User Reviews

This is one of those rare films (wait...don't leave I'm making a point) that is exactly what you think it is. It's so easy to to watch this and then tell everyone within earshot that it sucks but the truth of the matter is that anyone expecting to view a good film is lying. Story is about a rich girl named Terry Barkley (Linda Blair) who's a musical genius (according to her parents, anyway) and she's expected to head to Juilliard very soon to play the flute. She and her friend Lana (Kimberly Beck) frequently head to Venice Beach to roller skate and they notice that a roller boogie contest is going to take place which prompts Terry to seek lessons.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** Terry asks Bobby James (Jim Bray) who's the very, very best roller boogie skater to help her and he does which prompts the two of them to get romantic with each other. The local roller rink is Jammer's and the owner Jammer Delaney (Sean McClory) is being hassled at gunpoint by some goons headed by the gangster Thatcher (Mark Goddard) who wants him to shut down the place so that a shopping mall can be built. It's up to Terry and Bobby to save the place but when word spreads that they have a taped conversation Thatcher attempts to stop them!

This is directed by veteran Mark Lester who directed many "B" films and if this effort is any sign of how deep his talents lie than it's a miracle he was able to continue any type of a career. How bad is this? It's pretty bad and most films that are made for the sake of cashing in on the latest fad are awful and this isn't any different. What can you say about a script that has a rich educated girl wanting to throw away the opportunity of going to Juilliard to instead try and win a cheap trophy at the local roller boogie rink? I had to laugh at actors Roger Perry and Beverly Garland who play the parents and Perry's reaction to everything that his wife utters is "Shut up"! In one scene Garland sits on the steps and as she talks to her daughter she empties all the vials of drugs out of her purse until she finds her precious Valium! The acting is particularly bad and while I'm not one of those who considers Blair a bad actress I think in order to keep working she had to accept roles such as this. Of all the ridiculous scenes that this film has in it the most inane has to be where the one (and only) black actor throws in the towel and becomes a Hare Krishna to forget disco music and roller skating after learning that the roller boogie contest is going to be canceled! This film does have one great thing in it and her name is Kimberly Beck! I've always been a huge fan of hers and while her role is horribly written she is still breathtaking to watch and the best scene comes as she's doing her nails by the pool. You can probably put this in the "It's so bad it's good" category and while it's always easy to just say this is crummy it's still a film that's exactly what it advertises.

The epic magnitude of the eastern front of World War II serves as a backdrop for this riveting drama in which teenage Blair rescues two dozen prisoners of war and transports them to safety over treacherous mountainous terrain, all the while being pursued by vicious Nazi.... er..... What? Oh, yeah. Right. Okay. Take two: Pampered, lonely, rich girl Blair prefers spending time on roller skates down at Venice Beach over pursuing a degree in music at Juilliard. Her wealthy parents are appalled that she would rather attempt to win a big Roller Boogie contest with scrawny, local, wheel-meister Bray instead of training as an expert flautist and marrying similarly-rich, preppie Nelson. Blair heads to the beach at every opportunity in her vintage car (for which there is ALWAYS a spot right next to wherever she's going despite the giant mobs of people everywhere!) She and best pal Beck catch the attention of Bray and his friends Van Patten, Insinnia and Jackson (who, hilariously, is never shown without his strapped-on cassette player with huge earphones.) When crooked developer Goddard attempts to take over the favorite skating rink run by boozy McClory, it's up to Bray and company to come to the rescue. Anyone who's ever seen a motion picture can predict the outcome. Blair, who gained worldwide fame as Ellen Burstyn's possessed daughter in "The Exorcist", is all grown up here, though not fully rid of her baby fat. Tottering around in spike heels when she isn't on her skates, her pneumatic little body parades around in all the latest (gag-inducing) Danskin sportswear. She has an opening scene in which she ritualistically puts on her skating togs that Richard Gere must have studied obsessively prior to filming "American Gigolo" in which he made getting dressed a sport. Content that she looks appropriately ridiculous, she gives herself a congratulatory look in the mirror before heading out. Though the script is atrocious in every way, Blair demonstrates that her early career praise was overstated, to say the least. She, however, is Dame Judi Dench compared to Bray who, thankfully, never appeared before a movie camera again. Weighing in at 136 pounds, if that, he struts and skates around in an eye-burning variety of short shorts and knee high tube socks as his lame-brained friends question his ability to land a chick. This movie being science fiction, he eventually winds up with Blair, though their relationship is far from smooth. In fact, they fight more than they do anything else and it's not always easy to see why! Blair's parents are played by veterans Perry and Garland who don't always look as embarrassed as they ought to be considering the repugnantly stupid dialogue that's been assigned to them. Perry comes off slightly better than Garland who is forced to called Blair "Lovey" all the time and sort through her purse revealing a pharmacy full of various pills! Fans of "The Colbys" will be amused to see that Blair's house is the same one that housed Charlton Heston and Barbara Stanwyck, though the TV show used different interiors than this film which uses the actual location. The pool in the back, however, is unmistakable. Goddard, best known from "Lost in Space", doesn't even show up until nearly an hour into the film and tries to remain dignified, though it isn't easy. In a fair world, the lead of this film would have been Beck, who is taller, slimmer, blonder, bustier and just generally more appealing than Blair. She is given virtually nothing to do. Nelson is saddled with a clichéd character whose only memorable moment is having his behind exposed just as his mother opens the front door. From the moment it starts, this movie provides gales of laughter. Dozens and dozens of skaters (a few using an awkward and hysterically funny windsail contraption!) zip around the neighborhood while a song that Cher doubtlessly leaves off her resume pounds on the soundtrack. The film continuously places rear ends and crotches in the audience's face (and did girls REALLY go skating on the beach and in the rinks wearing ONLY leotards and hose??) Rarely do the chuckles subside as the horror fashion show, cheesy music and jaw-dropping scenarios continue. By the time Bray has skated an ode to McClory in a darkened rink, Goddard has been fended off with ripened fruit, Bray and Blair outskate a speeding car and Bray and Blair's skating double have taken top honors at the contest, a good time has been had by the viewer, albeit for all the wrong reasons! There simply aren't words....

