Despite the presence of the electrifying Claudia Jennings, director Vernon Zimmerman's roller derby movie is as dull as they come. There's very little wit or even excitement in this film. Jennings is a factory worker who chucks her job and joins the derby circuit. She becomes a star and has to ward off the advances of creepy team-mates (both male and female) and deal with her white trash mother (Kathleen Freeman). There's no more to the plot than that. The editing was supervised by Martin Scorsese and the supporting cast includes Roberta Collins and Alan Vint. Vint brings some empty headed swagger to his role. The music is by bubble gum pop king Bobby Hart. This is one of only a handful of starring roles for Jennings, who died much too young in 1979.

..as in 'bad fashions,' 'bad hairdos,' and just plain old tackiness.The movie isn't really interesting. A woman who is being harassed by her employer (even through she's annoying as hell) and goes into the rollerderby. Despite the fact that all her teammates hate her, she somehow succeeds by her viciousness alone and spends the latter half of the movie beating down her opposition and getting beaten in return. At the end, she just goes around beating the hell out of people, shows her tattoo for some reason, and all this nonsense ends.It was basically the last half of a drive-in triple feature and it shows. Nudity is sparse, violence is all around, and the movie tries to be gritty but only succeeds in being extremely goofy and annoying. There is no real plot and nobody will care at the end. I have a feeling this was designed to GET people out of the theater or to give teens in the '70s extra time to makeout or get their clothes on before the drive-in closed.Be warned. It's a long ride to nowhere.

SPOILER ALERT The late 60's and 70's produced many different themes in the exploitation genre, the black detective, the pimp, the biker, the redneck, the car chase, and, very briefly, the roller derby film.The opening of the film is a roller derby just getting started. The crowd stands up to salute the national anthem, which is turned on a record player by a drunk janitor, and the record is severely warped. Nice opening, you know it has a sense of humor about itself. Plus, in the opening credits we see Martin Scorsese as Supervising Editor (same year as Boxcar Bertha, one year before Mean Streets). So, from the get go, it is an interesting b-movie ride.Karen Walker is tired of her job at the cat food cannery, and shoves a can of cat food in her sleazeball managers face before she walks out. She goes home and informs her nymphomaniac, topless go-go dancer roommate, who is constantly bonking her boyfriend (kind of a low IQ Jean Paul Belamondo look alike), that she is going to roller derby tryouts. The glamorous roller derby guys consist of the drunk doctor, the promoters, and the detective from King of New York as the coach. As they watch the tryouts, they say things like, "Put the fag on the Demons team. the crowd will hate him." and "That girls (Karen, of course) got showmanship." There are only two teams, the Avengers and the Demons, and Karen makes it on the Avengers. She goes home and poses in her uniform, and it is oddly almost like the Taxi Driver "You talkin' to me?" scene.What is funny, is that the film breaks the fourth wall, in the training sequence, by showing that it is all fake. Rememeber, this was back in the day when professional wrestling was still thought of/pretended to be "real". They are instructed how to hit, take a fall, different ways to scream in pain, and where to stage a fight so the crowd can see clearly. Yet, throughout the rest of the movie, in any competition, it is treated seriously, for real, complete with locker room pep talks, ignoring the fact that previous scenes explain how it is fake.Karen gets her physical in her underwear and go-go boots. Karen begins to upstage Mickey, the Avengers #1 player. Karen gets humiliated, stripped to her panties, by the other players after the first big game. She tears off with one of the guys (old, Latino, but wearing a USA flag, puffy pirate shirt) and shows her craziness by randomly shooting a pistol off the back of his chopper as they cruise down the street. She gets more popular and looney. Gets the Avengers logo tatooed on her arm. The team gets more jealous of her. Her go-go dancing friend leaves her. Her own team beats, stomps, and whips her with a car antenna one night. She gets crazier and is set up to be replaced. Then we get a finale in witch Karen goes off the deep end, a huge fight ensues, and she skates off into traffic. All in exploitation fun. THE END.-"Honey, I got balls. I got yours."

This is actually a good film. I recommend it for any fans of b-movies/exploitation, or for those who (like myself) remember watching the female roller fights on TV in the 70's and 80's. The plot of this film is very similar to SHOWGIRLS, with an antagonistic, unlikable main character. Believe it or not, the film was edited by the future director of RAGING BULL...