Evel Knievel

Even though as a kid growing up in the 1970s I thought Evel Knievel was, along with Bruce Lee and Bill Bixby as "The Magician", one of the coolest guys on the planet, I'd for some reason never seen this biopic. Boy, watching this now is a trip! It's a mess of a movie really, but fascinating just the same. Firstly you have the oddball casting of George Hamilton as Knievel. Okay, it maybe isn't as left field as him playing Hank Williams, but it's still very odd. Secondly, Evel comes across as a real idiot, giving long winded egotistical speeches, slamming 'Easy Rider' and those "weirdos" for "giving bike riding a bad name". Thirdly, as an actual biography it's useless. We learn nothing about his life or how he became a stunt rider, let alone WHY he did what he did. Instead you get some utterly preposterous flash backs which include Evel kidnapping his future wife, robbing a store and even City Hall (with dynamite!), making you think you're watching some kind of proto-'Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind'! Hamilton gives a very unnatural, mannered performance, and the supporting cast includes Sue Lyon ('Lolita') as his wife Linda, Bert Freed, who was in everything from 'Paths Of Glory' to 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?' to 'Billy Jack', made the same year as this (he's the guy who says "We got the law here, Billy Jack"), plays his long suffering doctor, and Peckinpah regular Dub Taylor has a nice bit towards the beginning as the promoter who gives Evel his first break at a rodeo. 'Evel Knievel' is in many ways an awful movie but 1970s heads will get a kick out of it. You either dig these kind of Drive In exploitation movies or you don't. If you do, check this one out, it's a hoot!

I saw this movie in the dollar bin of the grocery store and I couldn't help smiling. I had no idea if it would be worth a sitting, but I discovered to my joy that this film captures the energy and twisted, booze-fueled optimism of 1971 only too well. There is a senior thesis and a kitsch musical trapped in this time capsule. It is both a on-the-spot knowing parody of 70's machismo and a hapless apology for it, a living testimony to a living person.

George Hamilton in 1971 didn't seem to know how to act, he swaggered humorlessly and proclaimed, and chewed gum like Burt Reynolds. John Milius and a 90 year old Englishman scripted this, so Evel's lines are filled with references and heightened language that are quite outside the range of a dropout sociopath. And yet this movie isn't dead. It has an intentness, a brio, a sort of-- pertness. It deserves to have eyeballs given to it, over a few sittings, over a few lunch hours, using the DVD feature of your workstation in your cubicle. Go to your supermarket today!

When you think about it, the idea of someone risking their life for the sake of entertainment is obscene. So, let's not think about it. Watching EVEL KNIEVEL, we can say that he was a major adrenaline freak with a possible death wish, while still respecting his right to jump over things on his motorcycle.

George Hamilton is perfectly cast in the role of the titular daredevil. His smirking attitude toward danger, bodily injury, and dismemberment, breathes life into the legend that is Bobby "Evel" Knievel. We're treated to the story via flashbacks. Hamilton's Knievel is a man who knows his destiny lies in superstardom through increasingly hazardous risks. He lives to defy the fact that he could be obliterated into hamburger at any moment!

The actual footage of Knievel's stunts and crashes are spectacular. One in particular appears to be inescapably fatal. Yet, he somehow lived through it! Watch and believe!

Co-stars Sue Lyon as Evel's hopelessly beleaguered wife...

Marvelous AND surreal biography of the craziest man ever to jump a phalanx of buses on "Wide World of Sports." When I was a kid I even had the Evel Knievel doll and revved-up bike--which could actually soar across the linoleum floor. Returning to the movie, you would be hard pressed to find a more carefree fellow than Evel. He prides himself on his plethora of broken bones and slipped disks. Actual footage of his real jumps is seamlessly cut into the film. It's truly amazing this man is still alive to this day. Remember, once he really did try to fly over a canyon named "Snake River." George Hamilton torpedoed his own career by making poor choices along the way--but this was his zenith. Sue Lyon lends a sympathetic ear and is easy on the eye. This movie promises even more when Mr. Knievel pops a wheelie across the Grand Canyon. Well, not really. But one can dream. Later on, Knievel would star in his own bio-pic called "Viva Knievel."

This film is a comedy and a satire, and as both, it is a double-edged sword - it laughs with it's target audience - 'good ol' boys' and wannabees along the drive-in circuit, primarily in the South - and at them. It is dangerous to laugh at this film, because you may find out you're laughing at yourself - but of course, it is so good-humored, you won't be able to avoid it.

This film is not really an Evel Knieval biopic; it is really a study in the culture that makes Knieval possible. The makers of this film - primarily producer-star Hamilton - understand that in the 20th century, Americans developed an unhealthy fascination for 'sports' wherein the performers flirted with death; this could only make sense if some of the performers actually did die. The performers themselves well understood that, but all believed they were invincible, that therefore they were manipulating the secret desire of the audience rather than satisfying it. However, inevitably some - like the rodeo bull-rider early in this film - just did die; no human is invincible, after all.

How do film-makers address such a culture without getting cynical or preachy about it? You take one such 'sports'-star and take him on face-value. The ground of this film is the Evel Knieval legend that Knieval himself was hyping at every opportunity - it is simply arraigned in a way that many of his tall-tales reveal themselves as just 'too much' for their own good - even if true, why would anybody do that? Finally, one has to note that this is a fine specimen of a film made specifically for the drive-in circuit: clearly enunciated dialog (those car-speakers), over-lit (has to play against moonlight), fast-paced, careful avoidance of close-ups (only Sergio Leone's were able to hold attention at the drive-in), sweeping scenery, episodic (plenty opportunities for couples to neck), and none too deep.

Bottom-line: I first saw this film 20 years ago and only recently saw it again; neither the film nor my opinion of it has changed much all those years - there must be something that still works here.