene. My Lord, but he's just one of a whole slew of awful, awful actors that appear in this turkey. No wonder MST3K picked it. The story, such as it is, centres around a stock car driver (who is so incompetent, you really believe it is the actor driving the car) that he gives up and "gets in with the wrong crowd" Oooooh! Scary stuff. However, the wrong crowd turn out to be the biker equivalent of The Three Stooges and their "hand-me round" slut of a biker chick. As an example of how lame this whole thing is, the writers obviously wracked their brains to come up with a frightening name for the biker gang - if four people can be called a gang, that is. The result? The gang is called Satan's Angels! I kid you not.

Such dire acting and dialogue, along with ridiculous scenes, make for a wonderful beer and chips movie. But otherwise its just the worst kind of rubbish.

As I said. Once, this may have been considered good. But today it just makes you laugh (and cringe) with every minute that goes by. Avoid it except for a good laugh. And make sure you're more than half-drunk too!

not the worst biker movie, but still pretty disposable biker/crime movie-fare

[Quinoa1984 · 3/10 · 22 July 2006]

Wild Rebels is fun in a bad way, but also frustrating due to the actual good, or at least workable, elements in the story. It deals with a race car driver (Steve Alaimo) who gets mixed up in a group of bikers called Satan's Angels, who hang around a lot until they decide to rob a bank. Meanwhile Alaimo also gets recruited by the cops to report back to them what the Angels are up to and where they'll rob next. It's not even that the film is really too 'dated', though it does of course carry the significantly crude and stupid music in the film (from the band on stage in one scene, to Alaimo "performing" if you could call that drek that, to the regular generic score).

It's just that there's not more care taken by the filmmaker into putting a little more logic, direction, and better actors for the parts. As it is I didn't have a major disliking towards the film, as I did with the Hellcats, but it almost left me a little indifferent to it all, too. What could come through as being unpredictable only comes through with stupid things like the name of the Florida town ('Citrusville' ho-ho). So it's not completely un-worthy then of its Mystery Science Theater 3000 status as of late. The commentary is good on the movie, even if once or twice I almost wanted to hear what the characters on screen were saying in case it might have some worth. Wild Rebels might be more of a good time if you've got a six-pack and low expectations, but as it is I wouldn't watch it again.

"That square bugs me! HE REALLY BUGS MEEEE!"

[bensonmum2 · 5/10 · 21 July 2006]

If you decide to watch Wild Rebels, don't expect anything deep and meaningful. If you're looking for a film that explores the relationships and structure of a motorcycle gang, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. If you're looking for an expose on the breakdown of the American educational system and the problem of juvenile delinquency, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. If you're looking for a movie that examines how undermanned rural police departments are when facing a well-financed, well-organized gang, Wild Rebels is the wrong movie. But if you're looking for an absurd movie filled with scene after scene of unintentional humor, horrendous acting, a paper-thin plot, and community theater style production values, Wild Rebels is the right movie.

Wild Rebels is the story of a down-on-his-luck stock-car driver named Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo). After a fiery crash (which Rod walks away from completely unscathed despite having only a cotton pants and a London Fog style jacket for protection), Rod decides to give it up. With no plan for his future other than to wander aimless through the back-roads of the South, he stumbles on the Satan's Angels motorcycle gang (a gang being three of the stupidest guys to ever zip up a leather jacket and a woman they seem to share). This group of hoodlums spends their time terrorizing a rural town in Florida by committing such atrocities as stealing a newspaper from a neighbor's mailbox. These bumbling idiots need someone to act as their driver during some larger crimes they have planned. Apparently, these three Einsteins can only drive vehicles with two tires, not four. So they recruit Rod to perform feats of daring that only an experienced stunt driver would be capable of like keeping the car in the middle of a gravel road during a low-speed chase. Eventually, they hold-up a bank, get into the aforementioned low-speed chase, and have the lamest gun battle with the police ever put on film. I could go on forever, but you get the idea.

I hate the term "so bad it's good", but that seems to aptly describe Wild Rebels.

