The Spikes Gang

Lee Marvin is always fun to watch. He has such a demanding persona that makes all his roles interesting. There's a few highlights in this film, but much of it falls a little flat. I guess the theme of this story is "utter failure." It's almost unbearable to watch these three young men navigate through the real world. The large amount of disappointment and hopelessness that is displayed in this film may be "ahead of its time." It is definitely a tragedy but feels a little pushed and fast-paced for me. The character development is a little too simple for most viewers and the decision-making from our main characters is bothersome. Still, it has that unique early 70s nostalgic atmosphere that is always nice to plug into.

A gem of a movie.Very realistic and exciting.A good combination of an established actor (Marvin) combined with up & coming actors (Grimes,Smith & Howard).It portrays the american west in a realistic manner (like most westerns from the late 60's & early 70's)

This is probably Richard Fleischer's last good movie;it's considered polite to say that all he did after "solyent green" is worthless.Richard Fleischer made lots and lots of great movies from " follow me quietly" to " the narrow margin" ,from "20,0000 leagues under the sea" to "The Vikings "and from "Barabbas" to "the Boston strangler" to the stunning (and perhaps his masterpiece) "10 Rillington Place" After "Solyent green" which featured the extremely moving scene of the death of Edward G.Robinson (who eventually died some months after),only "Spikes gang" shows something of the unqualified brilliance that accompanies Fleischer in his career through "Solyent green" .It is a western which has nothing to do with the epics of Ford,Daves or Walsh or Mann.It has also (fortunately) nothing to do with Peckinpah. Filmed in Spain,its spirit is actually close to that of Arthur Penn,particularly "Bonnie and Clyde".When Grimes is daydreaming and sees his father tell him :"you're no longer my son;you're dead" ,it recalls that scene when Bonnie meets her mom for a picnic and the old lady says "you're already dead ,Bonnie Parker" . The three lads are in search of a father ,which is very Pennesque ,notably in "the left handed gun" .even in a non-western film such as "the miracle worker" Ann Sullivan was Helen Keller's second mom. Grimes' father was a religious man ,perhaps not far from being a fanatic (his part is too underwritten).Remember that scene in the bank where the ticking of the clock merges into the memories of the whip coming down .Lee Marvin is their new father and I go as far as to write that Grimes is some kind of father to his two mates too when he is absent. The three lads are amateurs and cannot free them of the concept of right and wrong ,coming from a religion which does not give any answer;when they're eating hosts and drinking sacred wine,one of the youngest speaks of blasphemy but their leader tells them so "Christ would give them to us if He were here" . Lee Marvin's character is extremely interesting.Lee Marvin never overplays and the discovery that he was once married to an educated wife ,a teacher who spoke several languages and played the piano comes aside as a shock.This memory is necessary ;without it,the ending would not make any sense. An inferior director would have made "men" of the three teenagers ;but they can't :their dreams ,their remorse,the letter one of them sends to his mom,the trust they put in Marvin,all indicates that when they die they will still be big children. Like this?try this..... "Run for cover" Nicholas Ray 1955

I saw this movie about two years ago while I was up studying at around 4:00 A.M. Lee Marvin plays an outlaw that takes three runaway teens under his wing. He teaches them the tricks of the trade in bank robbing. The movie takes on a surprising twist towards the end. A very nice movie that almost NEVER comes on TV. If anyone knows how I could get the VHS version, please email me. Thanks. I give it a 10.

I saw this movie when I was up late. I was bored one night. It was one of the only interesting-looking thing on. I absolutely love this movie! I wish this was the "must watch" for the wanna be gangsta rappers, the way Scarface is. Even though basically they end the same, there is an underlined sense of repentance in this movie's end that is completely absent from movie themes today. It was real. Getting half way in something (especially crime) and then wishing you hadn't started it is a real factor. This is something rare to see in these movies. Instead of leaving the movie thinking "I could do that, I just won't make those mistakes," the way other gangsta flicks make people feel, you leave thinking "maybe this isn't at all what I thought or want."

There is an old myth about the country girl who finds a poisonous snake freezing in the snow. She picks him up and brings him home, nursing him back to health, at which point he bites her on the cheek. As she lays there dying she asks, "Why have you done this to me?" He answers while slithering off, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake." "The Spikes Gang" begins with three teenage boys finding outlaw Lee Marvin (Spikes) wounded and dying on the ground, and they hide him in the back of the barn where they can nurse him back to health. Instead of killing them, he thanks them kindly and departs- but maybe his poison seed has been planted because soon the boys abandon their home and set off on the road and an eventual life of crime. That's the story, and much of it works, but just as much fails. There is a pervading heavy-handed morality lesson at work here, and it takes the joy out of what could have been a great film. The three boys- desperate, penniless, and starving for food- finally decide to rob a bank. Not only does the sheriff walk in during the robbery, they accidentally kill a state senator passing by and lose ALL THE MONEY during the escape. In the next scene they're penniless again begging for food. Hold the phone, but isn't movie crime supposed to be FUN? Aren't we as the audience supposed to get SOME vicarious thrill from these adrenaline-fueled exploits? The day after the botched robbery the boys wallow in guilt and regret... they've KILLED! They've STOLEN! God is no longer smiling at them! They do everything but turn themselves in, surprising since they actually discuss the possibility. Eventually they catch up with Spikes who becomes their surrogate "evil" father-figure (is he what happens if you accept Satan as your lord and master?) Spikes liberates the trio from their feeble attempts at straight jobs and gives them a proper makeover so they can join his gang. We get a montage/training sequence of Marvin buying them new clothes, fancy meals and teaching them to shoot. Is THIS sequence any fun? Naw, we know the boys are Hellbound and therefore incapable of joy. The joy comes from Lee Marvin. He is pitch-perfect in a role that could have easily been hokey or over-the-top. Marvin plays Spikes as a human being, the product of his environment. He slips seamlessly between malicious mentor and cold-blooded killer... he is as he says, "just a man trying to survive." (As a side note I must nominate this film for "Worst Blood In A Motion Picture" category. It appears as thick, gloppy paint so bright it might burn your retinas. One character uses his hand to clot a wound but looks more like he's squeezing a tomato through his fingers.) By the time the film comes to its' drawn-out finale (the movie's at least twenty minutes too long) I had given up hope for a happy ending, given up hope for a satisfying ending... we got the message early on that crime doesn't pay and we're just waiting for the period. Guilt-ridden, morally tortured, spiritually defeated cowboys rarely appear in good Westerns. There's a reason. GRADE: C+

I ran this film in my cinema as a double feature with a western called BILLY TWO HATS. I apologize. I shouldn't really because only 4 people came on the two nights it showed. BILLY TWO HATS featured Desi Arnaz Jnr as an Indian. It was filmed in Israel. Maybe Desi Jnr was making this in between takes of this glorious musical nobody saw either, called MARCO about.....Marco Polo. I am just aghast at all this. Anyway, THE SPIKES GANG is a rustic teenage crime drama from the B grade school of drive in movie-making that saw Bonnie and Clyde...Bloody Mama... Bullet For Pretty Boy...Boxcar Bertha or whatever. It has a good cast and solid production values. But nobody really wanted to see it and it was probably always doomed to be half of a double feature in a bumpkin drive in. Ron Howard in this and Desi Arnaz Jnr in the other. The local kids just thought this was nothing. In the 80s we had Matt Dillon films to take their place...like KANSAS.

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The Spikes Gang