George Segal stars with Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Timothy Bottoms, Harry Guardino, and Susan Strasber in "Roller-coaster" from 1977. The fashion of the '70s was, in part, disaster films -- The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, the Airport films - I mean, it was constant.It's possible that Roller-coaster was thrown into this bunch - I actually don't remember the movie -- but it actually has more plot than most of the films mentioned.The film concerns a technical supervisor, Calder (Segal) who suspects that several accidents that have taken place in amusement parts are not coincidental. And sure enough, bombs are being set and detonated by a calculating sociopath (Bottoms). He then tries to extort $1 million from the companies that run the parks. The FBI is brought in, in the form of Richard Widmark, but Calder actually forms a sort of connection with the bomber, so Widmark and Fonda, another higher-up, are forced to go along with him.Calder ultimately is forced by the bomber to deliver the money, making for a tense ending where anything might happen.Roller-coaster was an attempt to use the Effect Du Jour, Sensurround, and I'm sure it was effective in the theater, though, because I am terrified of rollercoasters, it would have made me nauseous. I saw it on TV, and it was suspenseful with a likable Segal and a scary Bottoms. I'm not sure it would be made today. After all, we've experienced too many bombs and shootings happening in unlikely places.

When safety inspector Harry Calder (George Segal) realises an accident at a fairground is actually more than it first appears, psychopathic bomber Timothy Bottoms (whose character has no name and is only credited only as "Young Man") threatens to blow up more rollercoasters unless he's paid ONE MILLION DOLLARS and chooses Segal as the man to hand it over. Of course, thanks to the sneakiness of FBI boss Richard Widmark, the money is marked and therefore completely useless. Bottoms isn't exactly happy about this and there just happens to be a brand new roller-coaster opening in California in the next couple of days...Coming off the back of a run of classic disaster films like The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Airport '77, Earthquake, and of course, Jaws, 1977's Roller-coaster doesn't quite manage to reach those same heights, but it is by no means a second rate film. Bottoms is excellent as the intelligent psychopath, and Segal is perfectly cast as the grumpy, reluctant hero type, unhappy at being chosen by the killer, unhappy with the FBI, unhappy with businessmen, and unhappy at having to stop smoking. Richard Widmark is just as grumpy as Segal, Susan Strasberg and Henry Fonda don't get to do much, but the film does see the first big screen appearance of Helen Hunt as Segal's teenage daughter.The tension in the build up to the first roller-coaster crash is very similar in style to Jaws, and just as effective until the actual crash. As good as that whole scene is, the impact is lessened because you can clearly see the cars are filled with wobbly shop dummies. The ending suffers the same way, the tension being built nicely as Bottoms plants a second bomb on the roller-coaster itself, but the grand denouement is again hampered by another strategically clothed shop dummy. Overall though, a very enjoyable slice of '70s disaster.

Roller-coaster if seen should be seen in a specially equipped theater rigged for Sensurround. I didn't see this in theater, but I did see Earthquake and I still remember both seeing Earthquake and later going to the same multiplex cinema seeing another feature and hearing the Earthquake noises from the adjoining screening room. It just wasn't the same thing when I later saw Earthquake on television. Nor was it the same seeing a DVD of Roller-coaster.Timothy Bottoms plays the young genius at electronics and explosives who has figured out that the amusement park industry is very unsecure and impossible to secure as a target for terrorism. After causing a couple of accidents where lives were lost, Bottoms blackmails several park owners.On one of those accidents the safety engineer George Segal gets a dressing down on his dereliction of duty and that sends him on a mission. For a guy who hasn't any training in this field, Segal proves to be a remarkable sleuth who matches FBI guy Richard Widmark in this field.Bottoms kind of bonds with Segal in the same way that Scorpio bonded with Dirty Harry and it ends just about the same way.Roller-coaster and other high speed amusement rides are thrilling in and of themselves, adding the possibility of explosion does heighten the tension in Roller-coaster.It's an interesting film premise and Roller-coaster does provide some nice entertainment and it's a catalog of Seventies fashions.

Roller-coaster (1977) ** (out of 4) The disaster genre was certainly running on fumes by the time this thing struck but I'd say this has a lot more in common with JAWS. A nut case (Timothy Bottoms) blows up a roller coaster ride and then blackmails the park owners for a million dollars. He forces a inspector (George Segal) to go along with the ride but after a detective (Richard Widmark) double crosses him, the psychopath picks out another park to blow up. There's barely enough plot here to fill up a TV episode so stretching it out to two-hours was just crazy because after the first deadly ride nothing happens for the rest of the film. A lot of the problem is due to the screenplay but director Goldstone doesn't do the film much justice either as there's no suspense ever built up, which is the same thing that happened to the director's next film, the real disaster WHEN TIME RAN OUT. Back to this film, I'm really not sure what they were thinking making this thing so long unless there was some unwritten rule that any disaster film had to run extra long. At the start of the film it seemed like the screenwriters were going to do something smart and that is do a JAWS on us. In that film, they gave us something everyone like (water) and made us scared of it. This film starts off by showing why people love roller coasters but then it tries to make us scared by showing bodies being broken apart after the first accident. This is all good but then the movie continues and it just goes downhill. There's really not much you can do with a plot like this because rides are either going to blow up or they're not. Here, they don't. We get a long cat and mouse game at an amusement park as Bottoms has Segal walking all over the place to try and get away from the police. This sequence feels close to an hour and not one second of it contains any suspense. The film tacks on an extra ending with the possibility of another bomb being on yet another ride but again we get no suspense. By the time the final act comes along I was struggling to stay away. The one thing the film does offer are some fun performances with Segal doing a very good job in the lead. The screenplay doesn't offer him too much development but the actor keeps thing alive with the fun performance. Widmark is also pretty good in his role and gets to play off that classic attitude in a few nice scenes. Bottoms isn't the greatest villain in history but his calm attitude works. Henry Fonda is kind enough to show and pick up a paycheck. Look quick for Helen Hunt and Steve Guttenberg. One could debate the importance of the 70s disaster flicks but there's no doubt that as the decade went along they got a lot worse. This one here isn't as bad as THE SWARM or WHEN TIME RAN OUT but at the same time there's not enough here to make it worth wasting two hours of your life.