Evel Knievel (film)
| Evel Knievel | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Marvin J. Chomsky |
| Produced by |
George Hamilton Joe Solomon |
| Written by |
Alan Caillou John Milius |
| Starring |
George Hamilton Sue Lyon Bert Freed |
| Music by | Patrick Williams |
| Distributed by | Fanfare Films |
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Release date
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $4,000,000 (US/ Canada rentals) |
Evel Knievel is a 1971 motion picture starring George Hamilton as motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel.
The story is a biography of the famed motorcycle daredevil, who grew up in Butte, Montana. The film depicts Knievel reflecting on major events in his life, particularly his relationship with his girlfriend/wife, Linda. The film opens with Knievel at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. Knievel is speaking directly to the camera describing his upcoming daredevil motorcycle jump:
Following his introduction, the story follows a flashback narrative through Knievel's life.
The film ends with Knievel successfully completing the jump at the Ontario Motor Speedway and riding off onto a dirt road which leads to the edge of the Grand Canyon. (At the time of production, the real Evel Knievel was hyping a jump over the Canyon.)
As the movie closes over the Grand Canyon, George Hamilton delivers a voice-over monologue in the Knievel character. In the monologue, he describes himself as the "last gladiator", which would later be used by the real Evel Knievel in his 1998 documentary, The Last of the Gladiators.
Below is a transcript of the monologue from the movie:
George Hamilton was writing a story about a bronc rider who became a motorcycle rider. While preparing to film it, he interviewed various stunt men for the lead role and heard about Knieval. He visited the stuntman in a San Francisco hospital and found him more fascinating than what he was writing. In 1970, Hamilton stated that:
In America we've long had a theory that all men have an equal right to become everything they want. But there's a new theory being pushed on us - that every man has to be something whether he wants to or not. That's what the theory of Evil Knievel is about. He's an individual who doesn't care about establishment or hippie, both have their phony sides. I'm not sure why Evil does what he does on a motorcycle. But I do know that by the time the picture is finished I'll be able to say it in one sentence.
The screenplay was originally written by Alan Caillou who had written the screenplay for Jack Starrett's The Losers also for Joe Solomon's Fanfare Films. However George Hamilton was not happy with it. He offered to pay John Milius $5,000 to write some lines in the script. Milius says he went to Hamilton's home at Palm Springs to read the script "and it was terrible. So I threw the script in the pool and beat on it with an oar. And of course the script was waterlogged, so I just wrote another one. He later told me he knew that if I got down there with that script I'd write another one."
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