Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Viva Knievel! (1977)


I would never have watched Viva Knievel if it weren't for Rifftrax. It starred Evel Knievel as a mercifully fictionalized version of himself. I had heard of it but never had any desire to see it.

Young people may not even know this now---Evel Knievel was a daredevil by trade who jumped over things on a motorcycle.  He suffered around 200 broken bones. I was a kid back then and we thought this was an achievement. 

In Viva Knieval, Evel accuses a lady photojournalist of only wanting to see him die, like that wasn't what every one of his "fans" packing the stadium was there to observe.

In real life, Knieval tried to murder a man with a baseball bat shortly before the movie was released to theaters. This ruined any chance the movie had financially.

I was surprised that it had Gene Kelly, Red Buttons and Lauren Hutton. With Marjoe Gortner, Dabney Coleman, Frank Gifford and Cameron Mitchell. With child actor Eric Olson who was a junior high kid at the time playing Gene Kelly's estranged son.

A stuntman recreated Knievel's motorcycle jumps and did it without injury. He's the one they should have made a movie about.



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