Skatetown U.S.A./Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Skatetown U.S.A.
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  • Film debut of Patrick Swayze.
  • Patrick Swayze and April Allen were roller skating partners as children in Houston, Texas. When filming started, they hadn't seen each other for eleven years.
  • The Skatetown, U.S.A disco was based on Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. It opened in 1979, and the film premiered there.
  • According to Maureen McCormick, cocaine use was common during filming. In her book "Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice", she writes "Like a disco, there was a lot of cocaine being done on the set. Many people were open about it."
  • This film was the first roller-disco movie of the late 1970s. It was released a few months before Roller Boogie (1979).
  • The skate gang was called the West Side Wheelers.
  • After Patrick Swayze appeared in Dirty Dancing (1987), this movie was nicknamed "Dirty Skating".
  • The movie features a few American television stars from the 1960s and 1970s, including Scott Baio, Ruth Buzzi, Maureen McCormick, Ron Palillo, and Flip Wilson.
  • Film debut of Kelly Lang.
  • Patrick Swayze and an uncredited Gary Hudson would work together later in Road House.
  • The nickname of the DJ was the Wizard. The Wiz (1978) had been released the previous year.
  • Dorothy Stratten: The blonde at the food counter ordering pizza. She was the August 1979 Playboy Playmate Of The Month and 1980 Playmate Of The Year.
  • Played on top of a quadruple bill with Which Way Is Up?, Tattoo Connection and Fast Fists at Cine 42 the week of December 21, 1979.
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