The original "Wild One"

[Gamma68]

After viewing "The Wild One" again recently, I started wondering about the event that inspired the film. I did some reading on the so-called "1947 Hollister Riot" and was a little struck by the scarcity of Perfecto-style leather jackets--or any leather jackets--in the photos of the bikers.

Here are some of the images I've seen identified as being taken at that event. Most seem to show townspeople but the bikers supposedly took over the streets.

Another shows two bikers without jackets.

The only image I've seen of what might be a Perfecto-style jacket at the event is this one (although there must have been others):

And of course, there is the famous staged photo that launched the myth of the crazed, dangerous boozing biker:

But none of the photos depict anyone quite like Johnny Strabler--an image that quickly became iconic and to a large degree remains a symbol of the prototypical American Biker.

With this contrast in style between the 1947 event and the 1953 film, I wondered how the bikers were depicted in "Cyclists' Raid"--the short story by Frank Rooney. "The Wild One" is based upon this story. It appeared in the Jan. 1951 issue of "Harper's Magazine."

Here's how the narrator describes club leader Gar Simpson and the other bikers:

"Like all the others he was dressed in a brown windbreaker, khaki shirt, khaki pants, and as Bleeker observed wore dark calf-length boots. A cloth and leather helmet lay on the table beside Simpson's drink, but he hadn't removed his flat green goggles, an accouterment giving him and the men in his troop the appearance of some tropical tribe with enormous semi-precious eyes, lidless and immovable."

Pulp artist David Berger supplied illustrations for the story, which diverge from both the actual Hollister event and the image of Strabler:

So it seems the depiction of Johnny Strabler, the iconic image of the American Biker, is based to a large degree on mythical fancy. Which leads to the question: who is the original "Wild One" -- the infamous drunken Hollister resident? The character illustrated in "Cyclists' Raid"? Or has the Johnny Strabler image become so pervasive over time that it is has assumed the position of the true prototype?

 

[d4nimal]

I don't have the first idea, but I just had to say it's a really interesting question and I really enjoyed reading this over.

 

[ton312]

I don't have the first idea, but I just had to say it's a really interesting question and I really enjoyed reading this over.

^Me too. It's a fantastic question. I think Hollywood has always wanted to paint bikers as fringe members of society and that probably shaped societies view as well. The result was probably a self fulfilling prophecy for the general public and small groups of bikers helped fuel the public's belief.
During the 60's the image morphed from outlaw biker via the trashy bike-sploitation flicks to drug dropping hippie peace/freedom seeker thanks to Easy Rider (still one of my all time favorite movies). Then the genere seemingly vanished as the 70's and 80's brought Hondas and beach boys riding them:

A movie that I really enjoyed that has its share of nods to biker pic origins is Roadside Prophets. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Great info Gamma68, thanks for posting. I see what you mean by no one wearing biker jackets, but the police aren't either, and a lot of the citizenry are wearing just t-shirts, all of which suggests it was really warm weather. On a side note I'd be willing to bet that many early bikers wore A2 jackets and the like, which in those days would have been readily available. I don't disagree that the film changed tastes, though. Also, as Ton32 has pointed out, it might have been a feedback loop, with the movie, photos of bikers, publicity, etc, all contributing to an image (kinda like how later skinhead 'bonehead' punk style was). Anyways, I'm just throwing some ideas out there, I don't know, I was born in '72 ha ha

 

[Monitor]

Some guy that worked on the movie said that it was this photo that was the main inspiration behind Strablers look. It was, supposedly, also taken during the so called Hollister riot. I dunno myself but it's a cool photo (click for full size).

 

[nick123]

Strange timeline...

Hollister Riots-1947
Wild One-1953

Actual event-not too many leather jackets

Film-lots of jackets

So why deck out the film characters in leather?

According to wikipedia, "greaser subculture" emerged in late 40s and continued throughout 50s.

Perhaps the film attempted to personify the "greaser" (hate that term) look taking shape in the late 40s utilizing the real life historical event as a backdrop? If the "rebellious leather look" was already ruffling feathers at the time the film was made, perhaps it was used as a tool to enchance the film??

