Viva Knievel! (1977)

(On Cable TV, September 2020) The curse of star vehicles is that you have to like the stars, and while Evel Knievel was still a shorthand for “daredevil stuntman” when I was a young kid, 1977 was a year of highs and lows for him. On the low side, a failed jump injured him in January, and later during the year he was arrested for assaulting his promoter, leading to the end of his sponsorship deals. On the plus side (although that would be debatable), there was the release of Viva Knievel!, a film featuring Knievel as himself, acting in an ultimate star vehicle. Mere words can barely sum up the inanity of the result, which starts (non-ironically) with Knievel comforting kids at an orphanage by handing them action figures of himself and ends with Knievel freeing a woman and kid from the clutches of an evil drug dealer played by Leslie Nielsen. In between, we get Gene Kelly acting as his mechanic, a preachy anti-drug speech interrupting the action (It even interrupts the film’s plot summary on Wikipedia), a few daredevil jumps and an anti-feminist rant that’s supposed to charm the film’s romantic interest—and does because it’s a star vehicle. If that wasn’t enough, the 1970s fashions are showcased in eye-injuring colour.  Viva Knievel must be seen to be believed, but that’s overhyping it—much of the film is deathly boring, with only a few “that’s stupid!’ moments to enliven things along the way. It does serve as a warning signal of sort to anyone hubristic enough to play themselves in a hagiography—Sic transit gloria mundi and all. One thinks a death-defying stuntman should know better.