Like a John D. MacDonald story gone wrong, but still watchable

[lemon_magic · 4/10 · 4 June 2005]

"Wild Rebels" was probably a fun second film at a drive in movie triple feature 40 years ago. It hasn't aged very well, but it was never meant to age well; it was obviously intended to be disposable, forgettable fun from its inception. Taken on that level, it's a good example of the biker flick genre.

Several elements help distinguish it from the dozens of similar films being churned out at the same time. The 'hero', 'Rod Tillman' (Steve Alaimo) comes off as somewhat of an unimpressive 'Everyman' - he's not especially brave, tough, talented, or handsome (although he does win a fight with a tough biker gang member halfway into the film, and the girl gang member chooses to help him over her fellow gang member at the end of the film). The soundtrack is quite well done, featuring a nice 'Ventures' style bass/drum riff that keeps things moving and saxophones and brass charts that pep things up quite a bit. And although the script is pretty shallow, all the actors inhabit their cardboard characters convincingly and with a fair amount of energy.

There are plenty of careless technical gaffes: terrible 'day-for-night' scenes that occur in broad daylight, squealing tires in a swamp, fire sirens mistakenly stuck on the soundtrack instead of police sirens, a bank sign made of duct tape on a ceiling tile, a Luger that sounds like a Winchester 30-06, shotgun blasts that cut down people 100 yards away, a detective killing a biker on a 3rd floor landing from the ground with a revolver with a 2 inch barrel.

There are a whole bunch of goofy story elements : Linda (the girl gang member) disables a bank guard with a drug-filled syringe, the final shootout takes place inside a lighthouse (!), police roadblocks don't actually block roads, the police apparently never heard of ducking, and the police detectives apparently never heard of planting bugs or having their undercover guy wearing a wire.

But the plot chugs along, the cameraman knows what he is doing, the pacing in most scenes is pretty good, and there are some nice, zippy one liners and dialog exchanges here and there that keep the energy level up. (My favorite: "Man, you're messing with private stock! (ie, Linda)" So no, don't seek this one out or anything, but if a copy of the MST version should fall in your hands, you should have some good, shallow fun watching it. Vastly superior to "Five the Hard Way" or "The Hellcats" or even 'Girl In Gold Boots' (three other MST covered counter culture movies).

Typical biker fare

[NateW · 2/10 · 10 November 2000]

This is basically your run of the mill violent biker flick complete with nifty slangs, crashes, and music. OK, so just slangs and crashes. It's a slight notch above much of the other fare featured on MST3K but it's still the equivalent of driving a nail into your kneecap: slow and painful. To give away plot would exhaust my energy so I'll just say you're better off skipping this one.

Let's Hire Some Cameramen. They're Cheap

[boblipton · 4/10 · 7 July 2020]

Steve Alaimo takes time from his musical career to star as a washed-up stock car racer. He gets recruited by a motorcycle gang whose outfits tastefully combine the worst of ragpickers' work and Nazi memorabilia. After they beat up random guys in a bar because, they get Alaimo to be their getaway driver in their latest fund-raising expedition. What they don't know is he's an undercover cop.

Everyone is thoroughly unlikable, but the technical issues are decently covered; it's a constant mystery to me that there are plenty of fine cameramen -- even if their only previous run as DP was THE WILD WOMEN OF WONGO -- sound technicians and mixers, but writing a story and characters that you can care about remains a mystery. Never mind. There's a well-shot final shootout in the well of a lighthouse, with lots of overhead shots. Doubtless it's all symbolic, man. Woohoo.

A masterpiece compared to most William Grefé pictures.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 3 February 2021]

William Grefé is among the very worst directors of the 60s-70s, with such crap as "Death Curse of Tartu", "Sting of Death", "Impulse" and "Stanley" among his many achievements in film making. Most of these were filmed near his home in Florida...around the Everglades, Miami and Jupiter. And, they were done CHEAPLY...very, very cheaply. Al Adamson, Ray Dennis Steckler and Ed Wood all are about as good...or infamous...as Grefé.

Of all the films he made, "The Wild Rebels" is probably the best...which isn't saying much since I giver it a 3. It's not good...but compared to the rest of his films, it' practically an art film!

