DERBY (1970) **

I grew up watching roller derby on television and really loved it as a kid.  I even try to catch it whenever it periodically gets revived through the years.  There’s just something about seeing people beating the crap out of each other while roller skating that appeals to me.

Derby is a documentary on the sport.  It follows a guy named Mike Snell who’s trying break into the business.  Mike seems like a regular guy, but there’s something a bit sneaky about him.  We never seen without his shades, which make him look kind of like a beatnik.  (He claims they’re prescription.)  Maybe it’s the fact that we can’t see his eyes that makes him seem like he’s not on the up-and-up.

We also spend time with Charlie O’Connell, the star of the circuit.  He’s an older, wiser, and more experienced skater.  He’s also not a whole lot of fun.  Although O’Connell has a degree of charisma when he’s on the track and while he’s holding court in the locker room among the other players, he comes off as stiff and uncomfortable in his interview segments.  It’s easy to see why the director wanted to focus more on Mike.  I mean he’s not exactly likeable, but it makes for a better interview subject.

Derby is at its most involving when the women jammers are on track.  Like Skinamax movies, roller derby is more interesting when the women are front and center.  Too bad they’re barely featured.  Later filmmakers realized the women skaters were infinitely more interesting when they made the fictionalized women’s roller derby classics The Unholy Rollers, Kansas City Bomber, and Whip It.  I guess the genre was still finding its footing here.

The roller derby action is captured well enough.  However, the scenes where the camera is in thick of the action is obviously staged.  I mean the players wouldn’t be allowed to have camera on the track during regulation play. 

The biggest problem is that the movie has no real drive.  It just kind of ambles along; sometimes taking weird detours leading to dead end scenes that only act as padding.  (The love triangle between some go-go dancers and Mike’s long talk with a soldier just home from Vietnam particularly stick out like sore thumbs.)  Overall, Derby only occasionally comes to life when the jammers are doing their thing on the track.  Mostly though, it just goes around in circles 

AKA:  Roller Derby.