Confused. I thought Elvis had a lot to do with it, but this was all before Elvis.

 

[Peter Bowden]

Motorcycle Gang from 1957 carries on the theme of delinquency and rebellion with the redemption of the hero by his civic decency.Apart from that-A lot of Perfecto and Buco jackets being put to good use.

 

[tropicalbob]

You have to be careful with Wikipedia as anyone can contribute to it, regardless of expertise. From what I've gathered, "greaser," on the West Coast during WWII, originally referred to Mexicans. In New York when I was growing up it referred to anyone who used a lot of Brylcream in forming his pompador and dressed in a certain style, but it probably had a derogatory subtext concerning Italians. You have to remember that it was also at this very time (1952-55) that the country saw the rise of the "teenager" as a distinct social entity: he or she really didn't exist before then. Leather jackets and jeans became popular with that first wave of the baby-boomers as symbols of defiance (they were really cheap, too, and readily accessible, as you could get them for next to nothing at your local Army-Navy store. Elvis was certainly a part of that and I think the first manifestation of the teen market, which advertisers were quick to exploit. There were lots of songs, movies, and images at the time of the "juvenile delinquent." I think my dad was expecting me to turn into one, so he was completely taken aback when I quickly morphed into a "Brian Jones," a completely different animal.

 

[Gamma68]

Some guy that worked on the movie said that it was this photo that was the main inspiration behind Strablers look. It was, supposedly, also taken during the so called Hollister riot. I dunno myself but it's a cool photo (click for full size).

I've seen this photo but haven't seen a firm attribution as to when and where it was taken. My gut tells me it's not from the 1947 Hollister riots.

 

[scottyrocks]

LizzieMaine has a thread devoted the 1950s vs 'The Fifties' - the real thing vs the romanticized version of that decade.

Although it proceeds Sha Na Na by about 15 years, The Wild One has its roots in the very beginning of what would come to be known as The Fifties.

Combine many of the factors mentioned in some of the above posts, and Hollywood's insatiable desire to use exploitation and sensationalism to make money, and it's not too hard to see how and why The Wild One was made.

 

[Gamma68]

As I give my original question more thought (Who is the original Wild One?), it occurs to me that all of the ones cited are the creation of myth.

1947 Hollister riots photo: Staged image of a biker. The man was apparently a local who stumbled drunk out of a bar and sat on someone's parked bike for the shot. We don't even know if he ever rode a bike.

Cyclists' Raid: Gus Simpson and his club members are all fictional characters.

The Wild One: Johnny Strabler and all the bikers are fictional characters.

So what has come to be accepted as the image of prototypical American biker is all based on fiction.

I'm a writer by profession and think I might be onto something that could be developed into a full-length essay for publication. Does anyone know if there is a definitive book or article about the making of the film "The Wild One"?

 

[ProteinNerd]

I wonder how much thought he put into the stitch count or if the leather was chrome or vegetable tanned lol


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[dudewuttheheck]

Very nice write up. This is not all that surprising, however. Hollywood is good at exaggerating things.

 

[Doctor Damage]

I wonder how much thought he put into the stitch count or if the leather was chrome or vegetable tanned lol

He put hundreds of hours of thought into it, and discussed it with dozens of friends he'd never met!

 

[Monitor]

I wonder how much thought he put into the stitch count or if the leather was chrome or vegetable tanned lol


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I don't know, he just might be the sort of a bloke who'd send a jacket back for a remake a few times because the leather just never seems to display that perfect, satisfactory amount of "shifting of the oils".

Many thousands of dollars, tons of online research and one book from a Japanese artiste' took to make this crowd looks so pristine.

upload free

 

[BobJ]

^Me too. It's a fantastic question. I think Hollywood has always wanted to paint bikers as fringe members of society and that probably shaped societies view as well. The result was probably a self fulfilling prophecy for the general public and small groups of bikers helped fuel the public's belief.
During the 60's the image morphed from outlaw biker via the trashy bike-sploitation flicks to drug dropping hippie peace/freedom seeker thanks to Easy Rider (still one of my all time favorite movies). Then the genere seemingly vanished as the 70's and 80's brought Hondas and beach boys riding them:
View attachment 81199
A movie that I really enjoyed that has its share of nods to biker pic origins is Roadside Prophets. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch.
View attachment 81197

I just spent an hour and twenty minutes watching The Roadside Prophets. It stirred up that old feeling in me, of wanting to just chuck it all and go on a road trip. Trippy movie. Thanks for helping to fill up a bit of an empty Sunday evening.

