Rooney's story was inspired by sensationalistic media coverage of an American Motorcyclist Association motorcycle rally that got out of hand on the Fourth of July weekend in 1947 in Hollister, California.

The overcrowding, drinking and street stunting were given national attention in the July 21, 1947, issue of Life, with a possibly staged photograph of a wild drunken man on a motorcycle.

[5] The events, conflated with the newspaper and magazine reports, Rooney's short story, and the film The Wild One are part of the legend of the Hollister riot.

When their antics cause Art Kleiner to swerve and crash his car, he demands that something be done, but Harry is reluctant to act, a weakness that is not lost on the interlopers.

Later, as both clubs wreck the town and intimidate the residents, some bikers led by Gringo chase and surround Kathie, but Johnny rescues her and takes her on a long ride in the countryside.

Vigilantes led by Charlie chase and catch Johnny and beat him mercilessly, but he escapes on his motorcycle when Harry confronts the mob.

Uncredited The main differences between the screenplay and Frank Rooney's source story, "Cyclists' Raid", were that there were no rival gangs nor any romance between Kathie and any of the motorcyclists, and indeed she is the victim of the fatal motorcycle accident.

Filming mainly took place at the Columbia Pictures Ranch, "Western Street 'A'", which was re-dressed to depict a 1950s Midwest American town with the dirt paths covered in asphalt.

[12] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader wrote, "Legions of Brando impersonators have turned his performance in this seminal 1954 motorcycle movie into self-parody, but it's still a sleazy good time.

[15][16] In his book Censored (Chatto & Windus 1994), Tom Dewe Matthews reports that then-chairman of the BBFC, Arthur Watkins, rejected one of the many requests by Columbia Pictures for certification of the film, stating: Our objection is to the unrestricted hooliganism.

Matthews states that Trevelyan maintained his predecessor's stance, albeit in more conciliatory terms, when he assumed the chairmanship of BBFC, telling Columbia in a letter to them dated 3 April 1959: There has been a lot of publicity about adolescent gangs in London and elsewhere recently and, while in some ways the present gangs are more vicious than those depicted in the film, the behaviour of Brando and the two gangs to authority and adults generally is of the kind that provides a dangerous example to those wretched young people who take every opportunity of throwing their weight about [...] Once again we have made this decision [to refuse certification] with reluctance because we think it is a splendid picture.

Despite attendances from motorcycle clubs, Teddy Boys and "a sprinkling of London sophisticates and actors", he noted his usual clientele were largely unimpressed and the film "played to very average business".

1), Halliwell opined the BBFC ban gave a wrong impression of the film and, had it been awarded an 'A' certificate, would have attracted limited audiences of those who appreciated Kramer's work with no sensation.

The film showed a gang of motor-cycle thugs terrorising a small town; it was in fact based on a real incident.

On two or three occasions in the following years we were asked by the distributor to reconsider this decision, but we kept to it until 1969 [sic] when we gave it an 'X' certificate; even then there was some criticism of our decision.There were objections to the film in the United States of America, too, but of a more commercial nature.

Therein, Triumph's US importers stated that the film: is calculated to do nothing but harm particularly to a minority group of business people- motorcycle dealers throughout the U.S.A.Moreover, the letter went on to claim: To say that the story is unfair is putting it mildly.

[...] I urge you give the foregoing comments your unbiased consideration, with a view of stopping the production of this film.Having visited the set, the Motorcyclist journalist further stated: Maybe I was at the studio on the wrong day, but from my observations I don't see where motorcycling will benefit from Kramer's "celluloid saga of cycling".

[19] In the March 2, 1953, issue of Time magazine at page 38, Marlon Brando acknowledged the controversy surrounding the production, saying he would retire from films because: The stage has more freedom from censorship than the screen, e.g., The Wild One, about a band of rough riding motorcyclists.

He noted that "[i]n this film we were accused of glamorizing motorcycle gangs, whose members were considered inherently evil, with no redeeming qualities" and "[a] few nuts even claimed that The Wild One was part of a Hollywood campaign to loosen our morals and incite young people to rebel against their elders."

While he suspected that producer Stanley Kramer, writer John Paxton and director Lazlo Benedek may have initially intended to illustrate how easy it was for men to descend into an amoral pack mentality, in the end "they were really only interested in telling an entertaining story".

[21] In his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, Brando, writing of the film's effect, revealed that he himself was "as surprised as anyone when T-shirts, jeans and leather jackets suddenly became symbols of rebellion".

A 1964 silkscreen ink on canvas painting titled "Four Marlons" by Andy Warhol depicted four identical portraits of the actor as Johnny leaning across his Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle.

In the film The Bikeriders, the same exchange when seen on a television screening of The Wild One inspires the character ‘Johnny’ (Tom Hardy) to start his motorcycle club.