Tag: Ted Knight

Roller Boogie (1979)

ROLLER BOOGIE

ROLLER BOOGIE (1979) *1/2

Hot on the heels of reviewing THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY, here’s another one where it’s a soundtrack in search of a movie.

Or, in other words, a gimmick in search of a movie. ROLLER BOOGIE belongs to a specific time and place of quickie exploitation flick: post-SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER boogie down and roller skating, hence that genius title.

ROLLER BOOGIE should have been a better film. I mean, director Mark L. Lester went on to make CLASS OF 1984 and COMMANDO, two films that go above-and-beyond in going over-the-top and that’s both films’ best virtue by far.

Not in ROLLER BOOGIE, though, which earns a ‘PG’ from the MPAA. It should have been ‘R.’

I’ll give one example.

Early on in the picture, we’re talking first few minutes here, our female lead Terry Barkley (Linda Blair) gets dressed and we sense there’s a missing nude scene, like they filmed one but left it on the cutting room floor. This early scene establishes the awkwardness that we sense around Blair’s character all movie.

We find Blair, who was in her late teens when she made ROLLER BOOGIE, in her transition period, between her breakout in THE EXORCIST (1973) and later exploitation films like CHAINED HEAT and SAVAGE STREETS. Maybe it’s because I watched ROLLER BOOGIE after her later films that I felt like the 1979 film teases us with possibilities that it ultimately did not want to pursue, undoubtedly for commercial reasons. The one song that should have been written for Blair: “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” which was instead written for Britney Spears at the turn of the 21st Century. Rick James wrote “Cold Blooded” (title song for his 1983 album) about his relationship with Blair. “Cold Blooded” hit No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Upon further reflection, ROLLER BOOGIE does go above-and-beyond in recycling grand old cliches and stereotypes, pilfering from both the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland “Let’s put on a show” movies of the late 1930s and early ‘40s and the Frankie Avalon-Annette Funicello BEACH PARTY movies of the early ‘60s in addition to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and the disco and roller skating fads more contemporaneous with ROLLER BOOGIE.

Like THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY, ROLLER BOOGIE rattles off characters and scenes we have seen many times before.

Terry develops a romance with roller boogie master Bobby James (Jim Bray), who, get this, comes from another socioeconomic class than rich girl and musical genius Terry. Bray makes both his film debut and finale, basically playing a fictional version of himself … not all that well. He does skate convincingly, of course, and he does possess a great smile, but in any scene that requires any emotion whatsoever Bray absolutely falls flat on his face. Bray apparently had already earned 275 trophies for his skating before he made ROLLER BOOGIE. For his acting, though, Bray received “Dishonourable Mention” from the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards; Robby Benson won “Worst Actor” for WALK PROUD. Blair lost “Worst Actress” to Barbra Streisand in THE MAIN EVENT.

Then we have Franklin (Christopher S. Nelson), who’s this hopeless rich snob always lusting after Terry’s bod. We’ve seen this character archetype before, like Collins Hedgeworth (Paul Linke) in GRAND THEFT AUTO and Spaulding Smails (John F. Barmon Jr.) in CADDYSHACK. You remember Spaulding? He’s the snotty but spectacularly slobby grandson of Judge Smails (Ted Knight). In a classic scene, Spaulding wants a hamburger, no, a cheeseburger, a hot dog, and a milkshake … before Judge Smails sets the impetuous lad straight, “You’ll get nothing, and like it.” Well, there’s nothing that funny or worthwhile in ROLLER BOOGIE. Franklin’s scenes drag ROLLER BOOGIE down.

Cartoon gangsters lean on Jammer Delaney (Sean McClory), the owner of roller boogie rink Jammers. Nobody would ever believe this plot thread, but this here old Jammer, why he’s the last property owner holding out. Jammer’s sitting on a relative gold mine and he’s standing in the way of progress. We have seen this old cinematic war horse trotted out for everything ranging from BLACK BELT JONES (where property owner Scatman Crothers died from the weakest punch in cinematic history) to WHO’S THE MAN? Cartoon gangsters rarely ever bode well for a motion picture spread and they do not for ROLLER BOOGIE. I do not want to write another word on the plot.

