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The Mini-Skirt Mob
[MGM]
1968; color
Directed by Maury Dexter
Starring: Jeremy Slate, Diane McBain, Sherry Jackson, Patty McCormack & Ross Hagen
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The propaganda for this film succeeds in making it seem like the perfect mix of babes and bikes - and, truthfully, the movie does feature a number of females who, based on their matching jackets, appear to be part of a gang; and some of said females appear to own motorcycles - but in reality these chicks come off more like modern day mean girls than the kinds of biker babes we're used to seeing at the BMB. (Seriously, what kind of biker has perfectly coifed hair and shiny, unscuffed boots?) The storyline here features the standard themes of revenge and murder and revolves around a love triangle of sorts involving a newly wedded couple; the bride a humble and annoying but kind of hot bank teller and her groom a rodeo cowboy or some kind of ridiculous shit. He's not just any ol' rodeo cowboy mind you, he's like the king of rodeo cowboys and one of a rag tag group of grizzled, hard ridin' rodeo cowboys, all of whom would like to de-seat him from his champion throne. The third spoke of this triangle is the jilted ex-lover of the groom who also happens to be the leader of the local all female biker gang, The Mini-Skirts. Coincidentally she is also the older sister of the girl he dated prior to marrying the bank teller and prior to dating and dumping her. Oh yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention about this movie - for the purpose of watching it we're supposed to believe that rodeo guys and biker girls are as natural a coupling as rock stars and models. (Because, I don't know, horses and motorcycles go together like love and marriage?) Anywhoo… the action, if you can call it that, starts after the biker girls and their respective rodeo honeys show up 'round the nuptial trailer to have a little post rodeo soiree / impromptu wedding reception and wind up in a confrontation of sorts with the honeymooning couple. Cooler heads prevail before any real confronting goes on and each party heads off in their own direction to continue with their respective activities. Or so it would seem. Before their paths reach the uncrossable point the jilted biker babe decides she's gonna make sure that part about "for better or for worse" leans more towards the latter for the couple's foreseeable future (apparently she was in the bathroom or something when the preacher asked if there was anyone present who has just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony) so she conjures up a plan of harassment and convinces an assortment of her co-riders to assist. In the course of delivering this unwelcome belated wedding present, one of the rodeo / bike rider dudes is killed (he goes off a cliff after running into the couple's bumper while menacing them on a mountainous highway) thus fueling the anti-married people sentiment among the rodeo / biker contingent. Well, most of them. Others see the death as an accident. The ones that don't vow further revenge and then, of course, set out to get it. Who will live to ride off into the sunset? I'm not gonna tell you. But I will tell you that before the end of the movie some stuff will blow up. Although it is part of a movie reviewer's job to judge each movie we see individually, it's hard not to compare and contrast, particularly within the genre of "genre" films. As much as I wanted to like this one, in the end it just fell short in comparison to other biker movies reviewed on this site, and other biker movies in general.
—Bunny
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