It’s A Wonderland
Roller Boogie
(1979)
Directed by: Mark L. Lester
Starring: Linda Blair, Jim Bray, Beverly Garland, Roger Perry, James Van Patten, Kimberly Beck, Mark Goddard, Stoney Jackson, Christopher S. Nelson
It’s 1979, year of the Iran hostage crisis, the energy crisis, and the Chicago “Disco Sucks” crisis. You don’t care, because you’re in Venice Beach, it’s a beautiful day, and you’ve got your quad skates on! Besides, Roller Boogie is playing down at the drive-in and your favorite skater Jim Bray is in it! I mean, you have all those Roller Skating mags with his mug all over ‘em. You think Hollywood doesn’t also have a subscription?
Yes, Roller Boogie, one of two 1979 cult skating disco classics (the other being Skatetown, U.S.A, naturally) featuring 70s actors well on their way to obscurity (and B-movie heaven). In this case it’s the adorable Linda Blair, everybody’s favorite possessed kid. She was doing fine after The Exorcist
until she starred in Exorcist II - The Heretic
, John Boorman’s beautiful failure that was the wrong exit ramp to Roller Boogie (and beyond).
Roller Boogie stars Blair as a rich girl from Beverly Hills named Terry Barkley who’s a musical genius with the flute. Her boring parents (Beverly Garland, the Roger Corman favorite, and Roger Perry, the guy who played the jet fighter pilot in the Star Trek episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday”) want to send her to Juilliard in New York. She’ll have none of that. It’s the roller skating contest down at the local skating rink she’s interested in. Hey, you gotta think big!
“What the hell possessed me to do Roller Boogie?”
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Roller Boogie opens up with a sequence so silly it must be seen to be believed. Jim Bray, as Bobby James, rolls down the boardwalk looking completely awkward as he tries to look “cool”. A bunch of goofy roller skating friends join him as Cher’s Hell on Wheels plays on the soundtrack. Come on, these guys look more like meals on wheels. Bobby James is a really great amateur skater and really wants to make it to the Olympics. Apparently, nobody had the heart to tell him that there is no quad skating competition in the Olympics, and by the end of the movie he still isn’t told. Poor guy - but why ruin his fantasy, right?
“With my Wheaties I am ready for the world!”
At the beach, Terry and her big-breasted blond friend Lana (played by Kimberly Beck, who would later be the spunky heroine in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), catch Bobby’s impressive skating, but Terry turns him down when he asks for a skate.
Wait a minute, that’s Kimberly Beck? Where has she been hiding those things??
“Who’s your surgeon?”
Anyway, Bobby James is told by his friends that he has no chance with Terry - she’s from Beverly Hills, you see - and he’s just a bum from the wrong side of the rink. By the way, one of his friends is named Phones (Stoney Jackson) who skates around with huge headphones and a retro-tape recorder. Phones is caught up in his own little world - his friends act like they love the song he’s playing, but he’s the only one who can hear it. Sometimes you should just humor the crazies. One of his other friends is named “Hoppy”. He lifts weights on the beach, eats alot, and is a total spaz. Yes, friends, he’s none other than Jimmy van Patten. Wait, this movie has a van Patten in it? You betcha!
The voices are telling me that this is fresh.
That night, at “Jammer’s” skating rink, Terry and Bobby have another meet-cute (he saves her from clutzy skater “Complete Control Conway” - get it, it’s ironic!). She offers to pay him to help her learn to skate. He comes on too strong, and she leaves him, again!
The next day at the beach, she shows up and asks him to help her skate again. Don’t you hate it when girls can’t make up their minds? The couple end up making out on the beach, and then Bobby rejects her (because he’s a total spaz). “Look, you’re not some bimbo from the boardwalk. You’re not gonna pay me for this too, are ya?” As if. Terry slaps him - the only sensible thing she ever does in this movie.
She speaks for all of us.
Later, her idiot rich acquaintance Franklin gets slapped by Bobby for bothering him. Franklin thinks his nose is broken, and van Patten has a great laugh over it.
It’s good being a van Patten!
Hold up a sec. Now, normally, the rich guy is the antagonist for the film’s hero, both of them fighting over the love-interest. Normally, he has many resources, a squad of goons to do his bidding, and some sense of style, which serve as a threat. Not in this movie. Franklin is stupid, has no style, no friends, is completely rejected by the rich girls, and to top it all off, he gets his ass kicked repeatedly by Bobby, the skinny dweeb in skates and short shorts. Folks, if Jim Bray can kick your ass, you just need to pack it in.
This is Franklin, a force to be reckoned with.
