The Wild One

Effectively banned in Britain until 1968, Brando's biker seems disarmingly tame by comparison with the wild angels he spawned. Yet the film isn't half bad as it sets up characters and situation with neat economy, tracing the seeds of explosion when the Black Rebels ride into town, are detained by a minor accident, and hang around trading insults with a rival gang. A distinct bonus is the echt '50s insolence with which Brando handles bits like his famous response to the girl in the drugstore who asks what he's rebelling against: a pause, a quirk of the eyebrow, a drawled 'Whaddya got?'. But all too soon one is reminded that Stanley Kramer produced. Dissolving into a flurry of melodrama, it emits no more than a faint liberal yap about the misunderstood youth saved by an understanding girl.