(1979/United Artists) DVD / VHS
Rave Reviews
“WOOF! Truly awful…. Everything about this one reeks amateur.”
—VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever
“If Fisher Price made a toy called My First Film Editor, this is what the output would resemble.”—Reed Hubbard, BadMovieNight.com
“Like a combination of Charlie’s Angels and CHiPs on skates.”
—John Allen, New Orleans Worst Film Festival
Plot, What Plot? Rarely are the words “narcissistic” and “nerdy” applicable to the same subject. But in the doofy disco classic Roller Boogie, almost every single character is both a narcissist… and a nerd. From their so-tight-even-the-guys-suffer-from-VPL disco short-shorts to their “lookit-me-I’m-flyin’” skate-cum-dance moves, every “actor” in this film achieved the nanoseconds-long apex of their lives in this geeky, freaky, squeaky-clean paean to the flash-in-the-pan fad that was roller disco.
Focused on a roller boogie skate-dancing competition at a club called Jammers, Roller Boogie takes its basic conflict from Romeo and Juliet A rich girl defies her parents to fall in love with a street guy who happens to be the man of the moment because of his prowess on roller skates. The rich girl is perennial Razzie contender Linda Blair, fresh off her phenomenal “success” tap-dancing in Exorcist II and now ready to boogie on wheels. The street guy is one of the most amazingly ama-teurish actors ever to be offered a lead role in Hollywood, a disco roller-skating champion named Jim Bray, whose gawkiness here no doubt contributed to his never making another film.
She’s buxom, chipmunk-faced, and no better an actress here than she was when she got an Oscar nomination for The Exorcist in a role whose every dramatic moment was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge. He’s pencil-neck thin, with a toothy grin and a bushy headful of disco hair that makes him look like a human Q-Tip on wheels. And together they’re … astoundingly ordinary. In the tradition of the old MGM teenager musicals, they not only plan to win the roller boogie contest, but must also convince her parents and his friends that they belong together, as well as thwarting a thug’s plot to shut down the roller rink and put up a shopping mall. From frame one, you know how everything’s gonna turn out, so just sit back and wallow in the film’s world-class oafishness.
Start with the songs. The one played under the opening titles, for example, featuring lyrics like, “I used to hate to skate … now, I can’t wait!” We all know disco was hardly the zenith of American songwriting, but this stuff makes Pirate Movie’s melodies look professional. Then there are those costumes, authentic to the ’70s styles of the period, but now so retro they seem almost ancient, with not a natural fiber anywhere in sight. Then there’s the dialogue, including such putdowns as, “I swear, you’ve got more hands than a poker game!” and “Our little genius is throwing a tantrum!”
But crowning it all are the roller disco “dance” numbers. Occasionally going for balletic moves, but for the most part showing the strain and stress necessary to pull them off, each of the “boogie interludes” in Roller Boogie is a hoot for a different reason. The one introducing the street characters, staged on the Venice Beach boardwalk, personifies the self-impressed, self-involved nature of roller disco itself, and features more gratuitous T&A than any episode of Charlie’s Angels. The one in which Blair and Bray finally connect at the rink includes the kind of pop-n-lock moves popular back then that now seem pathetically passé. The one in which everyone in the club forms a line and performs “The Coonga” shows just how utterly idiotic roller disco truly was. The one in which Bray “emotively” pays roller-skating tribute to the rink’s broken-down drunk of an owner is a marvel of sincere ineptitude. But the one in which Blair and Bray finally win the Roller Boogie Trophy is the most amusing of all, in part because you can’t help noticing that every time Bray has to hold Blair in midair, his face is frozen into an I-don’t-dare-breathe-or-I’ll-drop-her smile, and every time we should see him heft her over his head, they conveniently cut away … so they could bring in a crane?
Beloved by bad movie mavens for decades, Roller Boogie is the kind of film for which Linda Blair will never be forgiven, and for which Jim Bray is long since deservedly forgotten. So put on yer skates and boogie on over to eBay to bid on a copy now!
Dippy Dialogue
Terry (Linda Blair): “So what, I’m a musical genius! Whatta drag! Whatta bummer!!”
Choice Chapter Stop
Chapter 15 (“Boogie Night”): In which the big roller disco skate-off is held …
Razzie Credential
Roller Boogie missed being a Razzie nominee solely by being released the year before we began the awards. It did, however, contribute to Linda Blair’s 1987 Worst Career Achievement Razzie.