Theme Song:
“Memories In My Mind” by Tom Sullivan and Michael Lloyd.
This is a pretty good Rhodes-driven ballad. It’s a little overly sentimental given the source material, but at least the effort is there.
They even did a coda towards the end.
“Two-Wheeled World” by Porter Johnson
I’ve been alive for a bit now and have never had as much fun or as good of an attitude as is described in this song.
Interesting Dated References: A dive bar with windows covered in lace curtains; Repeatedly burning a male prostitute with cigarettes.
Social Context: This movie is insane. Somewhere there has to be a proper cut where it all works perfectly, but this seventy-seven-minute cut released on home video is wild. It’s Midnight Cowboy but quickly turns into homesteading Western before dropping into First Blood territory.
Summary: Through voiceover, male prostitute Guy (Michael Christian, who also wrote the script) explains to us how things have gone wrong for him. It’s a lot of existential musing as we watch a montage of him on dates with women over forty, visiting strip clubs, participating in orgies, and getting into fights.
Director David Worth did a lot of X-rated stuff under the name Sven Conrad, and it shows here, as there are a lot of shots of nudity and lovemaking.
Guy eventually ends up at an awesome house with a super sunken living room. He is then drugged and pulled into a husband/wife sweaty bondage sexual assault. Guy wakes up in the morning covered in cigarette burns, goes ballistic, and attacks the husband and a butler.
This fight scene is poorly choreographed but super intense, and is filmed in a way that makes it feel impactful.
Terrified that he’s killed the men, Guy goes on the run and eventually ends up at a farm where a young girl and her grandfather live. Through a montage of hard labor, he learns to love again and eventually starts to feel for the family as his own.
He also begins to have feelings for the daughter, Chris (Donna Wilkes), and they share several awkwardly filmed scenes together as their love blooms. We’re supposed to ignore that she’s a young teenager.
Meanwhile, the grandfather has a nemesis who attacks him. The blame is placed on Guy, who has to go on the run even though Chris repeatedly tells them it wasn’t Guy. There’s like 30 minutes of wooded chase scenes complete with helicopters, cops, guns, bats, and hiding in caves.
I know you think I just described three different movies, but it’s just one, and it all happens in a very choppy 77 minutes of pure cinema greatness. Recommended.
Worth Mentioning:
– Noted female impersonator Christopher Morley shows up briefly as Guy’s friend Mitch, who has an awesome apartment full of ephemera.
– Timothy Carey is listed on IMDb as being in the cast, but I could not find him anywhere and looked multiple times.
– David Worth has had a very interesting career that spans skin flicks to Kickboxer to modern-day giant shark movies. He also directed the great Poor Pretty Eddie, which starred Michael Christian, making Mid-Knight Rider their second collaboration.
– There is a lot of late-70s Los Angeles street footage during the beginning segment.
Poster and Box Art: Even the home video releases are all over the place. It was released as Mid-Knight Rider (most notably by Trans World Entertainment) and Hollywood Knight in the US, and as Mid Night Man in South America. I can’t even find a full listing of releases.
Seriously, there’s so little attention paid to this movie, unfortunately.