Some heroes go to medical school and save lives. Others rescue strangers from burning buildings, or devote their time to helping the less fortunate. Evel Knievel is about the greatest and most authentic sort of hero: the kind who gets paid fistfuls of cash for jumping a motorcycle over 19 cars or the Snake River Canyon. And who better to play America's greatest hero than George Hamilton, owner of the world's most heroic tan? As Evel Knievel opens, the Bronzed One is looking directly into the camera, relaying a heartwarming anecdote about a little boy who said he didn't think Hamilton could jump 19 cars with a motorcycle, but had bought a ticket to see his hero go "splat." Before revealing whether he disappoints the boy by escaping grievous bodily harm, the film flashes back to Hamilton's hardscrabble childhood in Montana, where his narration reveals that an elaborate maze of mines threatens to suck the careless into a vast and merciless underground. Then, to prove this point, a luckless automobile plummets into the mines, an event which merits only a bemused expression from the pint-sized daredevil-to-be. Evel Knievel then flashes forward to his incorrigible early-adult years, where he amuses a gang of barflies by robbing a store's safe with the accidental help of a clueless cop, then distributes the cash to amazed onlookers like a tipsy Robin Hood. Hamilton next delights his public at his first big jump, preceding it with a short speech in which he wisely distances himself from motorcycle-riding "weirdoes" intent on "scaring the heck out of anyone who gets in the way." After an ill-fated Vegas jump, a longsuffering doctor tells him he'll never walk again, but Hamilton somehow works up the strength to fondle a nurse and crash his motorcycle in the hospital's parking lot. Nurse-groping aside, Hamilton has a romantic streak, which is revealed through his motorcycle-jump-intensive courtship of pretty high-schooler Sue Lyon, whom he takes for a joyride that includes driving on the sidewalk, eluding the cops through a series of dangerous jumps, and ultimately broken bones and a stint in jail. Following further flashbacks documenting his dynamite-assisted robbery of City Hall and his kidnapping of Lyon from her dorm, Hamilton ultimately makes the 19-car jump, disappointing the morbid little boy, but thrilling his millions of fans.
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