The Choppers (1961)

Here is one of Arch Hall Jr's movies which his dad (Arch Hall Sr) produced and cast him in. Strap yourselves in for some jive-talking, Monkey-In-A-Hatband singing, car chopping fun! Arch Hall Jr plays Cruiser, the hot-rodding leader of a group of teenagers called the "Choppers". The boys cruise around the county in a chicken truck (!!!??) looking for brand-new cars to strip. For some reason this particular stretch of highway is where many drivers of beautiful new cars always seem to run out of gas. Hmmm... Anyway when the boys in the chicken truck find a car, they strip it for parts in a matter of minutes, while Cruiser stands guard at a distance in his hotrod looking for the "fuzz". The boys use enormous walkie-talkies to keep Cruiser apprised of their progress. Afterward they sell the parts to a crooked junkyard dealer. The cops are pretty much clueless about how to stop them until they hit upon the idea of setting up a decoy vehicle (why hadn't they thought of that a long time earlier?).No Arch Hall Jr. flick would be complete without a guitar tune by Arch Hall Jr himself and this one is no different. This one features Arch Hall Jr singing "Monkey In A Hatband" and don't ask me what the song is about because I couldn't get the MIAH part.Finally the moral of this movie is about how bad parenting is to blame for kids going wild and becoming juvenile delinquents.

This movie contains a cool t-bucket. It is the star of the movie in my opinion. (Sorry Arch!) The shifter was about neck-high. It had six carburetors. The slicks were all of 6 inches wide! I wonder where I could find some of those today. It was interesting to see the huge walkie-talkie "technology". Although the music was horrible and boring(includes monkey sounds!!!), it was a fun movie and worth the time to watch. I've enjoyed it 3 times. The '50's slang was fun to try to decipher. I don't think the junk yard dog nor any chickens were injured in the production of this movie, although a minimum of two feathers were plucked. They may have been the same feather, filmed at different angles.

Not in the league of THE SADIST or WILD GUITAR, this early Arch Hall, Jr. flick is fun, b/w, and low. Love Moose, junkyard mogul (great caricature of him on the sign as well). Whatever these guys were thinking when they made this type of exploitation film is okay with me. The slang dialogue is flowing and plenty of cheeseburgers to go around.A 4 out of 10. Best performance = the guy who plays Moose. This is on DVD with WILD GUITAR so check it out, daddy-o! Lame songs which are perfect, chicks just good-looking enough to seem like they'd be around these guys, and nice locale where they filmed it. Arch Hall, Sr. must have been a strange dude, bankrolling his kid's career this way, but what the hey!

The Choppers is a fun hour filled B movie of youth gone wrong genre. Led by Cruiser (Arch Hall Jr), it's fun seeing how the gang operates. Man, dig that huge cell phone! Plus, see Arch in his hot rod tapping to the beat of his own song playing on the radio! Another shameless plug from Arch Hall Sr. who reminds me of the poor man's Walt Disney. Bruno VeSota, one of my favorite B actors, is great as Moose: the stubbly junkyard owner who smokes a stogie, is involved in shady deals, and takes a nap now and then. And what's up with Cowboy and his ballad "Entertain your lawyers"? For more laughs, watch Gypsy's face during the chase scene (she's got a great scream!). There's even a corny moral thrown in thanks to Torch's drunk Pop. The stereotypical 50s/60s B movie drunk is always a hoot to watch.With a lot of slang and teen lingo and Conga Joe (hee hee ha!), it's fun to look back at deviance of yesteryear in this not wholly serious, yet entertaining flick.