Rod is a race car driver who is frankly tired of one too many accidents, so he's decided to quit. Shortly after this, he's approached by the leader of a biker gang, as they want to hire Rod to be their getaway driver in a series of robberies. He naturally refuses but is convinced later by the police to return to them and accept their offer.

The problem with so much of the film is that it doesn't seem to know where it's going. This is especially true as Rod supposedly works for the police...though there's no coordination or plan. And, because of that, he nearly gets killed during the course of a bank robbery and getaway. Additionally, the acting and dialog seem pretty amateurish. But on the plus side, it's really not boring and occasionally it even manages to be more or less competent. Not a glowing endorsement, but for the director, this is high praise indeed.

By the way, if you do watch this film, note that the police must all be legally blind and stupid. See the last 10 minutes of the movie and you'll see what I mean!

Wild, man. Wild.

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 6 August 2020]

William Grefe came right out of the Florida swamps and demanded that you watch his films. He was second unit on I Eat Your Skin before unleashing films like Mako: The Jaws of Death, Death Curse of Tartu and Stanley, a movie in which a young man menaces Alex Rocco and Marcia Knight with snakes.

Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo, whose life took him from being in the Redcoats, whose song "Mashed Potatoes" hit #75 on the Hot 100, hosting Dick Clark's Where the Action Is and even owning TK Records, who dabbled in the Miami bass scene) is a stock car racer out of cash. He sells everything he owns and enters Swinger's Paradise where he does nothing if not swing. Actually, that's where he meets Satan's Angels, a biker gang who needs a getaway driver for a con they have in mind.

They are Banjo (Willie Pastrano, who held the unified world light heavyweight boxing titles (WBA, WBC, The Ring) from 1963 until 1965), Fats (Jeff Gillen, yes, Jeff from Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and the director of Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile, as well as Santa Claus in A Christmas Story), Linda (Bobbie Byers, the voice of Johnny Sokko in Voyage Into Space) and Jester (John Vella, who played for the Oakland Raiders).

The cops try and get Rod on their side too, but he's all into Linda, who claims she doesn't do the crimes for the financial prize, but for the kicks. It all ends up in a lighthouse shootout between the cops, the bikers and our hero, who is caught between both sides.

Featuring real-life members of the Hell's Angels and a Tampa garage rock band known as The Birdwatchers - you know, for the kids - this movie is probably amongst the best on this set. It also has, I can assure you, motorcycles in it.

You'll want it to end before it begins

[theaterlvr311 · 1/10 · 10 July 2006]

This movie begins with a man who appears to be some sort of sports driver. He meets up with a gang which contains an arrogant boss, an obvious idiot, a fat boy who never speaks, and a woman who rotates between the three of them. The group which is called Satan's Angels, wants Rod, the driver, as their personal driver. He says no but then says yes after the authorities make him a spy to check on them. They rob a weapon shop in a ridiculously plot-missing scene. The scene involves the woman walking into the store with her long hair in a bun and large circular glasses on. She says she wants protection and wants the shopkeeper to load the gun to show her how. She then takes it from the shopkeeper and shoots him. The other three in the gang (excluding Rod) run into the store. They take everything off the walls and then proceed to play with it like children receiving their toys on Christmas Day.

This movie surely wastes no precious screen time with a plot.

Total drive-in fluff, but often funny and hence enjoyable

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 12 June 2012]

Former stock car racer turned police officer Rod Tillman (a solid and likable performance by Steve Alaimo) goes undercover to infiltrate the biker gang the Satan's Angels, who have been terrorizing South Florida and are planning to hold up a bank. Writer/director William Grefe treats the amiably silly story with endearingly misguided seriousness and adds a few inspired inane touches that provide several major belly laughs (Tillman just happens to also be a singer, so he does a gloriously goofy number in a club and the head biker is strangely articulate for a one percenter). Moreover, the bikers are a colorful and entertaining bunch: Willie Pastrano as volatile brute banjo, John Vella as cunning and well-spoken leader Jeeter, foxy brunette Bobbie Byers as sexy motorcycle mama Linda, and Jeff Gillen as grunting crude slob Fats, who has been rendered mute after he got hit in the head with a surfboard. The Bird Watchers Band put in a neat appearance at a club backing Tillman when he belts out his number. (The groovy theme song is a swinging hoot, too.) Moreover, the climactic bank robbery and subsequent car chase and shoot out with the cops is so ineptly handled that it's unintentionally hilarious, with Banjo's ill-advised escape attempt on a police motorcycle proving to be the definite gut-busting highlight. Good dippy fun.

