Main Cast: Meat Loaf, Kaki Hunter, Art Carney, Gailard Sartain, Don Cornelius
Release Year: 1980
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Roadie is a showbiz saga about the working slobs who make live pop-music performances happen. Texas good ol' boy Travis W. Redfish (pop singer Meat Loaf) drives a Shiner beer truck on his appointed rounds, but he becomes smitten with rock groupie Lola Bouillabase (Kaki Hunter), a "roadie" whose sole ambition in life is to bed her idol, Alice Cooper (playing himself). Travis' grizzled pappy, Corpus C. Redfish (Art Carney), feels disgusted by his son's lifestyle. After hearing that Cooper and his band are on tour, Lola sets out to catch up to them and offer her services, with Travis in pursuit. Along the way, they meet a number of pop-music stars -- Blondie, Asleep at the Wheel, Hank Williams Jr., Roy Orbison, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- who are all working on their own tours. Travis signs on, himself, as a groupie for a rock band, and is quickly dubbed "greatest roadie of all time," but he soon realizes that he must return to Texas for the wedding of his sister and his best friend. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
It won't win any awards for subtlety, but Roadie is a hoot of a comedy that is also a good an excuse for its producers to pack a soundtrack album with as diverse a group of pop music artists as ever assembled for a feature film. One of the film's jokes is that its star, pop singer Meat Loaf, doesn't warble a note; his character, Travis W. Redfish, has show-biz ambitions, but they extend only to the backstage area. Travis comes off as something of a redneck idiot savant, a beer delivery truck driver who is a dynamo when it comes to making sure that the microphone wires don't get mixed up with the ones for the amplifiers. Roadie is a rock & roll Pilgrim's Progress, as Travis must make his way down that highway to heaven (aka the Alice Cooper tour), a road traveled by music stars who are paying their own dues. Travis's journey allows him to encounter everyone in the pop world from Debbie Harry to Roy Orbison, providing the film with more musical interludes and the soundtrack album more tunes. Unfortunately, Roadie's two-disc soundtrack is not available on compact disc, but the movie lives on wherever video stores with discriminating selections can be found. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Rhonda Bates - Alice Poo; Joe Spano - Ace; Richard Marion - George; Sonny Davis - Bird; Alice Cooper - Himself; Deborah Harry - Herself; Chris Stein - Himself; Clem Burke - Himself; Jimmy Destri - Himself; Nigel Harrison - Himself; Frank Infante - Himself; Roy Orbison - Himself; Hank Williams, Jr. - Himself; Merle Kilgore - Himself; Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Himself; Ray Benson - Himself; Sheryl Cooper - Herself; Alvin Crow - Himself; Blondie; Hamilton Camp; Larry Marshall; Alan Lee Graf; Larry Lindsey
Credit
Jered Edd Grenn - Costume Designer, Gail Bixby - Costume Designer, Alan Rudolph - Director, Carol Littleton - Editor, Tom Walls - Editor, Zalman King - Executive Producer, Craig Hundley - Composer (Music Score), Paul Peters - Production Designer, David Myers - Cinematographer, Alan King - Producer, Zalman King - Producer, Carolyn Pfeiffer - Producer, Richard S. Friedman - Set Designer, Richard Bryce Goodman - Sound/Sound Designer, Zalman King - Screenwriter, Bruce Robinson - Screenwriter, Alan Rudolph - Screenwriter, Michael Ventura - Screenwriter, James Big Boy Medlin - Screenwriter
