James MacArthur (classic actress Helen Hayes's adoptive son) worked hard to shed his squeaky-clean Mouseketeer image from his '50s childhood acting days. In 1961 episode "Death for Sale," of "The Untouchables," he plays a clean-cut, preppy, baby-faced college student who is in reality the mastermind of an opioid-smuggling and -selling conspiracy. In the 1967 counterculture-exploitation flick "The Love-Ins," James turns up as an alternative newspaper journalist who becomes disillusioned by the hippie cult he has helped build around a Timothy Leary-like guru to the hippies (Richard Todd). In this trashy film, substandard even by the low bar of the biker-exploitation flick, James is the alpha male of a gang of neo-Nazi bikers, with a sideline in acting as an extra in Hollywood productions. This film has a lot of potential- duplicitous Hollywood film execs, innocent-blonde-in-peril, the menace of LSD, the heroic Vietnam War vet, and the aforementioned bikers, who look completely over-the-top-campy when dressed in costumes for a Halloween party. Veteran comedian Jan Murray turns up as a particularly despicable sleazebag. Yet despite the presence of quality acting talent- Murray, MacArthur, William Windom, Jan Serling, inter alia- it is boring and silly beyond belief. Fortunately, James would go the same year to his long-term TV role as "Dano" Williams, second in command to Steve McGarrett of the eponymous "Hawaii Five-O," and his restrained actor would serve as a welcome counterpoint to Jack Lord's hammy scowling and grimacing.
Review of The Angry Breed