Well, I for one actually liked this one!

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 20 November 2017]

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has got a lot to answer for. Whenever I see a film with a highly disproportionately low user rating, on a large number of occasions it seems to have been as a result of the film in question being featured on this show. Many of the fans of this programme seemed to have felt almost duty-bound to deliver a one star rating for any of the movies riffed. I am not a fan of MST3K myself, and have only seen a couple of episodes, much preferring to watch the films 'unadorned' by the their (in my view) very unfunny riff-track. I will give some credit to the show, however, for bringing some very obscure films some prominence they otherwise would not have had but otherwise it's not for me. In any case, the ultra-low rating this one currently has must at least partially be a result of it featuring on this show, as Wild Rebels turned out to be a somewhat entertaining biker film with quite a bit of entertainment value I thought! The story in a nutshell is about a former stock car racer who is hired by the police to go undercover and infiltrate an outlaw biker gang who have been responsible for a series of armed robberies.

This Florida set drive-in flick was one that must have clearly been surfing the biker film boom that occurred during the counter-culture years of the late sixties, early seventies. Its plot is pretty basic but it had a mix of agreeable ingredients I thought. It had a biker gang called Satan's Angels who have an unhealthy love of swastikas, it had a pop group called The Birdwatchers who knock out a couple of tunes, it had a sexy bad girl (Bobbie Byers) who, when required, dressed up all classy in order to rob the unwary, there is an extended shoot out at a…lighthouse, there is car and bike chases, there are a couple of armed robberies and there is even some drag racing and exploding cars. That's some of the things you get in this one and, all things considered, it's not such a bad selection of attractions to enjoy. So my advice would be to give this a whirl and treat the atrocious user rating with a pinch of salt. I was never bored, I was even rather entertained. Does that make me an idiot? Well maybe it does but I still totally recommend this whatever the case.

Not bad for a MST3000 Movie

[DJAkin · 2/10 · 2 December 2006]

This movie was lacking in a lot of areas. It's about this Elvis type guy who races cars and is approached by these BIKERS from SATANS ANGELS. One of them is named Banjo and they beat up college kids for fun. THey want the Elvis guy to be their "driver". At times, I wanted the folks from MSTK3000 to be quiet because the movie was actually kind of good. Sure, there was violence and a lot of cheesy lines, such as "What kind of beer do you want? A COLD ONE". That was cheesy. The dude who plays Banjo is a great boxer and I was glad to see him do a few fight scenes. Also, the biker named FATS had a NAZI SWASTIKA on his jacket!!! That was pretty bold if I must say so myself.

It made me wanna Puke

[Lok0989 · 1/10 · 7 September 2003]

No that its sick. It's not sick. It made me want to puke because I spent 2 dollars on it. Its boring, Retarded, and annoying. I didn't see the MST3K version, which sucks because I bet the MST3K version was funny. It's sad that people waste money on these kinds of movies. I'm surprised its not on the "100 Worst Movies of All Time List".

TromaDude's Rating- 0 outta ***** stars

Not one to see. *Spoilers*

[icehole4 · 2/10 · 5 February 2002]

Probably the biggest thing about Wild Rebels that hurts it the most is the hero. He's got LOSER written all over him, but that doesn't stop him from "getting the girl." Probably one of the world's worst race drivers imaginable, he decides to stop racing after he crashes his car. Well, his new job is racing still, as a bunch of biker types pick him to drive their getaway car as they commit crimes. There's nothing really to endear you to Rod, even the situation he's thrown into is pretty stupid. In the end, at the lighthouse scene, you'll wish that Rod gets killed with all the bikers. Get this: He's shot twice, once in the arm and once in the leg, and still manages to crawl up the stairs a little. If only Jeeter had better aim...

Avoid this one unless you're watching the MST3K version.

