The Unholy Rollers

A Roger Corman production from the 70's so you know it's funny, sleazy, plot less and gratuitous but never boring, there's always something happening on screen. Claudia Jennings dominates as Karen Walker, a cat food factory worker who gets cheesed off and becomes a roller derby queen. She gives a tough-as-nails performance, spitting her lines in a manner not unlike the actresses in John Waters' early films. Other stand-outs include Louis Quinn as a cynical promoter and Alan Vint doing a hilarious take on the "roommate's boyfriend" character. It's an obvious attempt to cash in on Kansas City Bomber (apparently started while KCB was still in production) replacing Raquel Welch's vulnerability with Claudia Jennings' unapologetic approach and ladling on plenty of sleaze. So what's not to like?

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.

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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.

"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.