C.C. and Company is a 1970 American biker film directed by Seymour Robbie. It starred Joe Namath as biker C.C. Ryder, Ann-Margret as fashion journalist Ann, and William Smith as Moon, the leader of the fictitious outlaw biker club the "Heads Company". The film also features singer Wayne Cochran and his band The C.C. Riders.
Contents
Plot
C.C. Ryder falls in with a biker gang in the desert, and then rescues Ann from trouble with the same gang. There next occurs a motocross race tied in with a fashion shoot. The Heads disrupt the event, but C.C. Ryder enters the race to gain Ann's favor. This puts him in conflict with Moon. When Ryder wins the race and leaves with his award money the gang kidnaps Ann, and Ryder must ride back to save her.
Cast
Joe Namath as C. C. Ryder
Ann-Margret as Ann McCalley
William Smith as Moon
Jennifer Billingsley as Pom Pom
Mike Battle as Rabbit
Greg Mullavey as Lizard
Teda Bracci as Pig
Don Chastain as Eddie Ellis
Sid Haig as Crow
Bruce Glover as Captain Midnight
Keva Kelly as Tandalaya
Jackie Rohr as Zit-Zit
Robert Keyworth as Charlie Hopkins
Alan Pappe as Photographer
Ned Wertimer as Motorcycle salesman
Wayne Cochran as himself and his band
Reception
Reviews were mostly negative. It was described by The New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby as "the picture to name when someone asks you to recommend 'a good bad movie.'":
It's not very long; it pays attention to every hallowed idiocy of its genre, and its characters talk a marvelously unreal type of movie repartee.
(Truck-driver: "You a student?"
She (cheerfully): "No. I'm a teen-age prostitute. Give you any ideas?")
What's more, its images are crammed with advertisements (for, among other things, Hamm's Beer, Hondas and Kraft Cheese) that are its own kind of relevant symbology.
In his Chicago Tribune review, Gene Siskel, who supplied it with no stars, felt it was "hateful", adding: "C.C. and Company" is the film that asks the musical question, "What do you want—bad acting or bad taste?" Director Seymore Robbie's idea is to have the women in the film make obscene remarks with their fingers and mouth.
After 20 minutes of visual effluvia, the big race is finally on. No, not around the dirt motorcycle track ... the one up in the aisles.
Ann-Margret has a brief nude scene in which she proves that in addition to having a foul mouth she is fat.
The film was also blasted by the Cleveland Press' Tony Mastroianni:
"C. C. and Company" arrives on the waves of such big budget ballyhoo that it seems a shame to dismiss it by simply calling it awful, which it is.
How about meretricious? That's a big budget word for awful and the fellows responsible for this picture needn't feel they've been short-changed in the adjective department.