Screenwriter William Mcintyre was kicking around Hollywood trying to sell his first script when the outlaw biker genre roared onto screens. He promptly wrote a screenplay called TO BE AN ANGEL, which was picked up by Spinnaker Films.
Spinnaker released TO BE AN ANGEL in 1971 but changed the title to the more exploitive LIVE LIKE AN ANGEL, DIE LIKE AN ANGEL and then DEATH ON TWO WHEELS.
Spinnaker Films is best remembered for the success of a pair of seventies wilderness adventure hits, THE MAN FROM THUNDER CREEK (1975) and its sequel RETURN OF THE MAN FROM THUNDER CREEK (1977). RETURN OF THE MAN FROM THUNDER CREEK is probably best remembered for being the first (and last) “Children’s film” to feature full frontal nudity.
Shortly after the release of THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM THUNDER CREEK, Spinnaker Films filed for bankruptcy due to mismanagement and became involved in the first (and last) bankruptcy proceeding to feature full frontal nudity.
Things slowed down for Mcintyre until 1973 when he went to work on another biker script that he was hired to pen for Tillman Films International.
Walter Tillman who had worked for Spinnaker Films, remembered McIntyre and asked him to come up with another biker film script.
William McIntyre: I had just finished a script for a biker film that I was hired to write for producer Walter Tillman of Tillman Films International. When I delivered the completed script, he told me that he was no longer interested in producing a biker film, as he had heard from a bartender that the genre was falling out of favor with audiences. He asked me if I had any other ideas. I didn’t. He said that he was going to take a weekend retreat in the mountains to do some skiing and told me to come back on Monday with some ideas. All weekend long, while I was in my tiny one room apartment, I was thinking about him having a ball skiing. Then it came to me. I showed up on Monday with a treatment for THE AVALANCHE ANGELS (1973). Tillman showed up with a broken arm. I pitched it as an outlaw biker film in the snow. I explained to him that instead of a gang on motorcycles, we’d have them on snowmobiles. He loved it. He said that he had heard from his maid at the hotel that snowmobiling was the next big thing. I basically took the biker script and changed everything over a snow-covered narrative.
PLOT: The Avalanche Angels are a trio of spoiled rich kids looking for kicks. They ride between the ski resorts ripping off the gullible tourists. The intake from these crimes is typically small change, prompting Grue their leader, to seek other more lucrative avenues for cash. Enter Robson, a self-dubbed criminal mastermind who tricks the Angels into a bank robbery scheme, planning on pocketing the profits for himself and leaving the Angels to twist in the wind for the cops. Grue doesn’t trust Robson but is so desperate to make a big score that he goes along with his plan to get money.
Snow Angel was played by Veronica Kunkel, in her first and only film role. She was a college student, who became a schoolteacher.
Grue was played by Nate Kingsley, who spent five years at the Pasadena Playhouse. . . As a janitor. He would go on to feature in the long running depression era family television drama PLEASE KILL US NOW (1974-1981).
Tillman Films International went on to release the horror-comedy LIGHTS! CAMERA! AAARRGH! (1974) which was about a living dead movie director who noshes his way thru producers, actors, agents critics and an assortment of Hollywood types. In other words . . . He was the hero.
Tillman then picked up the West German sex film FRECHE INTERNATSMÄDCHEN FAHREN IN DEN URLAUB (1974) aka NAUGHTY BOARDING SCHOOL GIRLS GO ON VACATION and retitled it THE SUITCASE GIRLS for US drive-ins.
Then re-released it as . . .