 

[rocketeer]

I wonder how much thought he put into the stitch count or if the leather was chrome or vegetable tanned lol

Probably 100% of nothing as this sort of thing was invented with the internet and forums such as this. Add in interest in weights of leather, details of contracts etc and we have a perfect combination for which actor portrayed the hardest of the hard due only to his jacket wearing ability

 

[Monitor]

I just spent an hour and twenty minutes watching The Roadside Prophets. It stirred up that old feeling in me, of wanting to just chuck it all and go on a road trip. Trippy movie. Thanks for helping to fill up a bit of an empty Sunday evening.

Same thing! Never heard of that movie before. I've had a road/motorcycle movie phase which ended with the realization that most are either exploitation crap or just crap in general so this was a very nice surprise! Grabbed it yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it!

 

[Edward]

Some guy that worked on the movie said that it was this photo that was the main inspiration behind Strablers look. It was, supposedly, also taken during the so called Hollister riot. I dunno myself but it's a cool photo (click for full size).

It's possible: the guy wearing the club sweater is a YellowJacket. (The Yellowjackets nowadays don't consider themselves 'outlaws' per se (their website makes it clear that they esechew criminality and welcome members who are active or former military and police - often disqualifiers for some MCs. They're very much an MC, though, colours and all.) The Club itself dates to circa 1938, with earlier origins, and is believed to be the oldest MC in the US in unbroken existence if memory serves. It seems highly likely they would have been at Hollister. Long haired biker in the foreground looks oddly out of place - unless it's a sturdy lady rather than a man. I'm sure I've seen this photo dissected somewhere before, but can't quite recall where, or what conclusions were drawn.

Strange timeline...

Hollister Riots-1947
Wild One-1953

Actual event-not too many leather jackets

Film-lots of jackets

So why deck out the film characters in leather?

According to wikipedia, "greaser subculture" emerged in late 40s and continued throughout 50s.

Perhaps the film attempted to personify the "greaser" (hate that term) look taking shape in the late 40s utilizing the real life historical event as a backdrop? If the "rebellious leather look" was already ruffling feathers at the time the film was made, perhaps it was used as a tool to enchance the film??

Confused. I thought Elvis had a lot to do with it, but this was all before Elvis.

Definitely all pre-Elvis. The Wild One has been retrospectively associated with rock and roll subculture via leather jackets, denim and motorcycles, but it predates rock and roll as we know it. In the scene where Johnny puts music on the jukebox, it's something big band jazz that it plays, from memory. (It's about a year since I last watched it.) I think the rock and roll associations came about in part because it was such a hard film to see for many years. The powrs that be effectively banned it in the UK for fifteen years: the first legal UK screening was at the 59 Club's premises in London in 1968. By then, of course, everyone knew the Brando look - while there were pronounced differences between that and the Brit Rockers' typical look, it wasn't hard to spot them as a cousin-tribe, and the association between the Rockers, their leather and motorcycles had been indellible for the better part of a decade by that point. I'm sure it was much the same in the US.

