Get Rollin' (film)

{{Infobox film

| name = Get Rollin'

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| director = J. Terrance Mitchell

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| writer = J. Terrance Mitchell

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| released = {{Film date|1980|04|25|US}}

| runtime = 90 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

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Get Rollin{{'}} is a 1980 American roller disco docudrama film directed by J. Terrance Mitchell.{{cite magazine|url=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8k7m4e2TYeU/TOf9Wrn8xuI/AAAAAAAAKjs/IBteg6AsYX4/s1600/gtrll2.jpg|title=Get Rollin'|magazine=The New Yorker|author=Angell, Roger|authorlink=Roger Angell|page=166|date=May 5, 1980}}{{Cite book |last=LLC |first=New York Media |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=veUCAAAAMBAJ&dq=1980+%22get+rollin%27%22&pg=PA81 |title=New York Magazine |date=1980-04-28 |publisher=New York Media, LLC |pages=81 |language=en |quote=A docu-drama about the Empire Roller Drome, in Brooklyn. With Pat Richardson and Vincent Brown.}}

The film focuses on various skating personalities at Brooklyn's Empire Rollerdrome. It features numerous interviews, roller disco footage, stunts to popular songs, and dramatized versions of their auditions.

Specifically, it features skaters Pat "the Cat" Richardson, also known as "the Cowboy"; and Vincent "Vinzerelli" Brown, a caseworker with New York Family Court. {{external media|video1=[https://archive.org/details/get-rollin Get Rollin' on Archive.org]|float=right}}

Reception

In 1980, Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the film's engagement and format ,as "deceptively simple". The review also complimented the starring cast, and concluded that the film was "so full of genuine good feelings that one comes out of theater in a state of something like pure, wonderful elation."{{Cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |date=1980-04-25 |title=Screen: 'Get Rollin', 'Life Inside the Disco Rink; World of Wheels |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/25/archives/screen-get-rollin-life-inside-the-disco-rink-world-of-wheels.html |access-date=2022-12-21 |issn=0362-4331}}

In 2015, Indiewire similarly commented that the two starring skaters were "bright, funny, colorful, and above all inspiring" but criticised the overall structure as loose and that several scenes were "very painfully and obviously staged".{{cite web |author=Smith, Nigel M. |date=January 9, 2015 |title=Exclusive: Lost Ed Wood Film to Screen at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin This Month |url=http://www.indiewire.com/2015/01/exclusive-lost-ed-wood-film-to-screen-at-the-alamo-drafthouse-in-austin-this-month-66449/ |publisher=IndieWire}}

Roger Angell from The New Yorker called it a "noisy and imperfect semidocumentary" and an attempt to recreate "Saturday Night Fever on wheels". The reviewer criticised the film's long length and poor plot, but complimented an "inventive" cinematic shot featuring Pat the Cat skating on the Brooklyn Bridge and wrote that "there is a lot pleasure of in watching the wonderful skaters".

Upon its release, the film did not screen extensively. It was broadcast on television in the Netherlands in an unknown year.