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What About the Chihuahuas?: A review of "Viva Knievel"
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Chihuahuas would
have helped this film, so near the end of this motorcycle wreck
of celluloid it seemed a good idea to pretend there were some
yippie dogs in the movie. But by then it was too late. A comprehensible
plot probably would have helped more than chihuahuas, but we're
not banking on that either. |
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Sister
Charity |
Just
Say "No" |
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| The
bizarre twists, of which there were many, began at the beginning
when Evel Knievel showed up in the middle of the night bearing
gifts at an orphanage run
by Sister Charity, who didn't appear again in the rest of the
movie, but whose knuckle-rapping presence could have helped. At
the least, it would not have hurt. The stirring orphanage scene
opened the movie and also set up the subtle undercurrent of
biblical metaphors that infused this Movie Club selection. |
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Knievel,
Staring Down the Big Cats |
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least subtle of these themes was the motorcycle jump over cages
of snarling lions and tigers, reminiscent of the Romans tossing
the Christians to hungry beasts. Only, unfortunately, Knievel
was spared being torn asunder. And, as even the least schooled
of us know, the Bible is rife with fire and there was fire
aplenty in this film, though perhaps not aplenty enough. |
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| The
weirdest aspect of "Viva Knievel" was the long stretch
that took place in Mexico, which would have been perfect for
some chihuahuas, but also for some Mexicans, but there didn't
seem to be any of those. |
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Red Buttons,
"Post Poseidon" |
Gene Kelly |
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| There
was Red Buttons, who should have quit making movies at "The
Poseidon Adventure," and Gene Kelly, whose portrayal of the
drunken motorcycle mechanic/ former jumper rendered us
speechless and hoping he would break into song and dance. Alas,
that particular plot twist was not to be. |
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Lauren Hutton as Kate Morgan |
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was also a young Lauren Hutton, years before she actually grew
into her cheekbones and bought herself some breasts. It is truly
a sad commentary on her career that her best acting has been in
those post-menopausal HRT ads. We mean the print version. |
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Bad Guy
Leslie Nielsen |
Evel and
Dabney at the All-American Mexican Asylum |
Gene Kelly
and Son |
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| We
still aren't sure about the whole cocaine-in-the-casket
subplot involving Leslie Nielsen, who just isn't cut out
to play an evil drug-dealing overlord. Now, Dabney Coleman we
got. He at least seemed to have a little fun with his role as
the all-American Mexican asylum doctor, especially when he told
the kid who was four sizes too small for his deep voice that he
could not see his father, portrayed by Gene Kelly. |
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Forty ... |
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| Back
to those biblical undertones -- we all noticed the portentous
"40" sign on
which the camera affixed for long seconds. Besides being an
eerie moment given Paul's 40th birthday celebration and the
running commentary involving that figure, we all certainly know
that 40 is a key number in the Bible. By movie's end, we had
some sense of what it felt like for the Israelites to wander
those 40 years in the desert, and certainly it was no
coincidence that the movie's pivotal scenes took place in a
desert-like place. |
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| Still,
we wonder, where are a pack of chihuahuas when you most need
them? Alas, far away from this dog of a Movie Club selection.
The End.
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