The Girls from Thunder Strip (1970)/Hells Chosen Few (1968) in the PNW

Details: Written by: Mortado; Category: The 1970s in Northwest Cinemas

This is a collection of media from the initial runs of "The Girls from Thunder Strip" (1970) and "Hells Chosen Few" (1968) in the Pacific Northwest.

Click on images for larger versions.

The Girls from Thunder Strip (1970)
“The Girls from Thunder Strip” is one of those scrappy, sun‑bleached relics of 1970 exploitation cinema that pretends to be about rebellion but mostly wallows in the cheap thrill of watching people claw at each other in the dust. It’s a biker picture by way of a back‑road fever dream, where the world feels small, mean, and permanently overheated. The film centers on a group of women who refuse to play by the rules laid down by the local macho parasites and instead carve out their own territory on the fringes of nowhere. But the movie never romanticizes them; it treats their defiance like a survival instinct rather than a manifesto, as if the only real ideology left in this corner of America is not getting stepped on.

The tone is pure grindhouse: dusty shacks, sputtering engines, and men who think violence is a personality trait. The women, for their part, aren’t written as symbols of empowerment so much as people who have learned that the world won’t give them anything unless they take it with both hands. The film’s cynicism is baked into every frame. Authority is useless, morality is a luxury, and the only currency anyone respects is force. Even the camaraderie among the women feels brittle, like it’s held together by shared trauma rather than trust.

What makes “The Girls from Thunder Strip” interesting, though, is how it exposes the emptiness of the biker‑gang fantasy. The men swagger around as if they’re kings of the wasteland, but the movie keeps showing how pathetic their kingdom really is. Their power is a joke, their threats are hollow, and their attempts to dominate the women only highlight how fragile they are. The film never says this outright, but it doesn’t need to; the images do the talking. Every confrontation feels like a reminder that the American counterculture had already curdled into something desperate and joyless by the time the decade turned.

The movie isn’t polished, and it doesn’t pretend to be. Its rough edges are part of the texture, part of the point. It’s a snapshot of a cultural moment where rebellion had lost its glamour, and all that remained was the grind of survival. “The Girls from Thunder Strip” doesn’t offer catharsis or uplift. It just stares at the dust, the noise, and the bad decisions, and lets the viewer draw their own conclusions about what freedom looks like when the world gives you nothing but scraps.

Director: David L. Hewitt
Writers: Pat Boyette, David L. Hewitt
Stars: Jody McCrea, Maray Ayres, Mick Mehas

Hells Chosen Few (1968)
“Hells Chosen Few” is one of those late sixties biker films that feels less like a narrative and more like a grimy cultural shrug, a reminder that the counterculture’s so-called freedom often curdled into something feral and small. The movie drifts through a world where the bikers aren’t mythic outlaws or tragic rebels but bored men circling the drain of their own bravado. Everything about the film feels sunburned and exhausted, as if the American dream has been left out on the porch too long and now smells faintly of gasoline and stale beer.

The story moves with the loose, wandering rhythm typical of the era’s exploitation output, but beneath the surface, there’s a kind of accidental honesty. “Hells Chosen Few” doesn’t glamorize its subjects; it barely tolerates them. The bikers swagger around like they’re kings of some forgotten wasteland, yet the film keeps revealing how flimsy their power really is. Their violence is petty, their loyalties are fickle, and their sense of purpose evaporates the moment they’re not revving an engine or barking orders at someone weaker. The movie never says outright that these men are hollow, but it doesn’t need to. Their emptiness leaks through the cracks.

What gives the film its rough charm is its unvarnished nature. There’s no attempt to smooth out the ugliness or pretend there’s a grand philosophy behind the chaos. The world of “Hells Chosen Few” is built on impulse, ego, and the kind of desperation that comes from realizing you’re living in a dead end but refusing to admit it. Even the moments that try to gesture toward camaraderie feel strained, like everyone involved knows the whole thing could collapse at any second.

In the end, the film stands as a snapshot of a cultural moment when rebellion had lost its shine, and the people clinging to it were left with nothing but noise and motion. “Hells Chosen Few” doesn’t offer insight so much as atmosphere, a dusty, cynical portrait of men who mistake aimlessness for freedom and menace for identity.

Director: David L. Hewitt
Writers: John K. McCarthy, David L. Hewitt
Stars: Jody Daniels, Kelly Ross, William Bonner

May 12, 1970 ad (Portland)