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,