It's probably too easy to dismiss this movie as a scrappy, dated foray in 1970's sludge, but in '72 it was considered highly unusual and intriguing for a celebrity diva like Raquel Welch to appear in a roller derby drama, and the film was a pretty big hit and generated lots of publicity(Welch even made the cover of LIFE magazine, wearing her No. 11 jersey). I liked the deep-in-thought driving montage of Welch on her way to see her kids(with super-cool jazz music by Don Ellis)and I loved the skating-on-the-street scene with KC and her daughter(wow! Jodie Foster). The track sequences deliver exactly what we want: hard-driving action with some good editing and camera angles, and the satiric behind-the-scenes bits are quite funny(one little old lady spends all her money on roller games). The romantic melodrama with team owner Kevin McCarthy is draggy, but it's interesting how the other skaters react and make Welch the outcast, leading her to fight for self-respect and dignity on the track. The stunt doubles are obvious, and the film isn't a big-budget offering, but it is highly entertaining and has some great moments. Aside from "Hannie Caulder", it gives Raquel her best starring vehicle.
Review for Kansas City Bomber
I remembered this movie as being better than it is. the filming is very unprofessional. It looks like a home video. The rollerskating scenes are still good though.
Should be shown in film schools....
OK, this may not be the most popular review for fans of this 1972 Raquel flick, so fans, take a big breath and try to hear the opposite side of the coin here before hitting that big "not helpful" button. I literally had to come out of "Amazon-review retirement" after watching this one (which took two nights to finish). Wow, does this film stink to high heaven. Sorry, fans, but there's a reason why MGM never put this total DUD out on VHS for 30 years. And, thankfully now, for all us cult film fanatics, Warners (who now owns the film) has decided to grace us with this first-ever homevideo DVD release! Oh joy!
The concept is great. RAQUEL WELCH - 60's sultry superstar goddess as a roller-derby queen. How could this fail? Or, even less, how could this at least not be entertaining in a bad sort of way? Well, folks, this film defies all logic and delivers ineptitude, drudgery and tedium all the way. It's flatly directed as if it were a stage play. Long flat takes - set the camera up in one position, shoot the whole scene in one take, don't cut away to any close-ups - just get it all on film quick! And we're not talking cinema verite style here, we're talking bland, dull, flat tedium. Those are the "drama" segments (the parts where Raquel, Kevin McCarthy, Jodie Foster-in it for about one-minute- and some of the other one-dimensional characters interact with each other). The action sequences have a little bit of editing going on and almost come alive in a few sparse moments through the over-padded running time (why is this thing 99 minutes long??). But even the action stuff is so flatly shot and cut together that there's no suspense or excitement to any of it. It's bad when the best parts of the whole film are quick cutaways to weird looking audience members hooting and hollering during the competition sequences. Show me one of THOSE character's stories instead!
Who is at fault here? Well, the so-called "screenplay" is practically non-existant. But, so what, exploitation films have gotten away with worse sins than that! The key failure of this thing is the totally pedestrian direction of every scene, every moment, every single thing about it. Shots go on forever with no cuts, quite a few scenes are jarringly out-of-focus(!!!), the acting and performances are all flat (I would never think I would call the beautiful Raquel Welch "flat"!!!), and the whole look of the film screams ***CHEAP***! Did they shoot this thing in 3 days? Sure looks like it!
Don't even get me started on the hilarious use of stunt-doubles for Raquel and her enemy Helena in all the roller-derby action sequences. Those ridiculous wigs that hang down and cover the doubles' faces in all the racing shots are so terribly obvious that it should make the film fun on a bad-movie level - but, nope, after a few times, it just gets tedious like the rest of the whole debacle.
I really wanted to like this film considering it's been hidden away for so many years now. But, the incompetant direction, editing, and technical skills on-hand are so awful that it doesn't even work on a so-bad-it's-good level. This thing should be shown to film students worldwide for years to come on how NOT to make a film.
Still, as a cult film fan, I must admit I am glad the film is now finally available and that Warners felt the need to rescue it from it's well-deserved hidden obscurity. The DVD presents the film in widescreen and contains the original theatrical trailer (somewhat entertaining). KANSAS CITY BOMBER is a true BOMB, but it is what it is, and I hate to see any film hidden away for so many years as this one has been. So if you can take the pain, check it out to see why you haven't been able to see it for 30 years. And, if you want to see a BETTER roller-derby flick, see the same year's UNHOLY ROLLERS with the luscious, but sadly late, Claudia Jennings. It was a cheap rip-off of KCB, but it delivers the entertainment value and exploitation filmmaking skills totally lacking in this one. It's out-of-print on VHS right now, but will probably hit DVD someday soon (hopefully).
When it was released in 1968, Lady in Cement was the perfect movie for "The Man Who Reads Playboy." It was tailor-made for middle-aged martini-and-poker men who enjoyed Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome a year earlier, and this slapdash sequel finds Ol' Blue Eyes in sun-soaked Miami, where his treasure-hunting discovery of a naked blonde (the ill-fated lady in cement, found dead underwater) gets him tangled up with a massive thug (Dan Blocker), a retired Mafioso (Martin Gabel) with an over-ambitious son, an ultra-sexy heiress (Raquel Welch, in her sexpot prime at age 27), and a variety of Floridian lowlifes who lent the film its R-rated appeal for the cocktail crowd. With its disposable mystery, rampant homophobia, go-go club lechery, peekaboo nudity, bursts of red-blooded... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Frank Sinatra Director(s): Gordon Douglas DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This has been a pretty good year for fans of the lovely AND talented Raquel Welch. First 20th Century Fox released "The Raquel Welch Collection" box set, then Warner Home Video gave us "The Last Of Sheila" and now "The Wild Party", probably one of Miss Welch's best films! And thanks to the fine folks at MGM we have the ORIGINAL, UN-CUT version not the version originally released by AIP back in the 70s. And what a glorious film it is! Rocky is just great as Queenie, the mistress of Jolly Grimm (James Coco), a washed up silent movie comedian vainly attempting to make a comeback into pictures. She is endearing and sexy as his tender young lover, and the song she sings ("SINGAPORE SALLY") is a real treat!
Picture and sound are both quite good on this disc and the extra's include the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): James Ivory DVD Release Date: Released the 15 June 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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TONY ROME at the time of its release represented cutting edge "realism" that was disturbing, stimulating and refreshing. We don't see it as such now; but films in the 1960's were just beginning to bring sex more out in the open than had been before. As far as mass entertainment was concerned, sex was more suggested than shown in the previous history of movies. Think of the end of NORTH BY NORTHWEST. The culminating sex between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint was related by a visual of a speeding train running into a mountain tunnel. By the early 1960's, the James Bond movies were notorious for the "on screen sex". Only the hip went to see James Bond-the squares avoided them for fear of being labeled scum. Naturally, the "hip" numbers were never big enough to give James Bond movies... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Frank Sinatra - Jill St. John Director(s): Gordon Douglas DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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