Kansas City Bomber DVD by Warner Home Video - Classic Sports Drama Film by Jerrold Freedman - Perfect for Movie Nights & 70s Cinema Lovers

Just so you know what this movie is about: The sport of roller derby, in which two teams skate against one another for points around an oval track originated in the 1930s and continues today. Of special note is the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, WFTDA.In this movie, Raquel Welch portrays the star skater in a 1972 variation of the sport, Roller Games, which was skated on a smaller banked track to compress the size of the event and the action. Much like professional wrestling, the games feature exaggerated and stylized violence with verbal and physical confrontations and the actual outcome, winner and loser, was frequently preordained so as to create champions and challengers and stars and underdogs.They really do clobber and trip one another, but it's carefully faked and the skaters are padded to prevent serious real injury.Making a movie of this must have been fun, as real Roller Games skaters were employed and the whole thing was staged and shot in actual venues.What sells it is Raquel Welch as K.C. Carr, a statuesque and incredibly beautiful athlete who is groomed and featured as the star attraction. This works perfectly, and it is impossible to imagine any other actress of the day who could have done this as well.The kicker is, the movie is a gentle story about a sweet girl who is a single mom trying to make a go of it in a crazy setting. You can't help pull for her as she navigates the ridiculous craziness of fake combative roller skating and her own life as a single mom in a plain setting.The movie itself is just plain fun and well done, with superb performances by Kevin McCarthy as the team owner and Helena Kallianiotes and Norman Alden as teammates. Nine year old Jodie Foster appears as K.C.'s daughter.After being transparently exploited for nothing beyond her physical beauty, Raquel noted that this was the first of her movies which she really liked and thought was good work.The DVD and audio track are perfect. Get this movie.