The Wild One [Blu-ray]

An OK oldie, but a beautiful Marlon Brando. Brando looks like a previous version of Tom Hardy. The story line is so-so, but the idea is good - leave a boy uneducated, untempered by training, abused by life, and you get a wild one: ferocious, confused, and destined for trouble. The bad guy, the really wild one, is played by Lee Marvin.

To this day, men still emulate the look of Marlon Brando's Johnny from "The Wild One." Heck, the late John Belushi emulated the Wild One's look and wore a costume like Brando's in at least 2 sketches on SNL (circa 1976/1977). Nearly 70 after "The Wild One" was released, men still try to capture the essence of whatever cool Brando had in that movie by copying his look!The Plotline:Johnny may be a rebel and a troubled young man but he has a magnetism that attracts women and conflict to him.This film didn't have much budget; it's not full of special effects and explosions. There's (thankfully!) not much rear-screen projection for the motorcycle scenes. The strength lies in the performances of the leads and the rest of the cast. Besides being a Brando vehicle, the movie features one of the earliest if not THE FIRST appearance of Lee Marvin. Marvin is suitably menacing in the film and the TRUE terror any small town should fear.It's a story of rival gangs with no real direction fighting over scraps in what looks like the middle of Nowhere, America.A local girl becomes attracted to Johnny and there may or may not be anything happening between them until a rival motor gang leader who was an ex-member of Johnny's cycle club arrives to create trouble. From there, it becomes a clash between the small town order and 2 cycle gangs that don't respect traditional rules or cops.It's a real basic film but the Brando character and lead actress draw you into the story. For a while, Johnny makes you wonder if his character is a real sociopath, if he has any redeeming value.The Blu ray release is very basic. It has a menu and that's about it for extras. No trailer. Picture and audio quality are probably about the best they can be for this film and it's the best quality release of this movie on home video to date.For a budget home video release, it's a no-brainer. Buy it if you like motorcycle movies, old Hollywood, Marlon Brando, and a 1950s movie that doesn't live up to the conformal stereotypes of that decade.I think this is absolutely one of three Brando movies any movie afficionado should have. The other two are On The Waterfront and The Godfather.

Classic movie

This is about a motorcycle gang and Marlon Brando was the leader of this gang. The gang is on the wild side. They get thrown out of town after town. They come to this one town and Marlon takes a liking to this one girl that works at the soda fountain/bar. He follows her in and tries to get to know her. She tries not to get involved with him, but she does talk to him alot. Her father also tries to get along with him. He is a police officer, but he is a push over. People just walk all over him. Marlon kind of watch over her while they were in her town so that his boys wouldn't do anything to her. In the night she was walking and the gang saw her and started to follow her. She was scared and Marlon happened to see what was going on. He went and got her. He had her get on his bike and rode off. He rode for awhile then turned around and rode back to town They ended up in a graveyard and he kissed her trying to get a negative response out of her, but couldn't. They talk and she runs from him. He takes after her and tries to fine her. Then a towns person comes along and see her running and Marlon is following on his bike. So he thinks the worst and goes to tell the other men what he saw. So all the men go after Marlon and they beat him up. The girl see what happened and goes to father. He calls in back up from the state In the end someone throws a tire iron and hits Marlon, his bike hits a man and kills him. The towns people try to make sound like the did it, but the girl stands up for him and two of the men come clean with what happened. Marlon does make one last stop at the soda fountain and then leaves.This is an all time good movie of his and he plays the bad boy really well.

The Wild One is the Stanley Kramer film that influenced not only movies, but an entire generation of brooding teenagers. The film starring a young Marlon Brando, is the chronicle of the violent escapades of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in a small, sleepy California community in the 1950's. It is overtly the story of redemption, but it is also a tale of innocence lost perhaps forever. Brando is the iconoclastic Johnny,the leader of the club, replete with leather and attitude. Responding to someone's query regarding what he was rebelling against, he replies "Whadda ya got?" Which pretty much sums up the mantra of the next generation of film goers. Despite Brando's signature style and commanding appearance, I personally got a kick out of Lee Marvin's performance as Chino, leader of a rival gang. Marvin, all legs and wise cracks, reminds me of an early rendition of Kesey's Merry Pranksters. His gang is dressed in costumes that would not look out of place in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco a decade later. Marvin is less an introspective outcast longing for acceptance, like Brando, than he is simply an outcast, dedicated to partying and hitting the road. The Wild One is the best of the teenage angst genre films and Brando is a more assertive and optimistic figure than his copycat, James Dean. It is interesting to note that Brando was the original actor set to play the lead in Rebel Without a Cause,the Dean classic, when the film had a totally different story line. The Wild One is an important addition to film history, and certainly an entertaining one.