They're in it for the kicks! You are in it for the riffs!

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 31 January 2016]

I saw this film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, because chances are if I had never seen it on that show, I never would have watched it. This film is just one of a whole lot of biker films from this era and the only thing that sets it apart from others is that it was riffed by the gang on the satellite of love and that these bikers are not shown riding their motorcycles all that often. Other than those things, this movie is just another low budget biker film with an unappealing cast and a very bad 'hero'. The film at least has a bit of a plot going on and if I want to be kind, it almost has the same plot as Point Break in that it features a gang that is out robbing and they keep getting away with it so someone has to infiltrate their gang; however, I am probably being way too kind to this film. Though it is not quite as bad as other films riffed by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 gang, it is still overall kind of stinky.

The story has a race car driver who has an accident at the start of the film. This accident cost him his life savings so he decides to just give it up. He ends up at a bar where he meets a biker gang that has a proposition for him. They want him to essentially drive a get away car during their heists as the cops are getting closer to capturing them. They figure they start using a car rather than their bikes, they may not be fingered quite so fast. The race car driver does not want to do it, but he ends up joining them as he is recruited by the police to infiltrate the gang so that he can give the police updates on their plans.

This was a pretty good episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I prefer when they do horror or science fiction, but this one worked because it was rather fast paced and had lots of riffing material for the gang. The film was a bit more violent than a lot of the fare that they have riffed as the shoot out at the end gets pretty bad. I am surprised they showed so much considering in later episodes they seemed to shy away from showing anything too graphic. The episode featuring the film Squirm comes to mind as that one cut out nearly every bloody scene and decent worm kill except the old man at the farm.

So the film is nothing special, but nor is it completely horrid. Just a lot horrid I guess you can say. I doubt there are too many people who have seen the straight film with out MST3K, but probably more so than a film like Skydivers. The film was full of kicks though and it at least moved by at a brisk pace so it had that going for it. Because in retrospect it did not have that many kicks to it.

So clichéd

[ericstevenson · 3/10 · 23 July 2016]

Very little in this film makes any sense at all. It is pretty easy to laugh at, especially with how some of the characters are just goofy in appearance, especially Banjo. Wait, was he the guy with the sunglasses? It was hard to tell them apart. I admit to knowing little about illegal activities like this, but I assume it would be easier just to identify the bikers right away and arrest them. It turns out the female biker falls in love with the mole. Yep, pretty predictable.

Another really weird thing was how they robbed a gun store. Yeah, they just took a gun and robbed it. Wouldn't the owner use his own guns? Most people would want more action in this. There is more action in the end, but it's pretty stupid. Even that seems to go on too long. I couldn't understand how the bikers were called "Satan's Angels". Was "Hell's Angels" under copyright? Was it meant to be ironic? Either way, it's pretty stupid. It goes on too long with relatively little happening. *1/2

The Longer the Film Played the More Unrealistic It Got

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 12 October 2015]

After spending most of his money and two years of effort working on his stock car, "Rod Tillman" (Steve Alaimo) wipes out at the race track and pretty much loses everything. Terribly disappointed he sells his trailer and essentially becomes a down-and-out drifter. One night he ventures into a bar and meets a small biker gang called "Satan's Angels" who offer him a chance to earn some money by being the getaway driver for a job they have planned. Although he is rather reluctant at first a police detective by the name of "Lt. Dorn" (Walter Philbin) asks him to take the job in order to help the police finally nab these guys. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it had a decent plot but the execution left much to be desired. I say this because the actions of the bikers were just too reckless and bizarre to be believed and the longer the film played the more unrealistic it got. Even so it wasn't all bad and there is some entertainment value to be had if a person can somehow disregard some of the more ludicrous scenes. Accordingly, I rate it as just slightly below average.

Don't let the sun catch you crying

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 11 October 2017]

Rod "crash and burn" Tillman (Steve Alaimo) races super modified stock cars. While at a nightclub down on his luck he is approached by a biker gang of four, "Satan's Angels." They want him to drive a station wagon get-away car for a bank robbery. Guess how that goes? Check out the tires squealing on dirt.