The film was largely its own thing, with little more to do with the story that inspired it than the incident itself. The incident, such as it was, was an example of a moral panic - nothing really happened bar a few motorcyclists getting a bit drunk and leary. There was one guy who is recoded to have ridden his motorcycle straight into a bar, which is perhaps a story that inspired the Time photographer to create that embellished version. The film also drew inspiration from two clubs who were at Hollister: the Boozefighters and the Black Cats. The Boozefighters were represented by the Beetles, headed by Chino (Lee Marvin); Strabler, in the film, is a former Beetle who broke away to form his own club, the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club, based on the Black Cats, if memory serves. The flim, via these fictionalised versions of real clubs, created two iconic biker looks: one, the obvious Johnny Strabbler look, but also the more rough-edged, Chino / Beetles look. The latter was a significant influence on the early Hells Angels. That Club was formed in 1948, around the time of the Hollister Incident. Sonny Barger, founding president of the Oakland Chapter, has said over the years that the Beetles were much more reflective of how the HA looked inthose early days; it also seems to have influenced a generation of 1%ers' style too. Barger himself is reputed to have bought the striped top that Lee Marvin wore as Chino, and worn it to Hells Angels meetings in the mid 50s in CA. Whether this is true or a legend, who knows? I've not been able to find Barger himself saying it, but I don't think he ever contradicted it either. On the BRMC side of things, the Outlaws (est 1935) changed their colours, partly inspired by the skull and pistons look of the BRMC symbol, c.1953: http://www.outlawsmcworld.com/history.htm.

Of course, the biggest thing that the Hollister Incident moral panic did was to create the term "1%er", after an AMA spokesman was quoted in the press as saying that the vast majority of motorcyclists are respectable people, and only 1% are troublemakers. In recent years, the AMA has confirmed that they have no records of having made any such statement, and believe that the quote may well have been apocryphal. (I.e. some journo made it up for effect.)

Great blog here with some nice quotes from eyewitnesses to the actual goings on in Hollister that weekend:

http://www.salinasramblersmc.org/history/classic_bike_article.htm

Another good article on the press coverage that created a legend:

http://lanesplitter.jalopnik.com/the-riot-and-the-photo-that-made-bikers-into-outlaws-1729051837

This shot is interesting:

It depicts, according to the website MashableUK, "Eddie Davenport, of Tulare, California, drinks a beer on his motorcycle in Hollister, during a gathering of bikers on July 7, 1947. This photo was taken during the same shoot of a photo that ran in Life magazine later that month."

http://mashable.com/2015/05/18/1947-hollister-bike-riot/#O6Hlw6IQHgqQ

Less embellished than the more famous version that Time ran in the end. Intersting for two reasons:

One, the legend I had always heard about this photo was that the guy was the town drunk, not an actual biker.... Which seems to be the case (note 'Dave' on the jacket back. Why would Eddie be posing with a jacket labelled 'Dave'? If he'd earned his own colours, he'd have wanted to show them off, I'm sure....).

Two - I'm sure I've seen the Time image cropped to make it look like it was taken indoors....

Note the smiling guy in the background of the famous shot, and see the blog I posted a link to for his eyewitness account of his own presence in the photo. See also this:

Of course, as with so many things, even the legend hasnow been sanitised in the name of commerce - see how the sponsors of the "Hollister Rally" which commemorates the original incident spun it in 2014:

http://www.russbrown.com/blog/the-history-of-the-hollister-motorcycle-rally

Not that their notion that bikers were somehow people persuaded away from cars by a lifestyle...

"The movie was considered so controversial that it got many negative reviews by American movie critics, as well as leaders in other local communities. The film was even banned in the U.K. until 1968 when it was then given an “X” rating. This ban helped to fuel those drawn to this new lifestyle to abandon their 4 wheel cars in favor of the motorcycle and riding leathers!"

....does not reflect reality in the UK. In 1950s and early 1960s Britain, a car was simply out of financial reach for many people, certainly young people, and few seveteen year olds and over could even dream of affording acar of their own. Transport for the working man with a young family was often a motorcycle - wife pillion, kids in the sidecar. Teenagers from sixteen could usually afford a motorcycle, with insurance and lmitis on capcity much lower in those days. Car Ownership as a norm in Britain really came in from the mid-late sixties, with the great British motorcycle boom drawing to a close by 1969. (Though even then, it was the early eighties when motorcycling in the UK really finally became a lifestyle choice more than anything, and there are signs of two-wheels coming back in ab ig way these last ten years, perhaps as the economy bites again, certainly also reflecting environmental concerns.)

 

[BobJ]

Long haired biker in the foreground looks oddly out of place - unless it's a sturdy lady rather than a man.

That's a small bike, and judging by her posture, hairstyle, and shape, I'd say it's gotta be a "sturdy lady".