Or you can just take Linda Blair and about 200 extras down to Venice Beach and have them roller-skate to disco music! Roller Boogie takes the last approach, which is probably the most efficient path to pure entertainment anyway. It's the Godfather of roller-disco movies, certainly, and the fact that the enjoyment factor is mostly derisive makes no difference. A meal made from Cheez-Wiz can be just as satisfying as a five-course meal at an expensive Italian restaurant, and no more unhealthy. Linda Blair always deserved better than what she got post-Exorcist, but I can't say I have any regret over her participation in Roller Boogie. As bratty rich girl (and "musical genius") Terry, who wants to abdicate her Julliard acceptance in favor of winning the local roller-boogie contest, she is a shining light in shiny tights. Jim Bray, an actual California roller-skate champion whose only film appearance this is and who can not seem to correctly enunciate even the simplest of words, plays Bobby James, the local hot-shot who teaches Terry the nuances of master-class roller-boogie, and who believes himself to be an Olympic contender in the sport. The ratio of roller-boogie scenes to actual plot is about 3:1, and that is not a bad thing. There's a great montage showing Bobby and Terry practicing together, with lots of roller-boogie pratfalls, and several long scenes featuring other skaters performing tricks and/or dance routines. The opening sequence makes it seem like this will be a feature-length variation of the old "I'm a Pepper" commercials, with Bray leading a train of several dozen skaters down through the streets and down to the boardwalk, where everyone roller-boogies the day away. The peripheral characters include several "dumb-jock" types (but they're dumb-jock roller-boogiers), and the token Black kid named "Phones," who always wears his headphones. At some point a story arises involving some vaguely mobster-ish Chamber of Commerce thugs pressuring the skate-club owner ("Jammer") into selling the club to make way for a "shopping mall" (on Venice Beach?). It's up to Bobby, Terry, and the crew to take them down so that everyone can roller-boogie freely forever, or at least until the trend dies. Meanwhile, Terry must reconcile her upper-crust lifestyle with her roller-boogie dreams; this dilemma at one point brings the roller-kids over to her house during a garden party (one of them wears a tuxedo T-shirt), whereupon, of course, most of the rich folks end up falling into the swimming pool for a variety of reasons. It's too bad that the skatesploitation era of filmmaking had to end, for it was a glorious time. I wish someone had remade this movie during the waning days of the 90s roller-blade trend. The only things that could have made Roller Boogie any better would be: making it a musical, and/or including several gratuitous sex scenes … on skates!
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