This fast moving B picture is loosely based on real life roller derby stars but has shrunk the main subject a good foot. Rooney is energetic as always bit he's not as frenetic as Andy Hardy or any of those eager kids trying to put on a show with Judy Garland. He's a starving orphan who ends up on wheels and enters a roller derby contest, becoming a star. Beverly Tyler is the instructor who encourages him rather than Glenn Corbett whom he started with and pushed him out on the floor just to Jr a bully. Pat O'Brien, the priest at the orphanage, encourages Rooney, but fate intervenes after he finds success with a bout of polio.
This is the stuff that B movies are made of, trends that have a limited audience and in this case, violent and often short lived in appeal. Rooney starts off quiet and humble but after he's seen on TV harassing Corbett, he all of a sudden becomes smug and unlikeable. His antics eventually become truly unfunny and he is hard to tolerate even after he gets sick.
This is only memorable for a look back at a forgotten sport and an early contract role for Marilyn Monroe at 20th, as the date of Rooney's friend, James Brown. She's completely inconsequential to the plot. Tyler is an acceptable leading lady and O'Brien is overly noble as the voice of reason that can't even get through to Rooney. The Mick was on a downward spiral at this time, and it didn't help that a lot of the B leads he was in had him in unsympathetic parts. Had the lead casting been a bit more realistic, this could have been a bit better, but director Tay Garnett really should have worked on toning down the star he got stuck with.
This is the stuff that B movies are made of, trends that have a limited audience and in this case, violent and often short lived in appeal. Rooney starts off quiet and humble but after he's seen on TV harassing Corbett, he all of a sudden becomes smug and unlikeable. His antics eventually become truly unfunny and he is hard to tolerate even after he gets sick.
This is only memorable for a look back at a forgotten sport and an early contract role for Marilyn Monroe at 20th, as the date of Rooney's friend, James Brown. She's completely inconsequential to the plot. Tyler is an acceptable leading lady and O'Brien is overly noble as the voice of reason that can't even get through to Rooney. The Mick was on a downward spiral at this time, and it didn't help that a lot of the B leads he was in had him in unsympathetic parts. Had the lead casting been a bit more realistic, this could have been a bit better, but director Tay Garnett really should have worked on toning down the star he got stuck with.