Synopsis
When young reporter and amateur biker Jerry Marsh investigates a mysterious hooded figure on a motorbike, he discovers crooks hiding out in a ruined castle with atomic sabotage on their minds...
The Black Rider
1954 Directed by Wolf Rilla
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I'm not quite sure what I've just watched, I was too preoccupied with being reminded how much of a funny looking fella Jimmy Hanley was; he had a massive wide head that just tapered away to a tiny little chin didn't he? And it all looked so weird on his broad body...
Away from Hanley's funny looks, The Black Rider consists of motorbike clubs, investigative journalism and atomic weaponry being smuggled into sleepy coastal village under the auspice of some old folklore about a sinister satanic figure that haunts the area. Essentially its the kind of hoary old yarn that would keep readers of 50s and 60s comic strips and Boys Own annuals enthralled. In fact, as a child stalking jumble sales in the 80s for back issues I was just as enthralled myself!
Oh and Leslie Dwyer is shown to have just as much contempt for snotty nosed kids here as he had twenty-six years later in Hi-de-Hi
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I'll freely admit that my passion for this movie is beyond all reason, much like Jimmy Hanley's oddly posh accent seen here and only here, there's no accounting for it.
Previous review: boxd.it/8PqPX
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In the USA, Marlon Brando was asking 'whaddya got' in biker leathers - while in the UK the rather staid looking Jimmy Hanley was our kind of rebel. The 'evil mission' of the tagline is a misnomer as this film has little tension and certainly none of the Brando sex appeal which made the motorcycle lifestyle attractive.
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You know it's a very British biker movie when they don't even dismount for the egg-and-spoon race.
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While America had the likes of The Wild One and Easy Rider and Electraglide in Blue and Australia had Stone and Mad Max, over here in Britain we had The Black Rider.
Yes indeed, the story of a 'young' newspaper reporter who saves up his money to buy a motorbike so he can fulfil his lifelong ambition to, err, do reliability trials.
OK, so it's doesn't have the scenes of bikes tearing off down highways the disappear off into the horizon, but this is Britain. Instead we have to make do with trundling slowly around over bits of heathland, skilfully negotiating gorse bushes. It might not have the romanticism of those offerings from our colonial cousins, but, by George, it…