… and a suave lady-killer … (insert your own caption here)
… and macho tough-guy!
Back in 90210, Terry tells her mom that the flute sucks, classical music sucks, and she wants to skate to disco music from now on. Mom responds in what is probably the most amusing scene in the film - by pulling out the Valium. Watch as she goes through her purse:
“Diet pills, sleeping pills, diuretics, qualudes… valium!”
Nom Nom Nom!
This is what it is to be a parent in Beverly Hills. I like that she’s organized.
Later, Terry asks Bobby to breakfast. He offers to teach her the art of looking completely ridiculous in skates, for free. Yeah, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, what we’ve got are two schizophrenics - they’re perfect for one another!
Later at Jammers, they listen in as Jammer (Sean McClory, playing an Irish guy who drinks alot - how weird) is threatened by the mafia and forced into signing a contract to sell his rink. Phones unknowingly records the whole thing. By the way, the guy that threatens Jammer is played by Mark Goddard (Major Don West from Lost in Space. He’s accompanied by the goofiest set of 70s style mafia men I have ever laid eyes upon.)
As seen in the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage video.
There’s also a scene where Terry invites Bobby and his friends to a recital at her house. Obviously she got into her mom’s purse of goodies. It’s a collision course to wackiness as the guys show up looking like asylum escapees, say amusing lines like “You made me lose my whores doovers!” and completely ruin the recital. Of course it involves well dressed people falling into the pool. Why wouldn’t it? Terry is obviously pissed at Bobby for ruining her party. The question, of course, is why she would be dumb enough to invite him in the first place.
These guys were let loose when Reagan closed the hospitals.
Later on, Bobby is feeling sorry for himself so he goes off alone to skate in the dark.
You can make up your own caption here also.
Terry finds him (she is obviously a masochist at this point) and the two of them make up for the tenth time. After some more drama crap - honestly, I don’t feel like going into it - Jammer decides to keep the rink open for one more night so that the little roller babies can have their contest. But not before Thatcher and his goons track them down, trying to get the taped evidence. There’s a very exciting scene involving the mafia guys being attacked by fruit. Tension! Watch, as our lovable couple make sure to put on their goofy red helmets before being chased on their skates by a Cadillac stretched limo. It’s dangerous, but not too dangerous, because they have their necessary pads and helmets!
Let’s get out of here! But let’s do it safely!
The goons follow the couple to the rink and pull their guns. Guess who saves the day? Complete Control Conway, of course! Oh, did you forget about him? Sergeant Danner, the good cop, shows up too. And Terry’s lawyer daddy Roger Barkley, who arrives and complains about a kangaroo court. He must have gotten into his wife’s stash of pills because I thought I was looking at a crime scene. Anyway, Phones manages to play the tape of Jammer being threatened over the rink’s audio system. Daddy lawyer has a change of heart (was it really a change of heart, or did he realize like anybody with a brain would, that he’d never be able to win a case with that kind of damning evidence?) and declares the contract invalid.
It’s a living.
Finally we get to the contest, where Terry and Bobby compete in a skate sequence set to Michelle Aller and Bob Esty singing “Love Fire”. Linda Blair’s body double does some amazing skating moves! I had no idea that Linda’s body double was so good! (In fairness, Linda did do some skating herself - she even got bursitis in her hip because of it. But sometimes, when you make a masterpiece like Roller Boogie, the lumps are worth it). Anyway, in a surprising and unpredictable move on the film’s part, the couple win the contest, which made me very happy because I was worried for a second that they wouldn’t.
Don’t hate!
In the denouement, the two lovers share a goodbye as Terry finally comes to her senses and leaves town. She offers Bobby the trophy but he says his place is too small. He offers it to her, and she says there’s no room in her suitcase. LOL! Nobody wants to be reminded of the travesty that is their relationship!
I has a trophy. Nobody interested in stealin.
Terry tells him he’ll be a famous champion and Bobby says “I might even get to New York one day…”. Yeah, right. We all know he’ll be in Venice Beach next summer still wearing uncomfortably tight shorts while working the skate rental stand, and she’ll be in Manhattan hooking up with a famous violinist. But at least Bobby has skating! Yes, the skating fad will never die and neither will “boogie” music! Right?
~Bill G
Susan Miller has the definitive Roller Boogie site. Check it out.
Soundtrack information here.
Musical numbers were staged by David Winters. Who is David Winters? He’s only the guy who directed the completely awesome Space Mutiny
.
Director Mark Lester, of course, would later bring us his masterpieces Class of 1984
and the kick-ass Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Commando
.
