The Wild One

For other uses, see The Wild One (disambiguation).

The Wild One
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLászló Benedek
Screenplay byJohn Paxton
Ben Maddow
Based onCyclists' Raid
1951 story in Harper's
by Frank Rooney
Produced byStanley Kramer
StarringMarlon Brando
Mary Murphy
Robert Keith
Narrated byMarlon Brando
CinematographyHal Mohr
Edited byAl Clark
Music byLeith Stevens
Production
company
Stanley Kramer Pictures Corp.[1]
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release dates
  • December 30, 1953 (1953-12-30) (NYC)
  • February 1954 (1954-02) (US)
Running time
79 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Wild One is a 1953 American crime film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. The picture is most noted for the character of Johnny Strabler, portrayed by Marlon Brando, whose persona became a cultural icon of the 1950s. The Wild One is considered to be the original outlaw biker film, and the first to examine American outlaw motorcycle gang violence.[2][3][4] The supporting cast features Lee Marvin as Chino, truculent leader of the motorcycle gang "The Beetles".

The film's screenplay was based on Frank Rooney's short story "Cyclists' Raid", published in the January 1951 Harper's Magazine and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1952. Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalistic media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California. The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947, issue of Life, with a possibly staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle.[5] The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.

  1. ^ The Wild One – AFI | Catalog – American Film Institute
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Pratt2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Veno2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Foster2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Life1947 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).