Wednesday, October 17, 2012

YEAR 1989: THE WOMEN OF THE WOLF



1989 is rather a dub year for femmes formidables, but the comic biker-flick EASY WHEELS deserves to be a bit better-known. 

In this deadpan-comic twist on such serious-toned lady-biker films as SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS and THE MINI-SKIRT MOB, Sam and Ivan Raimi, along with director David O'Malley, introduce the audience to "She-Wolf" (Eileen Davidson), a woman raised by wolves.  When she grows to adulthood She-Wolf goes the Pussy Galore route and assembles an all-female biker-gang around her, "The Women of the Wolf."  Implicitly they have Lesbian Nation ambitions, for they steal babies after the manner of the archaic  Amazons, selling the male babies to illegal adoption agencies and allowing the girl babies to be raised by the wolfpack, as She-Wolf was.

The Wolf-Women have everything going for them until they run across a gang of all-male bikers, whose name, "The Born Losers," contains more truth than poetry.  The guys aren't much of a physical threat to the lady bikers, who kick the guys' butts in two separate encounters.  Rather, their presence threatens the stability of the group when She-Wolf unintentionally strays from the Isle of Lesbos and falls in love with the Loser-leader Bruce (Paul LeMat).

EASY is pretty tame material, but it sports some nice light-hearted brawls.  Sam Raimi would gain greater fame in the Femme Formidable department about six years later when he produced the XENA teleseries.

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