Roller Boogie (1979)
Despite only having enough plot for a twenty-minute short, Boogie stretches its ultra-lightweight hijinks out for five times as long. This is just as well otherwise we wouldn’t be treated to its lengthy opening dance sequence in which happy young men in clashing colors and too-tight shorts pirouette, slalom and wiggle their tight bottoms in formation along a Californian boardwalk as Cher belts out her approval. Just when you think there’s nothing more impressive than one dude simultaneously juggling and skating along comes Super Jack Flash, a bearded man in a pink boilersuit and flying goggles who can jump over six metal dustbins.
This agreeable anarchy continues inside the rink where all kinds of synchronized mayhem is on display. Some of these cats are so crazy that they will play leapfrog on the move while others walk around on their hands, making you wonder why they bother strapping skates to their feet in the first place. It’s a raging sea of swaying hips, high fives, spreadeagled limbs, and bubblegum-chewing girls being tossed around like they’re made of polystyrene. Meanwhile, that ‘one-man destruction derby’, the bluntly named Out of Control Conway, is busy knocking his fellow skaters over left, right and center. Amazingly, no one even objects, let alone punches the clumsy twat.
Pah! Who needs rape and revenge and all that Scandinavian angst?
Boogie depicts skating as a bonafide, dopamine-generating phenomenon, the permanently sunny boardwalk packed with shops that sell, rent or repair skates, such as the ever so wittily-titled United Skates of America. Everyone is on wheels, except fat people. Indeed, their absence is notable, making me suspect there’s an unwritten law in which chubsters not only have their inappropriate footwear confiscated, but are then led away to a back alley to be executed.
The box-office hit Boogie was Linda Blair’s sweet-natured swansong to the seventies, positioned just before she fell into slasher and bare-breasted WIP hell. Here she’s an adorable Beverly Hills rich chick and ‘musical genius’. Well, she can stick a flute in front of her mouth and pretend she’s playing. Not that she wants to follow parental orders and sign up for a prestigious New York musical academy. She’s much more interested in learning to frolic on wheels and win a tin trophy at the rink’s annual dance contest.
This subversive ambition enables her to meet a whole load of memorable beachside characters, such as Phones, a teen who has a pair of clunky headphones glued to his head, and… oh, that’s it. I guess I should also mention her love interest Bobby (Jim Bray), our Travolta on wheels and the boardwalk’s resident King Show-Off. He’s convinced he’s going to skate at the upcoming Olympics, despite it never having been an Olympic sport. Pah, I’m sure you’ll agree that’s a technicality.
Anyhow, his white-hot dedication is underlined when a couple of mates threaten to derail yet another three-hour practice session by trying to get him to do something as ridiculous as chase girls. “No Olympic judge is going to vote for a turkey boardwalk skater!” he retorts, a statement which is as true today as it was in 1979.
With its obvious nods to Saturday Night Fever, director Mark L. Lester realizes after about an hour that perhaps he needs to come up with a bit more than some skaters leaping over the camera, the odd overhead shot, and Blair grumbling about her emotionally distant folks. Hence, he chucks in a bunch of mobsters that (eek!) want to close down the rink and sell it off for redevelopment. Honestly, these are the most inept Mafioso I’ve seen since A Prayer for the Dying where one gangster was so hopeless that he was killed by a blind girl. Here the gangsters get pelted by fruit and can’t even catch our feisty, frantically skating heroes when they’ve got the slight advantage of pursuing in a car.
As you can probably tell, I’m a fan of the upbeat, slackly edited Boogie, including its horrendous fashions, lousy soundtrack, lame attempts at comedy and meaty dialogue like “I’ll be back when I get here!” At points it’s so camp that they might as well be skating inside a row of tents dressed as boy scouts and girl guides while admiring each other’s woggles.
Lead actor Jim Bray knew he could never top such a disciplined, kinetic performance and refused to appear in another movie. Just watch his mournful solo dance when he thinks he’s lost everything, a four-minute tour de force that starts with hands in pockets and builds to a series of slow-mo triple axels. Christ, there aren’t many artists out there that have the courage to know when they peaked and then draw a line under their genius. Director Lester probably grappled with the same dilemma, but thankfully forged ahead to helm Commando. However, I think we all remain a little sad that he passed on the opportunity of putting a camouflaged, heavily armed Schwarzenegger on skates.
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