Kansas City Bomber is a 1972 American drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

, directed by Jerrold Freedman and starring Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch

Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...

.

Plot summary

The film is an inside look at the world of co-ed Roller Derby

Roller derby

Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...

, then a popular league sport.

The story focuses on K.C. Carr (Welch) who has just left her former team in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

 to start her life as a single mother over again in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 with a team called the Portland Loggers. Loggers' owner Burt Henry (McCarthy) is clearly interested in her, and K.C. and Burt date. But Burt has a rather ruthless side to him: he trades away K.C.'s best friend on the team, and when he sees that star male skater "Horrible" Hank Hopkins is interested in her, he manipulates the audience into booing Hopkins, causing him to go crazy and lose his job. Henry's endgame is to set up a match race between K.C. and her teammate and rival Jackie Burdette (Kallianiotes), with K.C. deliberately losing so that she can join Henry at a new team he's setting up in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. But K.C. doesn't trust Henry anymore (or his promises to let her bring her daughter along) and wins the match race.

Cast

• Raquel Welch
  Raquel Welch
  Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
  
   as K.C. Carr
• Kevin McCarthy
  Kevin McCarthy (actor)
  Kevin McCarthy was an American stage, film, and television actor, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
  
   as Burt Henry
• Helena Kallianiotes
  Helena Kallianiotes
  Helena Kallianiotes is an American film actress. In 1973 was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for her role as Jackie Burdette in Kansas City Bomber.-Career overview:...
  
   as Jackie Burdette
• Norman Alden
  Norman Alden
  Norman Alden is an American character actor who has performed in television programs and motion pictures since first appearing on The 20th Century Fox Hour in 1957. He provided the voice of Kay in The Sword in the Stone film in 1963 and received Oscar buzz for his role in I Never Promised You a...
  
   as Horrible Hank Hopkins
• Jeanne Cooper
  Jeanne Cooper
  Wilma Jeanne Cooper , best known as Jeanne Cooper, is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Katherine Chancellor on the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless...
  
   as Trainer Vivien
• Richard Lane as TV Spokesman Jen
• Jodie Foster
  Jodie Foster
  Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
  
   as Rita
• Shelly Novack
  Shelly Novack
  Sheldon Leonard "Shelly" Novack was an American football player and actor.-Career:Novack was an all-league and special mention Junior College All-American at Santa Monica City College , and 1 team All-American at Long Beach State in 1964 and 1965. In 1966, Novack was drafted as a wide receiver by...
  
   as Ben

Soundtrack

The songwriter Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

 wrote a song with the same title

Kansas City Bomber (song)

"Kansas City Bomber" is a song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. singer-songwriter best known for the protest songs he wrote in the 1960s.In 1972, record producer Lee Housekeeper asked Ochs to write the theme song for the film Kansas City Bomber, a film about roller derby starring Raquel Welch...

 that was intended as title song for the film, but not used.

Awards and honors

Helena Kallianiotes was nominated for a Golden Globe for "Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture"