The Wild One

::"What are you rebelling against?"

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::"What have you got?"

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The Wild One (1953) was the very first outlaw biker film, also made memorable by the youthful Marlon Brando playing gang leader Johnny Stabler. Lee Marvin was his nemesis, the leader of the rival gang. It was a low-budget production but the central figure was Brando, in a motorcycle jacket riding a 1950 Triumph Thunderbird 6T, who played a rebel without a cause two years before James Dean.

Related Topics:
1953 - Outlaw biker - Marlon Brando - Lee Marvin - Motorcycle jacket - Triumph Thunderbird 6T - James Dean

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The film version was based on a January, 1951 short story in Harper's Magazine "The Cyclists' Raid" by Frank Rooney that was published in book form as part of "The Best American Short Stories 1952." The story took a cue from an actual biker street party on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California that was elaborately trumped up in Life Magazine (dubbed the Hollister riot) with staged photographs of wild motorcycle outlaw revellers. The Hollister event sparked the formation of Hells Angels MC the following year and is now recreated annually. In the film, the town is located somewhere in Middle America.

Related Topics:
Harper's Magazine - Hollister, California - Life Magazine - Hollister riot - Hells Angels MC

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Deemed scandalous and dangerous, the film was banned by the British Board of Film Censors from showing in the United Kingdom for fourteen years. It first UK public showing, to a mostly Rocker audience being at the then famous 59 Club of Paddington in London.

Related Topics:
British Board of Film Censors - United Kingdom - Rocker - 59 Club

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