1 of 3 | Bill Allen and Laura Jacoby star in “Rad,” returning to theaters Sunday via Fathom Entertainment. Photo courtesy of Utopia
LOS ANGELES, March 21 (UPI) — The 1986 BMX movie Rad, returning to theaters Sunday and Tuesday via Fathom Entertainment, stars Bill Allen as teen bicyclist Cru Jones. On screen, Cru is actually a hybrid between Allen and Eddie Fiola.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Allen and Fiola explained their collaboration. Fiola was a professional freestyle BMX rider hired to double Allen in the bicycling scene.
“There was little bike riding that I had to do,” Allen, 63, said. “If you look at the scenes where I’m on a bike, it’s a little embarrassing.”
Cru wears a helmet, which Fiola could don to substitute for Allen. Even so, there was even more movie magic to make Rad look a lot more dangerous than it was for the performers.
Cru evades a policeman by riding atop piles of logs in a lumber yard. Fiola revealed how the filmmakers, led by director Hal Needham, made riding over logs more feasible.
“The hard part was making it look hard,” Fiola, 61, said. “If you looked really close, you could actually see plywood laying down on top of the lumber.”
Cru competes in the Helltrack race to win $100,000, a Corvette, and inevitably a place on a professional team. Fiola was not a racer, so other riders slowed down to make him appear more competitive.
“They had to act as if they were riding fast but really riding slower,” Fiola said. “If you could look and zoom in on their hands, they’re actually on their brakes and riding with a little bit of slag to them.”
Helltrack includes a jump called The Cliffhanger which eliminates competitors who wipe out on the landing. Even The Cliffhanger was fitted with a curved ramp so Fiola could land.
“It was actually straight,” Fiola said. “When we actually went and tried to ride up it, the front wheel would hit and bounce us backwards. So luckily enough [stunt coordinator] Pat Romano was there and was able to reach out and grab me.”
Fiola overperformed some of the film’s stunts. A jump into a lake had to be redone because Fiola overshot the camera.
“They missed us, completely overshot the shot that they wanted to get,” Fiola said. “We had to get dried off and do the shot again.”
Cru even showboats on his newspaper route. An early sequence shows him race other paperboys through the neighborhood, which Fiola performed.
“I’ve never jumped out of a swimming pool with a newspaper bag on me,” Fiola said. “So when I jumped out and did the 360, every newspaper flew out. So we had to retake that shot again.”
Even with minimal riding on screen, Allen sustained an injury. It was not even on camera, rather he was riding before a dialogue scene.
“I nearly broke my skull wide open when I hit the wrong brake and landed on my head,” Allen said. “Don’t do that. It has dire consequences.”
Fiola said most of the falls captured in the film were accidental. Only Mike Miranda’s Helltrack fall was choreographed.
“When I crashed during the qualifying race and I fall into the oncoming traffic, that’s real,” Fiola said. “When the guy’s going through Helltrack and coming off the KIX Bowl, off the spoon, and they crash, that’s real.”
Allen took the acting side of Rad seriously, wanting to do justice to the BMX riders Cru represented. The actors said he learned acting from his contemporaries, who included George Clooney, Lou Diamond Phillips and the late Brandon Lee and Miguel Ferrer.
“I was portraying them, for better or worse, their lifestyle and their dreams and what they had to go through,” Allen said. “What they didn’t show was all the hospital time and all the casts and all the physical injuries that it takes to get where Ed ended up in the business.”
After Rad, Fiola became a professional stuntman. He has worked on films like The Bourne Legacy, Spider-Man 3 and The Italian Job.
“Riding a BMX bike, you’re going to fall,” Fiola said. “Falling happens, you get hurt and you figure it out and you try it again. To do stunts where they’re actually telling you when and where to fall, that is so much easier. I could tuck and roll and do whatever I need to do.”
Allen said he has enjoyed being the face of Rad for its annual re-releases and anniversaries, hearing them talk to the screen and seeing them wear Rad T-shirts. Allen said he is attached to another BMX movie he hopes will be completed by 2028.
Though unrelated to Rad, Allen said the new film would pay homage to its legacy.
“I’m going to be playing the old guy who teaches the young guy,” Allen said. “There’s going to be a lot of Easter eggs in there for the fans and they deserve it. They deserve it.”
