Brutal belleza

Loana-NO PHOTO AVAILABLE! This is what you are greeted with on IMDb when you click on the character name of Raquel Welch from ONE MILLION B.C….Considering her iconic fur-bikini clad image was the best-selling poster EVER until Farah Fawcett came along a decade later, I find this fact to be just beyond the limits of my Suspension of Disbelief! I imagine that someone, somewhere, feels that Jo Raquel Tejada deserves a break….And believe me, I could not possibly be in more agreement with that decision! With its miserable 5.4 IMDb rating, and MEASLY 711 votes, (To be crystal….That's considerably LESS than the 1,000 votes needed to be taken seriously here!) I state, most emphatically, that BOMBER is the most underrated film of the thousands on which I have voted on this website! Believe me, I have NEVER made the previous comment before!

Here is a film which parallels the intense focus of its lead character, K.C. Carr, on the somewhat seamy world of professional team roller-skating. For those of you under 40, this sport (or is that exhibition?) enjoyed a considerable cult following in the 50's, 60's and 70's. BOMBER does not pretend to offer us romance or glamor or alternate back-stories…Just a gritty and intense focus on K.C. Carr and her obsession to excel in team-skating. Perhaps, this is a bit of a metaphor for her desperation to be taken seriously as an actress? How do I recall so clearly a film released well over 40 years ago? That's a fair question!

Well, when HANNIE CAULDER was released in 1971, I thought the film was rather under-appreciated by both the critics and the public alike and, even much more obvious, was the undeserved nature of the almost universal panning of Ms. Welch's performance in the title role! There was a growing vocal tide of resentment in the media against Raquel Welch. When BOMBER was released, the media was awash in Raquel Welch jokes…Johnny Carson quipped: "Hey, how about that new Raquel Welch movie…Kansas City BOMBER…Talk about accurate Box-Office Predictions!!!" Ahhhhh…Ms. Welch has been haunted, for most of her career, by the ghost of Loana (Photo Seared into our Collective Cultural Memory!) So, I paid to see BOMBER on three occasions in 1972, applying my most critical eye! All I could see was a very skilled actress whose interpretation permeated every cell of her being. I suppose I was one of a very select group who saw it that way! BOMBER does have a lot more going for it than just the title role…Helena Kallianiotes turns in an excellent performance in a Golden Globe nominated supporting role.

BOMBER displays even handed direction that immerses us in the very realistic, rather seedy world of professional team skating. The technical excellence of the filming and editing of the on track scenes also cannot be overlooked. Although you might not rate it 9*, as I did, if you can manage to see BOMBER with an open mind, I am sure you will find it both entertaining and worthwhile!

ENJOY!/DISFRUTELA! Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!

Much like pro-wrestling, roller derby was pure entertainment. Fake. A put on, really. But nothing about Raquel Welch was fraudulent. At the time this movie was made, she was thirty-two and prime choice. Her role (roller derby siren) is athletic, sexy, dramatic, physical, and smashes, forever, the starlet mold she had been frozen in for years. Never again would she achieve such a perfect mix in the acting arena. She has a great introduction: we see only her lower body (legs and skates) moving through darkness, as Don Ellis' rousing score penetrates the blackness. She has an entrance even an emperor would give thumbs up to. I like how she turns (briefly) the wrong way during the National Anthem. Your other left, Raquel. Cute. Jodie Forster plays her hero-worshiping daughter with a heavy dose of arsenic. Kevin McCarthy is the devious, unethical owner of the roller derby club. Raquel's fellow skaters, especially Hellena Kallianiotas and Norman Alden, give excellent support. I believe that Miss Kallianiotes inhabits one of the most depressing characters ever seen in a sports film. She is a loner. And she drinks bourbon from a brown paper bag--all the while alienating fans, teammates, and ownership. The film's cameraman performs magic with his gorgeous on location shooting in Portland. Also, there are some very unusual and lengthy tracking shots at a marina and through a hotel. Fantastic. Watch for the freeze-frame shot at the conclusion of the movie. It foreshadows James Caan's iconic pose in the upcoming Rollerball. Both films visualize an out of control society: where rules and fair play don't exist. I like how McCarthy's character barges into the ladies locker room, helps himself to a drink, and makes himself at home with his half-dressed female skaters. Later, he lets slip a business confession: "Everyone is bought and sold--including you and me." Telling.

Legitimate sex symbols like Raquel Welch have always had to face the (sexist) prejudice of the "since they're so beautiful, they can't act" variety (of course, this often extends to male stars as well - Richard Gere, for example). But Raquel gives a fine performance in "Kansas City Bomber" - quiet when it needs to be, spirited when it needs to be. And she was not the same type of sex symbol that Marilyn Monroe was: she was highly athletic, and in this movie you can see her roller-skating, punching, kicking, headlocking, elbow-dropping, jumping, ducking, taking bumps, rolling around on the ground (including a memorable catfight right next to some train tracks!), etc. It's a physically challenging role, and Raquel is more than up to the challenge. The movie does feel aimless and repetitive at times, the ending doesn't really resolve much and Kevin McCarthy is not exactly the most believable romantic partner for Raquel, but her fans, as well as fans of movies about women in sports, will probably find enough of interest here. (**1/2)

* Another recommendation: the pro-wrestling film "All The Marbles".

OK, so before Raquel became a "serious" actress, she did a number of fluffy, inconsequential films which displayed far more of her physical attributes than any heavy-duty acting chops. This film (while keeping la Raquel covered, for the most part) pretty much falls into "fluffy": good-hearted but lonely divorceé Diane "KC" Carr tries to make it in the Roller Games circuit, clashing with female cohorts and dodging male advances. Being a huge fan of Roller Games during the early 70s, I was thrilled that this film featured a number of RollerGame stars who were big at the time. Toss in a love affair between KC and a manipulative team owner, stir in strained relationships between KC & her mother and KC and one of her two young children (one played by a young Jodie Foster), add a bitter rivalry with fading Roller Games queen Jackie (excellent Golden Globe nominated performance by Helena Kallianiotes) and there hangs the drama. Kevin McCarthy oozes as the pawn-shifting team owner, and pulls off the love-interest quite believably in spite of the fact he is 26 years her senior! Overall, a good effort (with La Raquel executive producing) and a check-your-brains-at-the-door kind of movie, but one I still love to curl up in front of... even while folding laundry.

As of March 15, 2005, I just learned that the movie is finally scheduled for DVD release May 31, 2005. For those of you who have bought previous DVD versions, you're probably already aware that they're cheesy bootleg copies, mostly taped from TV then transferred to DVD-R; says the seller, "I bought this at a convention, so that's why the picture isn't so great."

Let me get this out of the way, not only was I a huge roller derby fan, Raquel Welch was my first pubescent crush. I was only six at the time this film was released and I every Saturday afternoon I would sit glued to the set watching my favorite team, the Los Angeles Thunderbirds do battle every week with their rivals. Now when I heard that there was a movie about the roller derby coming out, I was extremely excited. Also, when I saw Raquel Welch on the cover of Life Magazine, I really got excited. However, I had to wait a few years to see this movie on television and when I did, I couldn't see what I made a fuss about. Sure, Ms. Welch was hot in this film and the skating sequences were excellent, but as far as the story goes, you can have it. The story was nothing but pure soap opera. The only thing I really enjoyed about this film was Norman Alden's performance as the aging roller derby star who acted as sort of a big brother to K.C.. Other than that and the skating sequences, this movie fell flat. However, if you want to see what made roller derby big in the 1970's, this film is for you.