The Unholy Rollers

A masterpiece of bad taste ! An exaggerated celebration of the roller derby lifestyle. I liked the lowbrow sport of roller derby when I was a youth growing up in the 70's ! I was a very accomplished roller skater in my own right in 1974 -1979 . I had a special blue Roller Rink Jacket from the rink that was embroidered Skate City .

I was also an alpine ski-racer and bigtime skateboarder . My point is that I took my Kryptonics from Boulder Co. Was founded in 1965 and originally manufactured polyurethane products for the mining and computer industry. In the mid-1970s, the company introduced the Kryptonics Star Trac line of wheels that drastically changed the functionality of skateboards. I put my Kryptonics wheels on my roller skates and would jam out of the Skate City in door rink at a local hard core cement skate board park ! My wheels that outperformed the competition. I was an extremely ballsy preteen 😝 These Roller Derby Jam Straps/Skate straps would help with control of fast torque and speed.

Unholy Rollers..... Raunchy , violent , hard, fast, and vulgar ! This is trash cinema at its finest !

"A locker room look at the toughest broads in the world!"

The film's low budget limitations lend added authenticity to its depiction of this seedy American pastime !! Loved it 7.5/10 Karen wants more action out of life and quits her job at the cannery to become a skater in the roller derby. She encounters friction from the other skaters - especially Mickey, the current number one star of the team. Karen proves herself a feisty competitor but refuses to be a team player. As she skates her way to roller stardom, she incurs the wrath of jealous team members and the owner of the team.

FUN FACT! Martin Scorsese was a supervising editor on this film, the year before "Mean Streets" was released.

Roller derby became popular in the 1940s and 1965, and by the 1970s, the International Roller Derby League (IRDL) was at its peak. The IRDL featured regional teams like the Midwest Pioneers and Northeast Braves, and in 1971, over 19,000 people attended a championship game. However, the league ceased operations in 1973, and roller derby eventually became scripted entertainment with predetermined outcomes.

Just Orderd DVD !!!

From the dank sub-sub-basement of athletic entertainment, somewhere beneath 1970's "Big Time Wrestling", came the sweaty phenomenon known as "Roller Derby". Combining elements from wrestling, roller skating, and Australian football, this "sport" barely made a blip on the radar screen of life.

However, it did have its own particular audience, including a 9 year old yours truly, tuning in every Saturday night to watch these raucous rollers' riotous escapades! Especially entertaining were the females of the game, as their violent behavior was quite shocking for the era.

In 1972, ever vigilant for the next $1.98 exploitation vehicle, Producer Roger Corman made THE UNHOLY ROLLERS for the hordes of drive-in devotees.

Starring the unbelievably-hot Claudia Jennings as Karen Walker, ROLLERS excels at recreating the cheeeze-tinged, white trash goodness of actual derby competition.

When Karen quits her job at a cat food factory and tries out for The Avengers RD team, she's accepted immediately. Horrible rock and roll music, nudity, and mayhem ensue.

It's important to keep in mind that this movie is not a Greek tragedy. So, don't go into it looking for anything other than painful dialogue, heinous acting, and general idiocy.

Claudia Jennings fans fear not, for she's in almost every scene!

While nowhere near as exciting as ROLLERBALL, nor as dramatic as THE KANSAS CITY BOMBER, this movie does capture the low-rent spectacle in all of its half-wit glory.

Be sure to remain seated for the smash-bang-boom of the "wild in the streets" finale...

..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.

Unholy Rollers is AIP cinema verite, a true American film classic that peels the facade away from the cult of sports celebrity. Claudia Jennings is outstanding as the roller queen whose place on the pedestal is about to be taken by the next one in line. She plays the role with utter conviction, and the film's low budget limitations lend added authenticity to its depiction of this seedy American pastime.

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.