Kansas City Bomber

While Raquel Welch was a household name and an international sex symbol through much of the 1960s'and 1970s, Hollywood didn't seem sure about what to do with her; this was one of her more unusual vehicles from this period, in which Welch plays K.C. Carr, a divorcee with two children who becomes romantically involved with Burt Henry (Kevin McCarthy). Burt is the owner of a roller derby team, the Kansas City Bombers, and convinces K.C. that a career on the rink might be just the thing for her. K.C. soon discovers that the sport is rougher than she imagined, and her teammate Jackie (Helena Kallianiotes) is convinced that K.C. is out to replace her as the Bombers' star attraction. But another member of the team, Horrible Hank Hopkins (Norman Alden), shows K.C. the ropes and stands up for her. When Hank gets traded to another team, K.C. has to learn to fend for herself against Jackie as well as Burt. Raquel Welch did all her own skating for this film; an accident while filming one of the derby sequences left her with a broken wrist that shut down production for six weeks. Legendary singer and songwriter Phil Ochs was tapped by the producers of Kansas City Bomber to write a theme song for the film; it wasn't used, though it was released as a single and appeared on the compilation CD The War is Over: The Best of Phil Ochs.