Bad Sports

KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Directed by JERROLD FREEDMAN Screenplay by THOMAS RICKMAN and CALVIN CLEMENTS

It may have been a technical miscalculation, but a certain measure of thanks is due to Don Johnson and Harry Jetrick, the soundmen on this roller-skating movie, who have created such an uproar on the roller rink that much of the dialogue is incomprehensible.

This leaves us free to contemplate Raquel Welch as she skates about and gamely impersonates a certain K.C. (for Kansas City) Carr. Miss Welch, it soon becomes apparent, is not well cast. Although she attempts a measure of characterization by jawing some gum, she never succeeds at being tough enough. Whizzing around the rink, pursued and periodically clobbered by banshee competitors on every side, she looks like a drum majorette who has just lost her football team.

The plot, which is barely discernible, concerns the physical and emotional bruising inflicted and endured by the denizens of the roller rink. Raquel, refusing to throw a match, wins the competition but loses the man she loves (Kevin McCarthy). Raquel's rival on the track is played by Helena Kallianitoes, the manic hitchhiker in Five Easy Pieces, who turns in a performance so alive with currents of frustration and alcoholic lesbian hostility that it should never have been wasted on a penny-dreadful movie like this. J.C.

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