J.C. (1972) User Reviews

racial justice biker B-movie

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 26 September 2020]

J.C. Masters is a long hair hippie biker who spends his days smoking weed in Alabama. He's bad at his construction job and quits with his black friend David Little. He reads about injustices in society and hates being harassed by racist rednecks. He leads his friends to return to his racist home town and his beloved sister.

This is a biker B-movie all the way. J.C.'s start is not appealing as a slacker hippie. Instead of being a bad worker, he should face discrimination by his redneck boss which would build up rooting interest for him and his black friend. It tries to do racial justice but it doesn't do it well. The racist town gets pretty good once they get there but it starts off with an annoying diatribe by a biker chick. The dialog is generally clunky but it gets to something interesting every once in awhile.

Yes, I Get The Symbolism

[boblipton · 4/10 · 26 September 2020]

Writer-director-producer William McGaha shows up in a small southern town and makes friends with the local bikers. Sheriff Slim Pickens doesn't like his bringing a Black friend into a town where, I imagine, they still don't cotton them being around after sundown.

It's your typical biker as the Son of G*d movie. There are decent performances, good camerawork and thoughtful editing. It's a simple-minded script, though, more intent on making its moralizing points than in telling a story.

When Society Turned against him, he made his own society!

[czar-10 · 20 June 2001]

With a religious fanatic for a father, the last thing J.C. wanted was to follow in old Pops footsteps. So to Escape his background he becomes the leader of a bike gang. Then one night, while tripping out on some harsh drugs with his biker buddies, he preaches a sermon asking that his followers (his tripped out biker buddies) to head west with him. They get no further than his home town before a headlong confrontation between the establishment and the Prophets.

This film is the usual run of the mill Bikersploitation film, with it's average dose of violence and general bad behaivour.

This is the worst film of any kind...

[watkinssr · 1/10 · 22 January 2005]

I collect bad biker movies. The more painful, the better. This one is king of them all. The worst biker film, indeed the worst film of any kind. I can't watch it in one sitting. In fact, it's hard to get to the opening credits in one sitting. If you ever see it, you will understand. The opening credits started rolling, and I mistakenly believed it was the closing credits and started rejoicing. The intro is that long. And bad. And painful.

I mean, I understand low budget films, I've even worked on one myself, but they could have taken up a collection for clean underwear for the lead character if they in fact felt it was that important to have the lead character roll around in his underwear. And apparently they did.

The scene where .....nevermind....its just too painful a memory.

Jesus was a biker

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 5 August 2019]

Jesus Christ is born again on Earth. Maybe. Then again, he could also be a biker tripping on acid with a hardcore Southern Baptist preacher daddy. But it doesn't matter, because he's got his gang of bikers and he's taking them on an LSD-fueled pilgrimage to the Promised Land. Oh 1972 - what a magical time you were for completely off the rails movies.

The title doesn't show up for fifteen minutes and the same guy that wrote and directed this - William F. McGaha - also stars in it. He did the same thing for two other movies, Bad Girls for the Boys and The Speed Lovers.

Somehow, he was able to convince Joana Moore (Touch of Evil), Slim Pickens (the guy rode a nuke into Russia for us, folks) and Burr DeBenning (five years before he'd chase a melting Steve West all over the city).

With a tagline like "J.C. And His Disciples Were A Gang Of Broads, Bikes And Blacks," how can you really go wrong? Well, the actual film doesn't live up to the premise, of a biker Jesus changing the world, but on this budget, they were lucky he changed his vestments.

The poster and taglines though? That's what movies are all about.

jc

[mossgrymk · 1/10 · 17 October 2020]

In the first 10 min. of this retelling of the Christ story the boom mike is visible in half the shots. D minus.

Hippy Bikers versus Redneck Bigots

[Uriah43 · 2/10 · 9 March 2022]

This film essentially begins with a young man by the name of "J. C. Masters" (William McGaha) working on a job at a construction site with his friend "David Little" (Hannibal Penney). Although he desperately needs the money, J. C. isn't very good at that kind of labor and as a result the foreman is constantly on his back about something or the other. Finally, after taking all of the abuse he can tolerate, J. C. quits and goes back to his house to apologize to his girlfriend "Kim McKool" (Pat Delaney) for losing yet another job. However, rather than feeling disappointed, Kim expresses her complete support and undying devotion to him. Not long afterward, J. C. has a drug-induced vision which he then goes on to share with his biker friends and in response they join him on a motorcycle ride from Georgia to the West Coast. To that effect, one of the first stops on their way is to J. C.'s former hometown of Mason, Alabama so that he can see his younger sister "Miriam Wages" (Joanna Moore). What they find, however, is a small-town mindset which not only disapproves of bikers but actually detests David Little simply because he is black-and it's this racial animosity which will eventually cause all sorts of problems for everyone concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, let me just say that I have a good appreciation for biker films-especially those made in the 60's and 70's. Having said that, however, I must also say that this is easily one of the worst of its kind as not only was the pacing extremely slow but the writing was exceedingly bad as well. So bad in fact, that I felt embarrassed for the actors involved. Be that as it may, other than the presence of some really attractive actresses like Pat Delaney, Miriam Wages and Judy Frazier (as "Rachel Myers") there was absolutely nothing worth seeing here and I have rated this film accordingly.

Reminds me of a Billy Jack movie, and that ain't a compliment

[jamcdaid · 1/10 · 12 November 2020]

A good drinking game would be to take a shot every time you see the boom mic.

Pretty good biker flick

[Red-Barracuda · 6/10 · 10 November 2021]

Here's a movie for biker film enthusiasts. Its about a hippy biker who quits his job and leads his gang back to his hometown, which is run by racist cops! Unsurprisingly, the black biker gang member is huckled by the redneck police on a minor drugs charge and beaten up, leading J. C. and his gang to seek vengeance. You can guess by the initials of the title character, that he and his followers see him as some kind of messiah. I wouldn't say this is very deep stuff though, but it had some decent dramatics and suspense at times. Additionally, it's a boom-mic spotters delight, with that damned mic dropping into view left, right and centre throughout.

You have seen it all before

[Wizard-8 · 18 December 2016]

This independently made motorcycle movie managed to be picked up by a fairly major distributor, but upon watching it you'll probably be asking why. To be sure, there is an intriguing and promising idea behind the movie, that being a motorcycle gang leader believing that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. But believe it or not, almost nothing is done with this idea. Instead, the majority of the movie unfolds in a way that you'll have seen in plenty of other movies (and television shows) before. It's the old "motorcycle gang comes to a small southern town" plot, complete with racist police officers and equally bigoted townspeople. I'm sure you can fill in the rest of the plot details yourself, though your version will probably move a lot swifter and with better production values than this long-winded cheapie manages to do. The movie's only saving grace is a soundtrack consisting of some not bad soft rock obscurities.