Kimberly Beck’s next screen credit would be as final girl Trish Jarvis in 1984’s FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER. She famously said of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series: “I had never seen any of the FRIDAY films. And I didn’t want to see any of them. I still have never seen any of them. I just don’t like that kind of genre at all. And this was not even a B-movie, it was really just a C-movie.” Unfortunately, we do not have a quote from Beck detailing her experience playing Terry’s best friend Lana, who does really fill out her outfits rather nicely in ROLLER BOOGIE. She provides one of the fleeting pleasures of the movie. Sometimes, you take it wherever you can find it and ask questions never.

Caddyshack (1980)

CADDYSHACK

CADDYSHACK (1980) Three-and-a-half stars
Harold Ramis’ CADDYSHACK gives the consumer four movies for the price of one.

1) Rodney Dangerfield vs. Ted Knight.

2) Chevy Chase and his meandering philosophical musings and lady man ways.

3) Bill Murray and his bizarre shenanigans.

4) The caddies and their little melodramas.

Most films don’t even give us one.

We have four distinct comedic styles at work in CADDYSHACK: Dangerfield (1921-2004) comes on and thankfully never stops doing variations on his night club act; Knight (1923-86) plays the ultimate snob and perfect counterpoint to Dangerfield; Chase gives us Zen wisdom filtered through deadpan absurdity; and Murray creates a world of his own that combines Dalai Lama and Cinderella stories, gross out snooty old ladies Baby Ruth taste testing, hunting and blowing up animatronic gophers real good, and Bob Marley joints.

Murray’s like a gopher within CADDYSHACK itself, burrowing underneath Dangerfield vs. Knight and the caddies.

CADDYSHACK plays like a 98-minute throwback to the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and W.C. Fields.

First-time director Ramis (1944-2014), in fact, envisioned Murray as Harpo Marx, Dangerfield as Groucho, and Chevy as Chico. Guess that made Ted Knight the villainous Sig Ruman (A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A DAY AT THE RACES) and Cindy Morgan a more risqué Thelma Todd (MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS).

Improvisation and cocaine fueled CADDYSHACK.

It seems like Ramis and gang threw away the script written by Brian Doyle-Murray, Ramis, and Douglas Kenney (Ramis and Kenney worked together on NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE) just to make it all up as they went along, especially Chase, Dangerfield, and Murray.

This is one example of how the makers of a film went in expecting to make a certain film and came out with something completely different. The original plan had been to make the movie focused on the caddies, of course with a title like that, but the comedians took over and stole the show.

To be fair, however, the caddies have their fair share of funny moments and Doyle-Murray steals every scene that he’s in as caddy master Lou.

Chris Nashawaty’s book “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story” details just how much of a miracle it was even that the movie got finished.

“I had never seen cocaine before I got to the set of CADDYSHACK,” actor Peter Berkrot said. “This was really good cocaine. Pure, like they had just beaten it out of a leaf in Columbia and somebody had carried the leaf to us and turned it into powder in front of us just so we knew how pure it was,” said actor Hamilton Mitchell.

Ramis and Kenney (1946-80) turned in an original cut that ran four hours. A consultant recommended a through line with Danny Noonan (Michael O’Keefe) and his quest for a caddy scholarship and his relationship with a waitress (Sarah Holcomb, who played the mayor’s daughter in ANIMAL HOUSE).

Like classics by the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, and Fields, though, we don’t require much of a plot when there’s so much funny going on.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Knight’s asshole Judge Elihu Smails just as much as Dangerfield’s Al Czervik and Murray’s Carl Spackler.

Smails is every bit as quotable as Czervik, Spackler, and Chase’s Ty Webb.

My favorite Smails line comes right after Noonan says that he would like to go to law school after he graduates but his parents do not have enough money to put him through college.

Smails says, “Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.”

July 1980 undoubtedly ranks among the great months for comedies: AIRPLANE! debuted July 2, USED CARS on July 11, and CADDYSHACK on July 25.