Skateboard

I have a weird history with this movie. When I was a kid, I came across the book adaptation of the movie in a used book store. As a young skateboarder in the early 80s, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Then to my amazement I caught the movie played on Saturday afternoon television and also enjoyed it quite a bit.

Then about 20 years pass and I've long outgrown skateboarding, and what do I come across being played on late night TV? Skateboard! I settle in for a nostalgic return to my youth.

It's obvious that this film had to be mostly improvised by the cast, but to me that's part of the charm. It definitely feels more like a documentary than feature.

Yeah, the skateboarding is completely archaic, but sheesh, this movie is 30 years old. Vert ramps hadn't been invented yet.

If you get a chance to catch it on late-night TV, I definitely suggest a look.

Manny is in debt to Sol, among others, and he has to come up with an idea to make money quickly. Earlier, he nearly ran into some kids who were skateboarding in the road. When he sees one of them outside his window, he pitches the idea of a skateboarding team to Sol, who reluctantly accepts this chance to get his money back and then some.

Manny knows nothing about skateboarding. He doesn't even realize there are already teams, and as talented as the kids are, it's hard to believe at first anyone will pay money to see them.

A number of problems get in the way of the team's success. One is the need for someone to supervise them, like a parent. So Millicent is hired. Of course, as often happens in sports movies, one of the kids thinks he is too good to follow the rules. Later, the events really look like something worth seeing.

I didn't see anything here approaching good acting, but Manny, Millicent and the kids were all easy enough to like. Manny was certainly funny because he was such a loser. And the kids certainly had talent on skateboards if nothing else. The situation was hard to believe but was executed well enough.

I seriously question any reference to this being a 'family' movie. The sound went out a number of times, and other times it sounded like words had been substituted, and while tame by today's standards, the sex talk seemed pretty frank.

If you're not looking to use your brain and if your expectations are not high, I suppose this was a pleasant enough film.

All that I can say is that the other guy that reviewed this movie knows nothing about the history of skateboarding. In the 1970s skateboarding was one of the greatest spectacles of the time. There were actually skateboard World Championships which drew grand crowds and the invents did include slalom(weaving in and out of cones) and downhill races... I found the other guy to be completely asinine in his reasoning. This movie has a cameo of Tony Alva of Dogtown fame. Who recently was featured in the video game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, and the feature film Lords of Dogtown and the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys. I would recommend this movie to anyone who loves skateboarding and its history because this is clearly a part of it...

GRADE: A+, excellent

This is actually a pretty decent movie for a B skater movie. What makes it cool is that they used a lot of real skaters! You will recognize a lot of the skaters from this movie once they start doing competitions. Even some old name brands like Sims. Plotwise it's a simple plot. Older dude who looks WAY older than 31 when he started filming this who is balding, fat and has a lot of gray in his hair. He looks about 50. The Nurse lady reminds me of a Sarah Silverman, but I am not a fan of hers, and in the main LA Wheels group you have Tony Alva. Then there is the Sims brand girl, Laura Thornhill, who I had a huge crush on even though she was almost 20 years older than I am. I saw the movie at first when I was very young, and didn't realize when it was filmed and that she was a lot older than I was.

A low rent LA promoter Manny (Alan Garfield) latches onto a bunch of hotshot teenage skaters and turns them into a traveling skateboard demonstration roadshow entering lots of skating competitions to pay a debt back to Sol (Antony Carbone) his mobster type investor.

This is definitely a B movie with stilted acting and weak plot line but it is a fascinating piece of 1970's history chronicling for the first time on film the dramatic rise of the skateboarding craze. It features some of the early real life icons of skating only in their late teens who helped build the sport: Tony Alva, Richard van Der Wyk and Ellen O'Neill along with some excellent footage of skating in deep empty pools that was the forerunner to the big pipes that became a feature of the sport from the 80's on. The skating tricks pulled in the skater boys and throw in 15 year old Leif Garrett who was on the cusp of major stardom as blond eye candy for teen girls (actually Garrett did all his own skating stunts) and the movie wasn't a complete box office flop.

Anyone who grew up in the 70s is going to love the bell bottom jeans, big collared shirts, the proliferation of green and brown styles and short shorts. It also features cameos from WKRP Cincinnati star Gordon Jump and famous Hollywood 50s and 60s icon Orson Bean.