Viva Knievel!

"One fine day a man came to town, a king of the road with a helmet for a crown, a motorcycle bird who is never comin' down..."

--From the Ballad of Evel Knievel, Anonymous, c. 1776 BC, translated from the ancient Babylonian text by Abed "Fred" Alhazred

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Without resorting to hyperbole, Viva Knievel! (1977) is the greatest action-adventure film of all time.

My history with this film goes back to the spring of 1977 when your humble host was traveling in South America "researching" the hallucinogenic properties of certain psychoactive tree frogs of the Amazon rain forest.  On the return leg of one trip I had a five hour layover in Mexico City and eventually found myself in a small movie theater with a few hours to kill before my flight.  Sitting down in the cool dark of el cine, armed with a small popcorn and a large Sonoran desert toad, I was exposed that day to the magnificent glory of Viva Knievel! and the awesome healing light of the one and only Evel Knievel, and verily I came to accept Him into my heart and soul as mine own lord and savior.

When the credits finally rolled I felt like every single bone in my body, along with my mind, had been broken, and the only way to mend them again was to get back on my hog, lick the toad and watch the film again, and again, and again...which I did several times every day for the next few weeks, until some new sci-fi flick by the director of THX-1138 finally pushed Viva Knievel! out of the theater.

Eighteen grueling months later as a recently converted and fanatical orthodox Knievelist, rabidly and LOUDLY attempting to spread the gospel that "Evel is the reason!" at airports, church socials and county fairs throughout Mexico, I found myself disenchanted with the Church of the Holy Cape and Helmet and eventually hitchhiked my way back to the States in order to lick both my physical and psychic wounds and hopefully return to my former well paying job as astronomer in residence at Underwriters Laboratories, where I had previously worked on various projects under the auspices of an extremely generous MK-Ultra grant.

I have not seen the damned film since then.

Keeping my own personal experience in mind, I warn my readers to tread carefully when dabbling in the red, white and blue arts.  Evel is a charismatic showman and almost as hard a habit to kick as Mexican Coke.

A few points to consider before deciding to embark down the 106 minute long ramp of insanity that is Viva Knievel!:

• Evel Knievel is like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus only brought Santa Claus brand toys to distribute to orphans.
• Evel is the reason that lame children throw away their crutches and walk again.
• Lauren Hutton:  "I've had a front row seat at this ugly spectacle".  So true on so many levels!
• Evel is like a charismatic cross between Jesus, Elvis Presley and Superman, and like the latter two, he's one of the few Caucasian men that can really wear a cape and look good doing it.
• The Stratocycle is ah-mah-zing!  It has an American flag and a bald eagle on it (Stephen Colbert would love it).  And it sounds exactly like what I imagine Darth Vader's space toilet sounds like when he flushes in his executive bathroom/meditation chamber aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor.

This:

Sounds like this:

• Leslie Nielsen plays a surprisingly great villain.
• Two words: Marjoe Gortner.  He's the standout in the film as Jessie the junkie; he was also disturbingly great as Jody the psycho from Earthquake (1974).  Really, Google this guy.
• Gene Kelly as an alcoholic ex-motorcycle jumper/deadbeat dad?...yes that Gene Kelly.
• There's a byzantine subplot involving the bad guys plotting to create an exact replica of Knievel's jumping cycle and tractor trailer in an overly complicated plan to smuggle cocaine out of Mexico.
• Mr. Kathy Lee "Frank" Gifford gets quite a bit of airtime as Evel's announcer.
• It could just be me and my ears but Gene Kelly's little bastard kid has a preternaturally deep voice; either the kid was going through puberty during filming or his voice was later re-dubbed by a young Don LaFontaine.
• Helmets had no straps back then, you just stick one on your head and hope it doesn't fall off.
• Instead of Viva Knievel! this film could almost be called Fathers and Sons.
• Again this may just be me, but I could swear Steven Spielberg ripped off several scenes for the truck chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark from the final chase scene in this movie.  There are several beats that look almost exactly the same!
• During the end chase scene, Evel Knievel and Leslie Nielsen ride into a small Mexican village, basically terrorizing the entire population of townsfolk, chickens, and goats.
• It's too bad there weren't any sequels; I would love to have seen a whole series of Knievel films that took place in different locales: Konichiwa Knievel!, L'chaim Knievel!, Da Svidaniya Knievel!

Here's the trailer:



And may Knievel have mercy upon your blasted soul if you do choose to look upon His Evel face with your puny mortal eyes.

You have been warned.