This is MST-3000 bad and is part of their series, the preferred way to watch this film. In one scene, Rod has a guitar. He is asked to play, consents, and then sings instead, setting the guitar down. It didn't really matter because none of the white folk were dancing to the music...they were dancing, but they didn't let the music affect them.

Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

Cheap Drive-in Flick

[Lechuguilla · 3/10 · 28 November 2014]

A youthful race car driver named Rod Tillman (Steve Alaimo) unconvincingly gives up racing and, after a chance encounter with a biker group, joins the group, composed of three idiot dudes and their shared girlfriend. Trouble is, the bikers like to rob businesses for "kicks", which invites inept cops. The result is a not very believable story with contrived action and some hokey performances.

Steve Alaimo isn't too bad as an actor. But the actors who play the bikers are simply awful. The characters they play have been described as the three stooges, and I tend to agree; they act retarded. Which renders the Tillman character's decision to join them not credible. Further, the film contains multiple plot holes, mostly involving the cops. The entire story seems fake. It's as if the writers spent all of ten minutes putting the script together, and without bothering to edit it.

Dialogue is hopelessly dated and consists of beatnik blather. "Do you dig this?" "What now daddy?" And "bread" translates to "money". Some of the action is laughable, like when one of the bikers, to escape the cops, runs out of a lighthouse toward the cops, hops on a police motorcycle and rides away. The cops don't fire on him as he approaches them; they let him ride away and then they shoot.

Color cinematography is adequate if unremarkable. Day-for-night camera filters are really obvious. Outdoor scenes appear to have been shot in real locations, which adds a sense of realism. Steve Alaimo sings a couple of songs, which has the effect of interrupting the plot flow and suggesting that the script was written with no purpose other than to promote his singing career.

"Wild Rebels" is not as bad as its reputation. But it really doesn't seem to have any point, and the story and acting are generally hokey. It's one of those cheap, meaningless drive-in films wherein the main draw is an excuse to eat buttery popcorn.

Wild Rebels (1967)

[angelsunchained · 10/10 · 30 December 2004]

This 1967 biker-flick written and directed by William Grefe turns out to be a real sleeper; truly one of the top 5 biker films ever made.

Filmed around south Florida in such famous local hot-spots as Trader John's, Palm Beach Fairgrounds Speedway, and the old lighthouse in Lighthouse Point, this action/comedy/drama stars Elvis-wanna-be Steve Alaimo as "Hot" Rod Tillman,an embittered drag-strip racer who "falls-in" with an outlaw motorcycle gang.

An impressively "hip" 60's musical score by Al Jacobs, with songs by The Birdatchers (who look exactly like the Monkees) and Steve Alaimo, make this one of the best soundtracks of any "B" film. Alaimo does his best "Elvis" and is impressive singing, " You Don't Love Me".

Former world light-heavyweight boxing champion Willie Pastrano gives a "good" performance as a sadistic biker named Banjo. The former boxer would later team up with Alaimo & director Grefe to make Alligator Alley (aka The Hooked Generation) and the Naked Zoo.

Grefe has a strong cast of local south Florida "cult" acting legends; Seymour Eisenfeld, Art Barker(Mission Mars), Robert Freund, and Walter Philbin(Alligator Alley).

The Wild Rebels is filled with such "cult" famous lines as, "Dig the cat at the bar ", "Hi. Handsome"," I don't know what's going on, but I don't like it", " No creeps are allowed to touch her", and " Let me have a beer. What kind? A cold one!". With lines like this, it's a wonder this film didn't win an Oscar for best screenplay!

In an uncredited role, 1960's stock car legend Bobby Brack provided the stunt driving for Steve Alaimo in the film's racing scenes at the Palm Beach Fairgrounds Speedway.

So, if you like drag races, bar-room brawls, hip lingo, biker gangs, car chases,singing race car drivers, and "great" one-liners, you will enjoy The Wild Rebels. A 10!

Plan 9 of biker films

[metalrox_2000 · 7/10 · 25 May 2013]

Let say, thank you to MST3K for getting me into this movie.

After years of searching I was finally able to locate a compilation DVD that had this film on it. I wanted to see the original version.