The media could not be loaded.  There is no doubting Brando's star power. Even in a movie like this, he elevates himself above the material. A typical tale of youth rebelling against the establishment which takes the form of this small town. It's set over a period of one day as two biker gangs take over the town causing a ruckus and starting a battle between them and townspeople.The film hasn't aged well, but it is by no means bad. It's just that its politics and social issues have changed so much that it is hard to relate to these characters. Still, it's quick. It has fun moments. Plus Lee Marvin appears to absolutely steal the show as a rival gang leader.

I mean a distinct youth culture. It has a fair meassure of cheese, butbthe moody rebellious central character of Johnny is played to perfection by the young, beautiful, Marlon Brando. Base, apparently, loosely on an actual event, this film launched seversl industries, both in the US and around the west. Leather fashion was one, Levi's jeans another, motorcycling as a hobby and a lifestyle statement, and so much more. This is pre-rock & roll evident with the scat singing and swing on the jukebox, but it is ushering in the whole rock&roll revolution to come. And of course the bikes. Well worth the 18 quid for this special edition bluray.

A slim, youthful, mean, moody, menacing and muttering Brando starred in this black and white classic from 1953, made when he was in his late twenties, and followed up with yet another early Brando classic 'On the Waterfront' -- the so-called method acting at its best. A similarly rebellious film 'Blackboard Jungle', not involving motor cycles, but set in a downtown American school in which Bill Haley's recording of 'Rock Around the Clock' kicked off the 'new' a age of music created just for teenagers -- an instant signal to wreck and rebel. That starred 'Daddy-o' Glenn Ford as a teacher attempting to calm a class of riotous disruptive High School guys. That also helped the cause along. Other masterpieces in similar vein led to both Brando and James Dean becoming the lead cult figures in the post-war youth v. adult protest movement. The motor cycle alone has a definite bad image problem, and 'The Wild One' is one of a few films set around gangs of motor cyclists, sometimes violent, but always bent on speed and hell raising, helped to propel that along. Perhaps it doesn't outshine the much later epic 'Easy Rider' though, and that surely is the best biker's film ever, but set in an entirely different era. A further biker's film, 'The Leather Boys', this time a 1960s British creation set around a bunch of coffee bar kid racers, was such a limp effort to say the most. (Who'd 'race' to Scotland on an Ariel Arrow? Absolutely clueless!). Then there was the memorable classic scene set in the WW2 epic 'The Great Escape', which involved Steve McQueen's famous chase and 40' leap over a barbed wire fence in an effort break out from life in a PoW camp on a bike he'd 'stolen' from the Germans -- a British Triumph Bonneville I might add, complete with rear suspension too, all in 1942! Actually a stunt man called Bud Ekins performed the feat for him, but let's not spoil it for talented biker McQueen. It's interesting to note, you biker fans, that Brando also uses a British built Triumph in this film, albeit a customized export version complete with cow horn bars, and not the low down clip ons much preferred by the UK rockers. Why not a Harley as you might expect? Well, with the Dean and Brando cult so admired over here, could I be right in thinking that their 'cool' attitude, complete with shades, that black leather jacket collar eternally raised, the use of knee length boots, white T-shirts and skin tight Levi jeans, could that look somehow have influenced the rise of the British rocker and coffee bar racer during the late 50s? Well, that's my theory anyway. This classic gem is definitely one for bikers, both young and more mature alike. Yes, I suppose I could say its 'ACE' -- it was considered to be so moody and magnificent in its day, but it's now become a very dated cult, and by today's standards its so corny, particularly the unconvincing back projection in some of the gang's biking scenes where some riders lean the opposite to go round the same corner!

If you like looking at motorcycles of the past it’s great. It’s of its time and I still don’t understand why it was banned in UK for a few year, perhaps they would encourage the youth to misbehave, they forgot about the mods & rockers. It’s funny to look at the special effects now, we thought they were good at the time. The DVD is worth buying for nostalgia alone.

The Blue Ray plays well including English Sub titles And is great value The film has dated but is well worth having for its historic interest to film buffs so is a highly recommended purchase