ALL SCI-FI

Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

Most people agree that 1979's ROLLER BOOGIE is one of the top three roller disco movies of all time (note: only three roller disco movies were ever made).

This is one of my favorite movies of all time and, no, I'm not kidding. My affection for this movie is rooted in the same reason I have a special affection for old sci-fi. The movies were simple and straight-forward with no need to explain or justify every plot point (or lack thereof).

This movie came at the end of an era. In 1979, we hadn't heard of AIDS. We didn't worry about political correctness and we didn't self-censor every word we spoke. People could still smoke cigarettes on screen without people wailing "What about the children?!" Home video didn't exist. People made drive-in date movies for young people with no other motive than to provide profitable, stupid fun.

The plot of Roller Boogie: Rich girl Terry hires poor working boy Bobby to teach her to skate in time for the big skating contest at Jammer's Roller Rink. They fall in love...and must thwart evil land developers looking to take over Jammer's and shut it down. Heavy stuff!

I recently acquired Olive's newly released Blu-ray and this movie still puts an ear-to-ear grin on my face. It takes me back to a time in my life when things really were as mindlessly happy as they are in the movie. In 1979 I was 21 years old, driving my Trans Am, working a good job with good pay and living the dream of ignorant youth. Would I go back and do it again? In a second!

While we remember her as the girl from THE EXORCIST, the fact is that, in 1979, Linda Blair was hot!

Jim Bray played the part of Bobby James. He was a roller skating phenom who was originally hired as a "stunt skater" for the film. When the producers couldn't secure a suitable male lead for the movie, Bray was given acting lessons and promoted from stunt skater to co-star. He did a good job...but never acted in another movie.

Keep an eye open for various genre stars in a variety of roles. Mark Goddard from Lost in Space is a bad guy. Sean McClory who played a helicopter pilot in THEM! is good guy Jammer Delany.

Check out the trailer.

https://youtu.be/7NRnIIQ9bnc

Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:11 am Post subject:

Holy cow, you jumped on this new section of All Sci-Fi with both feet and made it an instant success! Very Happy

Your terrific description of the movie (and the pictures of that cute little devil, Miss Blair) made we want to watch the trailer, and the trailer made me want to watch the movie!

Good old YouTube went right from the trailer to the full movie, so I just used Savefrom.net to download it -- and then I watched it with my morning coffee.

I loved all those beautifully choreographed skate-dancing scenes, and the music was delightful.

Linda is so gorgeous I kept forgetting to blink . . . Shocked

Thanks, Brent!

* Jammer (owner of the skating rink) looked familiar, so I looked him up. He's Sean McClory, who played Major Kimbee in Them!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:57 pm Post subject:

No no no no.

Why would you say that that that that ? Shocked

But seriously, I'd forgotten who flew the helicopter, so I didn't really remember who Brent was referring to when I read his comment. Then, when I was watching the movie a while later, I recognized Sean's face, looked up who played him, saw Them his filmography, and didn't recall that Brent had pointed out the connection.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Pow · Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:27 pm Post subject:

I remember hearing that Linda posed for a Playboy Magazine pictorial.

I thought at the time, nah, not the kid who played the little girl in The Exorcist.

She sure wasn't little anymore! Wink

Bud Brewster · Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:42 pm Post subject:

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Nope, this is a woman full growed, as they say. Shocked

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Bud Brewster · Posted: Sun May 07, 2017 5:10 pm Post subject:

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Honored members of All Sci-Fi, we need to have a serious talk about . . . hot linking. Sad

This fine thread which Brent started is now marred by missing jpegs which he hot linked instead of adding to his Photobucket account.

The problem with hot linking is that it's quick and easy and . . . temporary.

Two of his three pictures of the lovely Linda Blair no longer display in his post, and even with my best efforts to find these pictures and restore them, I failed. Confused

The sad fact is that websites have clever ways to thwart people from stealing their bandwidth by hot linking their jpegs!

So, please don't think that a hot linked jpeg is a good way to enhance your posts on All Sci-Fi. It works fine for a while . . . and then suddenly all you have are wimpy and embarrassing icons like the small one below, which I copied directly from one of Brent's failed jpegs!

I have no idea what it was, but this is all we have now.

In short, please don't hot link, folks! It's easy to upload an image to sites like Imgur after setting up free account with unlimited storage, and your jpegs won't vanish a few months later!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

Bud, as much as I appreciate the truth in your advice, I'll ignore it Smile

.

Fact is, I can live with some missing images. It happens. I doubt if much of it has anything to do with people thwarting attempts to steal bandwidth. More than likely, images just get moved or deleted.

But the fact is that hotlinking is an extremely quick and simple way to add images to a post. I honestly can't be bothered to copy a picture to another hosting site. If I had to do that, I likely wouldn't bother to post in the first place. If an image or four goes missing...meh. There's a thousand more.

So I don't disagree with the fundamentals of your post...I'm just lazy...and I've become used to things coming and going on the net.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 10:40 am Post subject:

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Ah heck, that's okay, Brent. Very Happy

Lately I've just reconciled myself to helping the folks who prefer to hotlink by uploading their jpegs to Hostpics (it takes about a minute) and replacing the hotlink code with the Imgur code I get by addiing it to my account.

I'll do that with yours from now on. We enjoy your post, and the jpegs you include make them more appealing.

In other words, "Pay no attention to that site admin behind the curtain!" Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

scotpens · Posted: Mon May 08, 2017 11:42 am Post subject:

Bud Brewster · Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 1:51 pm Post subject: