My studies in ridonculousness continue with Viva Knievel! (1977), a film starring a man once famed for daring motorcycle feats and sustaining severe injuries when they went awry. Watching movies like this is also daring, in a way. Not all terrible movies are good. Some are bad: baffling, inept, and, crucially, no fun, making them a complete waste of time. And some are just as baffling and inept but less than no fun, more bizarre, disturbing, and, depending on how long one cares to endure them, insanemaking. All fans of the ridonculous movie experience have a moment of crisis in which, holding their heads, they ask themselves: What am I doing with my life? I don’t want to waste my time. And I’d prefer not to lobotomize myself sitting through every minute of the absolute worst of the worst movies ever made. But it’s not always easy to tell which route the terrible movie will take from the start. My answer is to spend less of my life watching, imposing a time limit. Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. If I’m bored or frightened, if I’m feeling pain in the forehead region I didn’t have when I started it, I shut it off and try my best to forget. Minutes are an acceptable loss! for the chance of discovering properly ridonculous cinema.
A note on the word “ridonculous.” You won’t find it in Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Yet. For now I look to a website I don’t visit often, the Urban Dictionary, which relies on postings by users and a voting system. The posting with the most votes is from 2004 by 755coop3: “Functionally similar to the word ‘ridiculous,’ this word is often used in its place for extra emphasis. Example: There's a ridonculous amount of cheddar cheese stuck in the printer.” (Not a secret posting of mine.) But no provenance or noun form is provided. Scroll further down and doof0000, in another entry, informs readers that Roald Dahl uses the word “redunculus” in a children’s book called The BFG, published in 1982. I’m not sure where I picked it up from. A family friend? I didn’t realize the term went back as far as 1982, well before I started using it and meditating upon it (and before I was born). No joke, I thought it was my neologism! Anyway, ridonculousness, as a concept, is mutant ridiculousness: Take a rainbow afro wig. A banana hammock. A bazooka. Several blocks of cheddar cheese. Throw them into a vat of toxic waste. Season with a pinch or brick of cocaine, if you like. And stand back. Ridonculous. One can imagine or casually observe or trip on the sidewalk and into the ridiculous any day of the week. The ridonculous is unimaginable until someone (usually unwittingly) creates it or becomes it. In the former case, it’s an action movie based around a fusion of gymnastics and martial arts no one asked for called Gymkata. In the latter, it’s the living embodiment of ridonculousness, Vanilla Ice. (Who also starred in one movie: Cool as Ice. In a word: Ridonculous.)
Well, I finished Viva Knievel! And it didn’t even take five minutes to determine that I would. The movie shows promise from scene one: Knievel, in the leather jumpsuit-clad, winged haircut role of himself, sneaks into an orphanage at night to deliver toys to children. His presence causes one kid to throw off his crutches and walk unassisted. As the movie progresses, Knievel is never once found to do wrong. (From the Viva Knievel! theme song: “He’s a motorcycle bird/who is never coming down.”) He lives cleanly. He’s loyal to a fault. He won’t be cheated in business. He’s passionately anti-drug, turning the movie into half-PSA. So wholesome. During a dramatic scene, he’s accused by one character, almost incoherently, of having a flaw: caring too much for a vulnerable child. Viva Knievel! is feature-length promotion for Evel Knievel, modern day Jesus.
He has his enemies. The plot involves career sabotage, drug smuggling, murder, and blah, let’s discuss some satisfying absurdities.
A photojournalist arrives to take pictures of Knievel in the event of a crash. She insists on being addressed not as miss but ms. [mizz]. Knievel rancorously says: “Oh, you’re one of them.” He means a feminist. After the label further defines her as antagonistic and shrill, her political views are never mentioned again. Once she’s done with her assignment, she plans on heading to South America to document a revolution. “Aw, they’re always having revolutions down there!” says Knievel. But the feminist gets caught up in Knievel’s exploits and, by the end, the movie simply assumes she’s fallen in love (and perhaps given up her career, renounced feminism, and converted to the Knievel religion).
One of Knievel’s main acolytes in the movie is a child, the son of his assistant. I mock his lines thusly: Gee, Mr. Knievel! You’re the best, Mr. Knievel! Golly, Mr. Knievel! And with a pouty face for awards consideration: Say it ain’t so, Mr. Knievel. (Sowwy, “Evel.”)
After Knievel is injured in a crash (and drama is abruptly and fleetingly introduced with the sudden announcement of his retirement), he’s taken to the hospital, where he lies in bed. This scene best sums up the quality of his acting: he can’t even lie in bed resting convincingly.
In a movie with much to do about drugs, there had to be a drug freakout. It’s performed by a name I recognize from movies I can’t stand: Gene Kelly.
The dullest aspect of the movie by far, ironically, is the reason it exists in the first place: the messiah’s stunts. Since he’s limited to jumping over things, the filmmakers include a lot more buildup than (meager) payoff. The movie ends with Knievel finally sticking the landing. Unwittingly true.
With fairly catchy theme song: “Viva, Viva Knievel/Viva, Viva K-nie-vel!”
