Kansas City Bomber
                             
Director: Jerrold Freedman
Year: 1972
Rating: 7.0
I watched this film thinking, this really existed? Holy shit. Roller Derby is like team wrestling on roller skates - fast, hard hitting and nasty as hell. And they are women. Bashing the hell out of each other. Knocking them over the railings as they speed around the ring, kicking them when they are down, a good punch to the face just for the hell of it. And they get up and keep going. There seem to be very few rules other than you can't bring a shiv to the fight. Again, this really existed?  Yup. It had been around for decades but then in the 1940s they turned it into a contact sport. That brought in working class fans - the same ones who like to watch executions. The ones generally missing teeth and looking like products of a brother and sister. Yelling for more violence. Throwing drinks or whatever is at hand at the players. It was shown on TV for years but I never saw it and not long after this film the leagues collapsed and it disappeared from public view. I guess this film didn't give it a jolt. But it is back! Not professionally but there are hundreds of amateur teams all over America and it has spread globally. I can't imagine it is as rough as it was back then.



And Raquel Welch signed up for this. She hadn't roller skated since she was a child but practiced for months, often with the professionals. I have no idea how much of this is really Raquel getting into these constant skirmishes and being bludgeoned and knocked over or Judy Arnold as her stunt double - but she clearly does a lot of it and had the bruises and injuries to show for it. This isn't Rockyesqe - it is down and dirty with no future - just the grim reality of another game ahead in front of rabid fans where you will be physically punished.  Night after night. The long bus rides, the lousy hotel rooms, the healing of injuries. This doesn't romanticize the game or give Raquel any pizzazz - she is the mother of two young children (which in fact she had before she got into show business) - one being played by a very young Jodie Foster. She plays for the money and the sense of independence because there is no glory. It is one of her best roles in which she clearly gives it all she has both on the rink and off.



K.C. is a star on the Kansas City team but is having a feud with a fellow teammate played by real roller derby star Patti Moo Moo Cavin - you probably don't remember her as we do many of the wrestlers of that period. They have a personal match - first one around the rink five times. The loser has to leave town for good. Speed has little to do with it as they clobber one another, often turning back for one more kick when one of them is down. K.C. loses and gets traded to Portland where the owner (Kevin McCarthy) wants more than just good play from her. He feels like a used heroin needle left in a dark alley. There are two teams - one male and the other female but from time to time one of the men rushes in when the women are playing to deliver a punch. In one melee, chairs and tables are used as weapons. No one stops it, no fouls are called. I never quite figured out how a team scores - there are no goals of any kind - it has to do with lapping the other team and so when the other teams see that one player is about to do this, they make a roadblock of players to stop the lapping - in any way they can.



Most of the film's time is spent I would guess on the actual games - with the rest focusing on the team off the rink and K.C.'s personal life which is lonely and desperate. I think the film is sort of amazing - not necessarily good but you won't see anything like it. It feels so real, the camera capturing it all, staying with the action up close and personal is a tribute to cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp - Patton, Towering Inferno, Pappillon. All the skaters do a great job - how much was choreographed versus just saying go out there and hit each other would be interesting. In particular, Helena Kallianiotes as K.C's rival on the team and Norman Alden (250 credits) who plays the big lunk take a lot of hits. In 2009 there was another roller derby film produced titled Whip It directed by Drew Barrymore starring Elliot Page (Ellen when the film was made). It is about these amateur leagues. I will track it down if I can. Roller Derby, what an insane sport.