****Some Spoilers**** With the popularity of "Saturday Night Fever" back in 1977 the Hollywood crowd tried to cash in on the skating and disco craze that was sweeping Southern California around the same time and decided to make a movie to capitalize on it and thus the idea for "Roller Boogie" was born. But by the time that the movie was released around Christmas 1979 the disco and skating craze was just about over and the makers of "Roller Boogie" were stuck with a big turkey and it was long past Thanksgiving. Even if the disco/skating craze was in full bloom "Roller Boogie" would have still bombed out because of it's very disjointed music and skating sequences as well as it's silly story that would have been better if there was no story at all. The plot of the movie is so childish and simple that even the crowd that it was targeted for found it hard to take. Unlike "Saturday Night Fever" which besides the great musical score and exciting dance numbers was also a top notch drama about a young man coming of age and seeing that his future was more then just discoing the night, as well as his life, away. And after a number of trials and tribulations left his disco and partying environment to face the real world at the end of the movie. But in "Roller Boogie" there's nothing even close to that in the story. Terry, Linda Blair, is a musical prodigy when it comes to plying the flute and has received a full scholarship to the prestigious Julliard School for the Preforming Arts in New York City that coming fall. But Terries real love is to Roller Boogie the day and night away down by the beach and boardwalk in Venice Calif. To make a short story long Terry falls for Bobby, Jim Bray, who besides being very cute is also the best Roller Boogier on the boardwalk. After Bobby has a few tussles with Terry, who acted as if she wasn't interested but really was, both Terry and Bobby agree to skate in the big Roller Boogie contest at the end of the summer at the Jammer's Skating Rink as a duet but only after Booby teaches Terry the ins and outs of being a successful Roller Boogier like he is. Meanwhile the mob, yeah those guys, are trying to muscle in the Roller Boogie rink Jammer's and convert it into a big shopping mall and they finally get it's owner Jammer Delany, Sean McCory, to sell it to them after threatening to blow his brains out and burn down the rink, those mobsters always have to spoil everyone's fun. With everything that can go wrong going wrong against the Roller Boogiers, even Terries father who she ask for help turned out to be the lawyer for the mobsters front company who is to build the shopping mall, it looks like their dreams of Roller Boogieing is about to come to a sad end. But then, just like magic, before you can say Roll la' Boogie the Roller Boogiers come up with an audio tape of the mobsters shaking down Jammer Delany to sell them his roller rink that one of the Roller Boogiers taped without knowing about it, that figures, and with that tape as evidence the gig is up for the mobsters, or so we thought. But not after the customary, that movies like this that have no real story to carry themselves through the ninety or so minutes on the screen, chase scene up and down the streets and boardwalk of Venice with the mobsters getting pelted by the Roller Boogiers with truckload after truckload of fruits and veggies. The mobsters have guns and do pull them out from time to time during the movie and even point them threateningly but for some strange and unexplained reason never used them? The chase finally ends at the Jammer's Skating Rink with the cops, mobsters, Roller Boogiers and everyone else in the movie in attendance there. And then one of the Roller Boogiers sneaks into the Jammer's sound room and plays the very incriminating tape to a stunned and shocked audience where it's heard by everyone there over the PA sound system of the mobsters threatening Jammer Delany with violence if he didn't give in to their demands. With that the mobsters goose is cooked and not only do they lose their bid to get the Jammer's Skating Rink but are arrested by the police and led away to be indited and tried for criminal extortion. With all the evidence against them the mobsters would be better served if they threw themselves on the mercy of the court hoping that they would get just a long prison sentence instead of being forced to be in another Roller Boogie movie. Now happily with everything back to normal and the big Roller Boogie contest free to be held with the Roller Boogieing pair of Bobby and Terry competing you don't have to be a real genius to figure out who won the great event. An awful film that would have better served everyone involved with it if it was just left in the can and quietly forgotten about then it being released to the public and ending up embarrassing those who were in it as well as those who made it. The only reason one can have for watching "Roller Boogie" is to see Linda Blair in her tight and sexy outfits almost bursting from the seams against her very impressive and ample body. The movie "Roller Boogie" is almost impossible to find on VHS, I don't think that it's been re-issued for over twenty years, or seen on cable-TV and you can forget about ever seeing it on DVD. As far as I know the movie negative was deep sixth in the Pacific Ocean. It seems that everybody involved in the movie "Roller Boogie" would like to have it expunged from their memories like one would want to forget a very very bad dream.

