The Unholy Rollers

ROLLERBALL was too pretentious and KANSAS CITY BOMBER was too lightweight. This is the real deal! If you love the lowbrow sport of roller derby or are just a fan of Minnesota-born Claudia Jennings (in her first starring role) then this film is a must-see! Raunchy and violent just like the women-in-prison films that Roger Corman was also pumping out at the time (in fact many of the supporting cast were also appearing in those WIP films). Sure this film has the novelty value of having Martin Scorsese's name in the credits but there's much to enjoy in the film besides looking for his editorial hand with an anarchic non-ending that just seemed perfect.

"A locker room look at the toughest broads in the world!" That's the poster tag line for "The Unholy Rollers" and it pretty much sums up what the makers of this film were aiming for, a leering behind-the-scenes action/comedy about roller derby. Claudia Jennings ("Death Sport" "Gator Bait") gets fed up with her job at a cannery after brazen 1970s sexual harassment and decides to join the roller derby. This results in comedy, romance, and ladies in various states of undresss, as you might expect from a Roger Corman produced film of this era. Corman's New World Pictures were having great success with their cycle of women-in-prison films and their nurse and co-ed films, so why not branch out into sports comedy films? And believe it or not, this wasn't the first roller derby film of the time. "Derby" came out the year before and Raquel Well appeared in "Kansas City Bomber" the same year. Roller derby even found it's way into the plot of of Disney's "The Shaggy D.A." so derby was HOT during this time. As for this film, it's a typical Corman raunchy sex comedy and the quality is about what you'd expect, which is it's not terrible, but nothing all that great either. Still, I will say I was entertained and I did enjoy seeing an oddly young Victor Argo as the team trainer. FUN FACT! Martin Scorsese was a supervising editor on this film, the year before "Mean Streets" was released.

This was an attempt by American-International Pictures to cash in on the publicity for the highly publicized KANSAS CITY BOMBER, also released in 1972. Actually, it's more like Roger Corman's attempt to do so, because while A.I.P. footed the bill, it was a Corman show all the way (even though he had already started his own movie company/distribution outfit, New World Pictures, two years earlier.) In fact, it has the same look and sparse production values as New World movies of the earlier '70s, making you wonder if A.I.P. gave Corman little to spend, or if Corman pocketed a lot of the budget.

Whatever the case, the end result is pretty boring to sit though, despite the showcased sport (roller derby) and the presence of B movie queen Claudia Jennings. The first few minutes aren't bad, promising an energetic and wacky look at the behind-the-scenes of roller derby, but then the movie suddenly takes a turn to the deadly serious. Sure, there are catfights, nudity, and clobberings on the roller ring, but there's no feeling of fun to it all. Actually, much of the movie focuses on boring bickering and chattering between the characters. To make matters worse, the print of the movie currently playing on cable eliminates the original music score and substitutes bland muzak that results in the viewing experience becoming more of a slog to get through.

It's a shame that Claudia Jennings, Playboy playmate of the year, died at age 29 from a traffic accident, and made a series of low budget, forgettable films. Many of these films still appear on TV from time to time, but not Unholy Rollers, her best film. Another shame. Unholy Rollers is about Claudia joining a roller derby troupe and because of her personality and strikingly good looks, never being accepted into the group. The film is low budget all the way. Probably did well at drive-ins and rural markets, but got swamped by Kansas City Bomber released the same year. I never cared for the roller derby, it's quite stupid, but this "inside story" is quite decent. Just don't expect to find it.

..as in 'bad fashions,' 'bad hairdos,' and just plain old tackiness.

The movie isn't really interesting. A woman who is being harassed by her employer (even through she's annoying as hell) and goes into the rollerderby. Despite the fact that all her teammates hate her, she somehow succeeds by her viciousness alone and spends the latter half of the movie beating down her opposition and getting beaten in return. At the end, she just goes around beating the hell out of people, shows her tattoo for some reason, and all this nonsense ends.

It was basically the last half of a drive-in triple feature and it shows. Nudity is sparse, violence is all around, and the movie tries to be gritty but only succeeds in being extremely goofy and annoying. There is no real plot and nobody will care at the end. I have a feeling this was designed to GET people out of the theater or to give teens in the '70s extra time to makeout or get their clothes on before the drive-in closed.

Be warned. It's a long ride to nowhere.