Roller Boogie (1979)

Directed by

Mark L. Lester

Genre

musical film, romantic comedy, comedy drama, teen film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 44m

Rated

PG

Rating

5.6 of 10 from 45 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A wealthy teenage girl falls for a working class skater in 1970s Venice, California. They team up to stop a mobster from buying out a popular roller rink.

lightheartednostalgicenergeticupbeatcampyromanticfunslightly dated

What happens

Roller Boogie is a 1979 American teen musical exploitation film about roller disco, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Linda Blair, Jim Bray, Beverly Garland, Roger Perry, Mark Goddard, Jimmy Van Patten, and Kimberly Beck. Set in the Venice suburb of Los Angeles at the height of the roller skating fad of the late 1970s, it follows an upper-class young woman (Blair) who falls in love with a working class skater (Bray). The two seek to thwart efforts from a powerful mobster attempting to acquire the land where a popular roller rink is located. The film was developed by Irwin Yablans, head of Compass International Pictures, who had experienced notable commercial success with Halloween (1978), which was a major box-office hit the year prior. Filming took place in Los Angeles in the summer of 1979, and its elaborate skating sequences were choreographed by David Winters. Over 50 professional skaters were employed for the film. Released by United Artists on December 19, 1979, Roller Boogie received mostly negative reviews from film critics, who deemed it a shallow film exploiting the trends of disco and roller skating, though it was a box office success, grossing over $13 million. In the years since its original release, the film has developed a cult following for its campy style and focus on disco and roller skating culture. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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