Riding High

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• 1981
• 1 hr 36 mins
• Action & Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Music

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• Watchlist

London-born motorcycle stunt rider Eddie Kidd stars as Dave Munday, a motorcycle messenger who lives with his eccentric, tough and extremely with-it grandma (Irene Handl) in a small seaside town. Dave is bored with his job but sticks with it because of the opportunities it gives him to fantasise with his bike as a stunt rider. One day, Dave sees a giant poster challenging all comers to beat American champion stunt rider Judas S. Chariot (Bill Mitchell) to jump the Devil's Leap - a disused railway viaduct across the Blackwater River in Essex - and win a gold plated dream machine. Dave rallies his friends around him at a local gig and the challenge is accepted. Marvin Ravensdorf (Murray Salem) is the flamboyant promoter of the big biking show and gives a dazzling party at a leading hotel, at which Dave makes a spectacular entrance and busts the party wide open. Only three riders ultimately qualify for the death leap, after a truly hair-raising and hilarious elimination contest held in a huge stadium. Judas, overweight, over-aged and over-the-top, has an exotic girlfriend called Zoro (Marella Oppenheim) whose romantic thoughts begin to turn away from Judas and towards Dave. Dave and Judas meet at Devil's Leap - neither having previously seen it - and are appalled at the yawning chasm confronting them. They both want to quit but the relentless Ravensdorf will have none of it. He has them trapped in water-tight contracts and they are compelled to go through with it.