Pretty, blonde Melody Patterson (profiled in my book Drive-in Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties) will forever be remembered as shapely cowgirl Wrangler Jane on the cult TV comedy series F Troop. Patterson was fresh-faced, feisty and a bit reminiscent to real-life western heroine Calamity Jane. I loved this show and her on it. Most of the online tributes and obits deservedly concentrate on her success here and her short-lived marriage to actor James MacArthur. However, I love 60s biker movies and going to profile her 2 appearances in the genre, which many fans may be unaware of.
Proving she could play strong-willed women convincingly, the biker film genre took advantage as Melody was cast as a Hollywood starlet in The Angry Breed (1968) and a former motorcycle gang member trying to go straight in The Cycle Savages (1969).
Melody was cast as movie starlet named April whose boyfriend was the leader of a motorcycle gang in the exploitation film, The Angry Breed (1968). “During the late sixties, Hollywood seemed to be always trying to portray itself as being populated by dope-crazed, LSD-taking, weirdoes,” remarks Patterson. “I think that is what this movie was supposed to be about. But I am not really sure. It is the worst movie ever made.” The Angry Breed tried to merge the world of violent bikers with the hip pill-popping Hollywood set but it was not a success. The reviewer in Variety noted that the film “[had] the look of a mismatch between an out and out sexploitation item and the type of actioner that has proven such a formula for American International.”
Though billed fifth, The Angry Breed starred Murray McLeod as Johnny Taylor, an actor and Vietnam vet, who has just returned to Hollywood with a script from a writer whose life in saved in battle. (“Good God, Murray wore his pants practically up to his armpits and was supposed to be the big hero,” jokes Melody laughing.) Johnny’s attempts to sell the script are unsuccessful. Broke, he begins living on the beach in Malibu where he comes to the rescue of Diane Patton (Lori Martin) who is being harassed by a Nazi-clad biker gang headed by Deek Stacey (James MacArthur). Patton’s father Vance (William Windom), a film producer, is so grateful to Johnny he agrees to finance the film. He hooks Johnny up with greedy homosexual agent Mori Thompson (Jan Murray) whose favorite client is none other than biker Deek who wants to star in the film. Mori convinces Vance to throw a costume party to celebrate the film’s start but he and Deek plot to do away with Johnny. At the party, which turns into a freak-out complete with LSD, Johnny’s leading lady April Wilde (Melody Patterson) pursues him but he wants Diane. A crazed Deek in disguise tries to kill Johnny but he escapes thanks to a diversion caused by Patton’s mute maid. The next day on the set Johnny recognizes Deek and has him thrown off the lot. That night Johnny learns that Vance has pulled his financing since he is unhappy about the budding romance between Johnny and Diane. Furious with her husband, his neglected wife (Jan Sterling) sabotages the cable car that takes Vance down to the beach for his nightly swim. Deek shows up bent on revenge and during the struggle with Johnny ends up in the cable car along with Vance. The car crashes killing Deek while an injured Vance realizes the error of his ways.
Recalling the shoot for The Angry Breed, Melody says, “This fellow’s [David Commons] only credit was a ketchup commercial and he thought he could direct a feature. How he got all of us—it was a good cast—in this movie to begin with I’ll never know. I haven’t the foggiest idea what my character was supposed to be doing and why. I ran around for a week sporting a mustache. It was difficult wearing it trying to flirt with Jimmy MacArthur, who was dressed in a Nazi uniform.” Mustache or not, Patterson was a knockout and got MacArthur’s attention—so much so that they were wed two years later.
The following year Melody Patterson had a more defined role and gave a convincing performance as Lea a troubled young woman trying to go straight while keeping her distance from her former biker gang in the violent film, The Cycle Savages (1969) directed by Bill Brame. Interestingly, the movie was produced by Top 40 deejay Casey Kasem and record executive Mike Curb, who later became the lieutenant governor of California. As the trade ads proclaimed, “Hot steel between their legs…The wildest bunch on wheels!” The film also featured a great exploitation cast including Bruce Dern, Chris Robinson, Scott Brady, Gary Littlejohn and Maray Ayres. Though panning the film, Variety’s critic commented that “the whole cast really tries.” Melody remarks, “Bruce Dern was wonderful and an absolutely an exciting actor. Chris Robinson and I had the same manager so we knew each other pretty well. I loved the director because he was an editor and knew what he was doing.”
https://youtu.be/0YSkQTSiaQQ
An artist named Romko (Chris Robinson) gets on the bad side of crazed gang leader Keeg (an intense Bruce Dern) for sketching him and his outlaw bikers as they terrorized the patrons of a hamburger drive-in. Keeg is determined to retrieve Romko’s sketches because they could incriminate him and his renegade roughnecks in a white slavery operation they run. They slash Romko’s midsection and his neighbor Lea nurses him after Keeg threatens her to keep Romko away from his apartment. To stall Romko, Lea allows the artist to draw her nude while the gang ransacks his pad looking for his drawings. Lea falls for Romko and they make love but when the police come to investigate his attack they reveal that Lea was a decoy for the gang and was pressured to distract him. Meanwhile, Keeg and his gang have coerced a high school girl over to their lair where they give her LSD and gang rape her. After being rejected by Lea, the bikers capture Romko and torture him by squeezing his hand in a vise. A pistol-packing Lea arrives to save him but she lacks the courage to shoot anyone. As the police close in, the gun is grabbed by biker chick Sandy (Maray Ayres), who chases a fleeing Keeg and shoots him dead.
“I had a better experience working on The Cycle Savages than The Angry Breed though I can’t say it was a better movie,” comments Patterson. “I was in the midst of my Method acting period and it seemed like everybody was taking long pauses before saying their lines. I didn’t like doing nudity but I agreed to do a back shot and a love scene. That is when I found out that I had a curvature of the spine. My mother was on the set to make sure everything was on the up and up. It was done with the utmost care and on a closed set. What I found amusing the most was that the sketch of me drawn by Chris’ character was a lot bustier than I was.”
RIP Melody Patterson. You will be missed.
For more on Melody Patterson, link below to purchase my book Drive-in Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties:
Sad news, this has been a terrible week. Ironic, since Melody’s rare shocker BLOOD AND LACE will finally be released on home video for the first time this coming November. I was hoping that she might give an interview for the Blu-ray/DVD set.
I find THE ANGRY BREED much more enjoyable than she did. It does seem strange that the film seems to have no nudity at all. At least, I’ve never seen a print with any nudity. Perhaps all of the prints I’ve seen were TV prints. I suppose that one-time director David Commons could have deliberately made an exploitation film without nudity. I don’t think that ANGRY BREED received much of a theatrical run. It never played Seattle, where I was at the time.
I totally enjoyed it to but I am a sucker for most 1960s biker movies.
Sorry, but these pictures, from “ANGRY BREED”, are all, not, of Melody Patterson, but actually, of of Lori Martin, a personal friend, now deceased. She was the star, of the TV series, “NATIONAL VELVET”, for two seasons, starting, in 1960. Lori was originally a blonde, when she started acting, as a young child, under her real name, of Dawn Menzer, but, to win the Velvet role, she dyed her hair black, so that she would look just like Elizabeth Taylor, who starred, in the movie role. Her hair remained black, including, for her most famous role, as Gregory Peck’s teenage daughter, in the original “CAPE FEAR”, in 1962, but she reverted back, to her original, blonde, for “ANGRY BREED”, in 1968. I’m very surprised, that no one else has noticed this error. I also own an original, 16mm print, of this film, as well as much more, of her personal memorabilia.