''Harley and the Davidsons'' is a 2016 American television miniseries directed by Ciarán Donnelly and

Stephen Kay Stephen T. Kay (born 1963) is an American actor, director, and writer of film and television. Career He has directed the films ''Get Carter'' and ''Boogeyman''. as well as directing episodes of '' Saved'', ''The Shield'', '' Friday Night Lights' ...

, and co-written by Nick Schenk,

Evan Wright Evan Alan Wright (born ) is an American writer, known for his extensive reporting on subcultures for ''Rolling Stone'' and '' Vanity Fair''. He is best known for his book on the Iraq War, ''Generation Kill'' (2004). He also wrote an exposé abou ...

and Seth Fisher which dramatizes the origins of motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, and how Arthur Davidson founded the company together with his brothers

Walter Davidson, Sr. Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...

and William A. Davidson, along with their childhood friend

William S. Harley William Sylvester Harley (December 29, 1880 – September 18, 1943) was an American mechanical engineer and businessman. He was one of the co-founders of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Early life Harley was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1 ...

. It stars Robert Aramayo as William Harley, Bug Hall as Arthur Davidson and Michiel Huisman as Walter Davidson, and premiered on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

as a "three-night event series" on September 5, 2016.

Cast

Starring * Michiel Huisman as Walter Davidson * Bug Hall as Arthur Davidson * Robert Aramayo as

Bill Harley Bill Harley (born William Harley, July 1, 1954 in Greenville, Ohio) is an American children's entertainer, musician, and author who has been called "the Mark Twain of contemporary children's music" by ''Entertainment Weekly''. He uses a range o ...

Supporting cast * Daniel Coonan as William "Big Bill" Davidson * Gabriel Luna as

Eddie Hasha Eddie Hasha (died September 8, 1912) was an American motorcycle racer on board tracks early in the twentieth century. His death contributed to the demise of the board tracks. He was nicknamed the "Texas Cyclone" since he was from Waco, Texas, Uni ...

* Philip Brodie as

George M. Hendee George Mallory Hendee (October 2, 1866 – June 13, 1943) was a bicycle racer and co-founder of the Indian Motocycle Manufacturing Company. Hendee first became involved with the bicycle industry after his bicycle-racing career. Not only did Hend ...

* Tommy Bastow as

Otto Walker Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

* Wilson Bethel as

Ray Weishaar Lawrence Ray Weishaar (September 9, 1890 – April 13, 1924) was a Class A Racing Champion in the 1910s and 1920s. He rode for the Harley-Davidson 'Wrecking Crew,' and helped to popularize the nickname 'hog' in reference to Harley-Davidson by ...

* Alex Shaffer as Albert "Shrimp" Burns * Dougray Scott as Randall James *

Stephen Rider Stephen Rider is an American film and television actor. He is known for playing Blake Tower in the Marvel series '' Daredevil'', Admiral Stephen W. Rochon in the film ''The Butler'', and Eric Millworth in the ABC series '' Lucky 7''. Career ...

as William B. Johnson * Jessica Camacho as Reya * Sean H. Scully as Walter C. Davidson * Annie Read as Anna Jachthuber/Anna Harley * Essa O'Shea as Clara Beisel/Clara Davidson *

Hera Hilmar Hera Hilmarsdóttir (born 27 December 1988), known professionally as Hera Hilmar, is an Icelandic actress. She has been active in the film industry since 1995. Personal life Hera is the daughter of the film director Hilmar Oddsson and the actres ...

as Emma Rosenheim/Emma Davidson

Episodes

Historical accuracy

While the series is largely based on actual events, and is lauded for its use of reproductions of motorcycles from the era, a number of creative liberties were made for dramatic effect, notably with the rivalry between Harley and Indian, with George Hendee and the fictional Randell James being portrayed as arrogant and manipulative executives bent at defeating Harley through underhanded corporate schemes such as

patent trolling In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...

and bribery. Some of the races and other subplots depicted in the miniseries were either fictitious or highly dramatized, particularly when Hendee challenges his competitors to an endurance contest hosted by his company, culminating in a fist fight between Hendee and Walter Davidson over dealership owners being bribed into selling Indian motorcycles exclusively, and a heated argument between the Davidson brothers following the dealership bribery incident. Eddie Hasha's death was downplayed in the Motordrome sequence, where he collided into a wall after avoiding a fellow racer; in reality Hasha's motorcycle suddenly turned sharply into the rail surrounding the track, killing a boy who had put his head over the rail to watch the race. The racer flew out into the grandstands, killing him instantly. Three other boys and a young man were also killed. In addition, Hasha's involvement with the company in the first episode was exaggerated and expanded upon, although he did indeed become friends with co-founder Arthur Davidson when he worked at a Dallas dealership and raced a motorcycle loaned by the company, in contrast to not being able to represent Harley and betraying in favor of Indian as depicted in the miniseries. Arthur Davidson's proposal of 20,000 motorcycles to the United States military for World War I was also fictionalized; Indian provided 41,000 units for the military effort while Harley produced 15,000. While the founders unveiled their 1936 EL at an outlaw race in the third episode, a pre-production version of the real-world EL was revealed in a 1935 dealers convention at the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee. In addition, the Knucklehead moniker as mentioned by Bill Harley didn't come into popular use until after World War II, when a revision to the OHV engine, later known as the Panhead, was introduced.

Reception

On the review

aggregation Aggregation may refer to: Business and economics * Aggregation problem (economics) * Purchasing aggregation, the joining of multiple purchasers in a group purchasing organization to increase their buying power * Community Choice Aggregation, the ...

website Rotten Tomatoes, the miniseries has an approval rating of 80% based on ten reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Good acting and fun action sequences lift ''Harley and the Davidsons'' from longform advertisement into a celebration of the storied motorcycle brand." On Metacritic, ''Harley and the Davidsons'' holds a score of 57 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Larry Lawrence of the motorcycling news magazine ''CycleNews'' gave the series a mixed to negative review, stating that it was "by most accounts a highly entertaining watch", but was critical of the highly dramatized portrayal of the company and its founders, particularly the Harley/Indian rivalry which culminated in an unresolved cliffhanger with the infringement case in the second episode, and the events of the third episode, where Harley unveiled their new motorcycle in a (fictional) outlaw race.

Reaction from the company

The show received positive reception from Harley-Davidson themselves. Bill Davidson, great-grandson of the original founders, and Bill Jackson, head of the company archives at the Harley-Davidson Museum, commended the producers' efforts in recreating the motorcycles and the era, saying "they really did their homework", but noted William A. Davidson's reduced role in the story despite the latter being one of the key founders.

References

External links

* * * {{Discovery Channel programming Harley-Davidson Motorcycle television series 2010s American drama television miniseries 2016 American television series debuts 2016 American television series endings English-language television shows Television series by All3Media Television series set in the 1900s Television series set in the 1910s Television series set in the 1920s Television series set in the 1930s Great Depression television series Discovery Channel original programming American television docudramas Films about companies Films directed by Stephen Kay