The Spikes Gang (1974)

The Spikes Gang is a very good western that shows what probably happened to a good many youngsters who struck out on their own in the expanding west. It is one of three westerns that Gary Grimes starred in that gave a darker and truer view of life in the old west for teenager. The others are The Culpepper Cattle Co., 1972 and Cahill, U.S. Marshall, 1973.Lee Marvin plays a wounded bank robber, (Spikes) on the run from a posse, whom three teens find (Grimes, Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith) and nurse back to health. The three youths, small community and under the heavy hand of discipline, become enthralled with Spikes and soon strike out on their own soon after he departs.After a series of misadventures, the youngsters meet up with Spikes again, who, against his better judgment, takes them under his wing.The Spikes Gang is a fast paced movie and seems to play upon the anonymity of three teenagers, ill-prepared for a brutal and unforgiving way of life. The one drawback to the pace is that it does not give a good sense for the passage of time, but is effective in emphasizing the few sparks in mundane lives.As part of the Grimes Western trilogy, one can get a good look at an overly romanticized part of history.

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."

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.

Imagine, a movie that gives a lesson right from the bible, 'Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword'. It was amazing that none of the 3 boys ever said to one another, 'we were better off with our parents'. After doing some of the dumbest things imaginable for young boys and doing it badly you would thinkthey were smart enough to realize they weren't cut out for being out on their own. Anyhow, the movie was well done, gave you a real feel for what it musthave been like living in the 'Old West'. Plus how hard it must have been to be accepted by a community that knew every detail of every citizen that lived in the area. Maybe the reason for such a poor showing at the box office was the title. Lee Marvin plays himself and does it superbly.