The Jesus Trip

A blend of "Vanishing Point" and "Zabriskie Point", there does not seem to be an actual point to biker-nun movie "Under Hot Leather". If there is anything original here it was probably accidental. Those two films finished shooting just before this one started and it looks like they simply took over the equipment leases and some spare crew from those two films, found some long-expired film stock, and wrote some poor replacement dialogue for the "Vanishing Point" desert chase sequences with its early 70's counterculture paranoia subtext.

This is also available on DVD d/b/a "The Jesus Trip". Unfortunately it appears that they used the pan-and-scan VHS master for the DVD with all its grainy film stock issues, lighting problems, and generally poor quality. So you might as well go with the VHS if you can get it cheaper than the DVD.

This is "experimental" cinema in the sense that there is little attention paid to script or acting for the camera; and a lot of emphasis on what can be done with a 16mm camera, a zoom lens, and a post-production team on acid. So don't expect a complex plot, in fact be thankful there is not a complex plot because the film that was assembled doesn't do a very good job telling a coherent story.

"Five Easy Pieces" good life guy Billy Green Bush (villain) and "Peyton Place" ingénue Tippy Walker (the love interest) are legitimate actors but the rest of the cast appear to have stumbled on the set while wandering the desert and the been written into the script by an enterprising production assistant. The top billing goes to bit player Robert Porter, who came from nowhere and went right back there after this (his first) starring role.

Walker has a haunting vulnerability and is responsible for the film's best sequence, a nonverbal transformation that culminates in her removing her Nun's Headpiece and Collar Set; then shaking loose her long hair.

Russ Mayberry (the director) apparently had some free time between directing episodes of "The Brady Bunch" and "Nanny and the Professor". So he channeled Michelangelo Antonioni and cobbled together a feature length quasi-biker movie more ambitious but lower budget than the standard American International drive-in fare.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This movie has more sophisticated elements than people give it credit for.

It's not a cheap biker movie...it has incredible interpersonal situations that most of those cheapnbiker movies don't have. The cinematography is artfully photographed too. I too thought initially that this was a cheap movie, but as i watched, I saw good film making.

The dialogue is not at its best, but the realistic portrayal of these situations is convincing.

However nasty these characters are, there's some authenticity in there manner, scenes are carefully crafted in artistic shots.

Overall, i would say it's worth a watch.

A mixed-gender group of shaggy but harmless bikers, who've apparently just rented or bought their hogs, are stopped by a Border Control agent (Billy Green Bush). They flee, fearing the bikes may be "hot." Then they discover that the bikes are in fact carrying loads of pure heroin. (It was a little unclear to me whether the border control agents already knew that, and were engaged in smuggling.) One of the bikers gets wounded in flight, and when they all hole up at a desert convent, they have another altercation with the agent and flee with a young nun (Tippy Walker) as hostage. But the agent pursues them all with ever-greater firepower and a sadistic streak.

Just about the sole theatrical feature by a director who otherwise did TV movies and episodes for decades, "The Jesus Trip" takes itself seriously and is low on the usual biker-flick exploitation elements, despite a fair amount of violence. Character development could be a lot stronger, especially in charting the relationship between the nun and lead biker Waco (Billy Porter)--one minute she's a hostage, the next she's taking off her cowl and falling in love. Still, the performances are decent and the movie is very well shot--at least I think so, based on a so-so YouTube transfer presumably from a VHS tape. There's an alarming sequence when the agent and fellow cops terrorize captive bikers whom they've buried up to their necks in the sand.

Low-key and minimally scored, "The Jesus Trip" is not amazing, but a good example of the kind of offbeat, arty genre films that often turned up (and then immediately disappeared) in the early 70s.

The lesson of this movie is don't judge a film by its poster. Cool poster, kinda tedious film. It's about a gang of bikers who become wrongly targeted by the police and wind up on the run with a kidnapped nun. Bikers + nuns = a good time, surely? Well, quite frankly, not in this case.