Warning: Pot-stirring chopper inbound, avert your eyes now.
If I asked you to name a chopper film, 99% of those polled would respond with Easy Rider—a fitting response for the genre-defining cult classic. But the iconic trio of Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson had all starred in their own chopper films before Columbia gambled on Easy Rider in 1968.
Hopper played the antagonist in a not-so-good film called The Glory Stompers in 1967, and Nicholson in Hell’s Angels on Wheels was decidedly meh that same year. Of the three, Fonda’s lead role in The Wild Angels in 1966 was the strongest, and reinforced his status as one of the most prominent counterculture figures of the day. All of which sets the stage for Captain America and Billy in 1969, as a sort of farewell to the genre.…