A very dated film that serves up laughs for succeeding generations of Netflix users. And while Roller Boogie can boast of about a dozen or so unintentionally hilarious lines, it really is pretty dire stuff in every way possible. And to be honest, that's about the only angle I can give this film; just watch it in order to laugh at it. That's not much of a recommendation, but I don't think very much of the film.

The dancing is terrible, but what can you expect, they're dancing with roller skates on. The acting is horrible, but what can you expect, who the hell else would agree to be in this film?

It's too bad, but for Linda Blair at the time this movie was made, her best days in Hollywood were already a thing of the past.

I'm here to tell you that in my small hometown that the Ellport Roller Rink was the biggest deal when I was seven years old in 1979.

Most Friday nights and plenty of birthday parties were spent there, rolling around the track that seemed huge as a child but was probably impossibly small were I to see it today. That's why if someone watches 1979's Roller Boogie they probably will laugh at its charming anachronisms and wonder if this could have ever been the real world. It was. I am here to tell you, on some small level, when I was a chubby seven-year-old, my birthday party was my parent's approximation of this film. Also: I got a Rodan doll, so I'll say that that was my best birthday ever.

Roller Boogie concerns Terry Barkley, rich girl classical flutist (this makes the third movie in a row I've watched where Linda Blair's family just ignores her) and Bobby James (real-life roller skating champion Jim Bray), the man who she hires to train her to be a skater. Also, Terry drives perhaps the greatest car I've seen in a film, an Excalibur Phateon. Luckily, IMDB informed me that it's actually an Excalibur SSK, which ended up being an overpriced, hard to drive kit car cover version of a Mercedes SSK that cost way more than it should have.

They're from different sides of the track, the rollerskating track that is. Both of their respective sets of friends and family make fun of them for falling in love as they're obviously not made for one another.

Sadly, Jammers, the club where everyone skates, is about to be sold to the mafia to pay off a debt. This means that a fancy party gets ruined and a bunch of rollerskaters have a massive chase sequence. Then there's a Boogie Contest before Terry goes to New York to be the queen of the flute and Bobby goes to the Roller Skate Olympics.

This is the kind of movie where a DJ leans into a mic and says, "It's time to play you some of that new sound." Where people lift on Venice Beach. Where more time is given to people leaping on their skates over barrels than character development. Where Linda Blair wears skimpy outfits and bikinis in the film that's amazingly her last studio film, yet she continues to act today. Impossibly, it looks gorgeous, which I contribute to the talent of Dean Cundy, the director of photography whose magic helped make Halloween stand out so much.

Roller Boogie was written by Barry Schneider, who also wrote two movies based on hit songs, Harper Valley P.T.A. and Take This Job and Shove It, as well as Ruby, Deadly Force and Class of 1984. Irwin Yablans, who produced Halloween and Tourist Trap, helped create the story and also produced. And director Mark Lester would go on to helm Class of 1984, Class of 1999, Commando and Firestarter.

This movie was a success at the box office and a sequel - Acapulco Roller Boogie - was proposed before disco died. If you're still in the mood for roller skating movies, however, I can also recommend Skatetown, U.S.A., which features Scott Baio and Patrick Swayze on wheels with Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormick, Ron Palillo and Ruth Buzzi providing the laughs and the love.

This movie came at a crossroads in Blair's life. She had to fly to Florida right after filming ending to face cocaine possession charges and thought that this film would remove her from being typecast for intense horror fare. However, the very next year, she'd star in Hell Night.

PS: My wife Becca has an eagle eye for movie locations. Terry's house was also used in the music video for The Cars' "Magic" and the movie Blind Date.

Mark Lester invites you to take a slice of life out of the Roller disco movement of the late 1970's. What can only be described as Campy Fun, highlighted with several musical numbers. Roller Boogie delivers at times High Energy and Fun,at the Roller Disco "Jammers.", in Venice Beach. Opening with Cher's "Hell on Whells", we get a glimpse of lovely Santa Monica and the carrying ons of the Disco Roller movement.

Beautiful Linda Blair, and skating guru Jim Bray star as star struck summer lovers , who desire to win the Disco Boogie Championship. Subplot of mobsters taking over the "Jammers", by extortion to create their own view on the Pacific Ocean. Mark Goddard of "Lost in Space" is the head baddie. Jim Perry and Beverly Garland are the rich condescending parents of Linda Blair. The film moves at a good pace, for a film that lasts about 120 minutes. It is cheesy, but never pretends to be more than sum of its' parts. It really is a celebration on wheels, everyone should experience Roller Disco, maybe the world would be a better place. A very honest film, I gave it a 7 out of 10.