What I got was a movie that was so bad it's good, entertaining in a Plan 9 from Outer Space sort of way.

After wrecking his car during a race, Rod decides he's had enough, and is going to retire, and just enjoy life. He winds up in Florida at a go-go club. He carries his trusty guitar with him everywhere he goes. While at this bar, he is noticed by a group of outlaw bikers from a gang called Satan's Angels. One of them recognizes Rod from his race days, and a plan is hatched. They are going to hire him as their driver for a series of robberies. After Rod performs with the band, The Birdwatchers, a terrible Monkees clone band, that is playing at the club, they make they move. The use the seductive skills of Linda, (Bobbie Byers, a sexy woman that could charm anyone) who happens to be the girlfriend of the leader of the gang, Jeter.

Somehow, Rod ends up being followed by the Florida state police, and is used by them to infiltrate the gang to bring the them to justice. The film climaxes with a gun fight at a Lighthouse.

Yes, there are plenty of gaffs and continuity errors. You'll see a few scenes that are supposed to take place at night, but clearly take place later in the afternoon. You'll see guitars disappear and re-appear, People who seems to wear the same clothes everyday, despite this film's plot unfolding over several months. and you'll see plenty of vehicles that catch fire for no real reason.

The dialog is pretty bad, even worse then Plan 9, because even the actors seem like they are having a hard time saying them without laughing. Steve Alamio simply is a horrible actor, mediocre singer, and a terrible choice for the film's hero.

Add all of that up, and you have the perfect so bad it's good entertaining b movie that is perfect for a day when nothing good is on cable, and by judging of the play list for the premium channels as of late, that's a lot of days. I highly recommend this movie for all lovers of b-movies!

No budget exploitation movie

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 10 October 2015]

WILD REBELS is a no budget thriller made to cash in on the then-success of the various motorbike/gang movies that were doing the rounds in the late '60s. This one tells a very humdrum story about a stock car driver who becomes involved with a sinister and violent gang who kill for kicks, but there's a twist: he's actually recruited by the police to go undercover and catch the gang in action.

It sounds interesting, but for the most part it isn't. A no-name cast go through the paces without ever grabbing the viewer's attention, and the general poor quality of the filming and lack of plot ingredients makes it tough to watch. That's the first half, and the good news is that things pick up considerably in the second. We get a bank robbery, chases with the cops, shoot-outs, roadblocks and the like, and a powerhouse climax set at a lighthouse of all places. It's not enough to make this film 'good' in any way, shape or form, but it does make up for that ultra-slow start.

Plot premise was done far better in the 1964 "The Killers"

[mgconlan-1 · 1/10 · 4 March 2009]

I just caught "Wild Rebels" on one of the "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" archive compilations, and this movie was so bad even the MST3K crew couldn't make it entertaining. There are some MST3K "targets" that were films whose concepts were so dippy they couldn't possibly have been good movies (like "The Green Slime"), and others whose basic premises could have been made into genuinely entertaining films if their filmmakers hadn't bobbled them in the execution. "Wild Rebels" is a film whose basic premise DID make a good movie three years earlier, when Don Siegel directed his remake of "The Killers" at Universal. Both films are about a failed racing driver who's seduced by a femme fatale into driving the getaway car in a robbery masterminded by the woman's boyfriend -- only in "The Killers" the driver was John Cassavetes, the woman was Angie Dickinson and the criminal mastermind (cast wildly but successfully against type in what turned out to be his final film) was Ronald Reagan. Steve Alaimo, Bobbie Byers and Willie Pastrano are quite a comedown! But what REALLY makes "Wild Rebels" an awful movie is the direction by William Grefé (note the accent over the final "e," present in his on-screen credit), which has absolutely no sense of pace whatsoever and seems to let every shot run at least half again as long as it needs to to make its dramatic point. It's only a pity that someone didn't do a mocking commentary on this movie now (in 2009); the comparison between Steve Alaimo's hairdo and Rod Blagojevich's would have been irresistible!

Here Because of MST3K

[david-friederick · 1/10 · 12 June 2022]

I'm only here because Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) roasted this "gem" of a movie with its bad acting and all. Anyone else see this on MST3K? It's an older episode.