Citizens Band

This here is a forgotten little movie about a small town that communicates less than amicably via CB radio. I don't say that it's a forgotten little gem, like it would've been expected of me to say after 'forgotten little' because it's not really a gem. That's not to say it doesn't attempt some interesting things, and occasionally succeeds. At the center of the story, I think, is a young guy who repairs said radios and volunteers with a monitoring organization and acts as a sort of community FCC, busting everyone's balls on the somewhat taboo things they talk to each other about on this sort of walkie-talkie sort of system. Everyone's anonymous, it's very rare that this stickler of a guy can deduce who is who when he hears them and objects, and what it makes me think of as a young guy myself, watching it on a library VHS in the year 2010, is an earlier, unofficial form of social networking that is ubiquitous nowdays. MySpace, Facebook. REACT International is like a poor Mormon in a room full of rich atheists now.

Citizens Band is interesting because it was made in 1977 and I'm watching it now. Other than that, it's decent, but nothing really pops out at me. I stand by my claim of an uncanny parallel between the abuse of a citizens-band radio and the online networks of the information age. Look at what these characters do! Calling themselves by monikers on the airwaves such as Chrome Angel, Dallas Angel, Papa Thermodyne, Hot Coffee. Isn't that what we did for years on MySpace before we got sick of it and gravitated toward Facebook and started using our real names? At its core though, Citizens Band, or Handle With Care, as it is known in a further edited version, is a B comedy about an assortment of deadpan screwballs. That's not bad at all. Don't get me wrong. It feels like an Altman film in ensemble, in situations, in the depiction of a fully realized world of people, and certain plot strands are kind of novel and fun for that reason, such as when two women meet on their way to the same town, and find out they have more than a lot in common. Demme never looks down on his working class characters, displaying instead a compassion and empathy. Even a polygamist trucker, our young protagonist who in this day and age would probably be written off as a McCarthy or Murdoch sort of oppressor, and even his controlling, competitive older brother.

Having seen Demme's later work, from the 1980s and his obvious crowning achievements later on, I suppose I expected more of his love of music as well, and there is very little. But who am I to criticize a filmmaker at the start of his career, making B films and exploitation films, trying to get started, feeling out his strong suits and his weak ones? The reasons why an above-par director could've made a sub-par film is often because he has yet to discover the sources of his passions, the key to his craftsmanship. Citizens Band is one of those sub-par films by one of those above-par directors. And don't miss Bruce McGill in his first film. That's right, pre-D Day!

It sounds like a redneck movie about truckers, but it's really a gentle character study. The story centers around the citizen's band radio craze of the 1970s. Against this backdrop, the lives of a group of small town residents is examined in a successful blend of comedy and drama. Le Mat is quite likable as the unofficial enforcer of the local airwaves. His girlfriend is played by Clark, his "American Graffiti" co-star. There are fine performances from Blossom and McGill, as Le Mat's father and brother, respectively. There's a funny subplot about a bigamist trucker featuring Napier, Wedgeworth, Rodd, and Elias. The finale is a little forced, but this early effort from Demme mostly rings true.

Another example of a movie featuring independent stories that find a connecting point, "Handle With Care" (or "Citizens Band") puts its own twist on the genre by having the stories connect through the use of CB radios by the main characters.

As with almost any movie of this type, some of the stories are better than others. The story featuring "Spider" (Paul Le Mat) as a sort of CB super-hero who makes sure that people don't abuse the airwaves was a bit silly, and reminded me a lot of the old '70's TV series "Emergency," combined with a bit of "Batman" - without the costume. Like the paramedics of "Emergency" kept responding to largely unrelated emergencies with at best only a loose thread holding every episode together, Spider similarly dealt with an injured trucker (Charles Napier) and a pilot forced to crashland on a highway, and - like the Caped Crusader without the cape - he took on a boy who used the radio for underhanded purposes, a neo-Nazi who spread hatred and a radical Catholic priest who was trying to convert listeners. The best story was of that rescued trucker, who turns out to be a bigamist and who has to deal with both wives coming to see if he's OK. That story was also responsible for most of the humour in the movie, and was, I thought quite well done. Spider's dysfunctional family, and the sexual CB fantasies of "Warlock" and "Electra" were other connecting stories.

It was an inconsistent movie - some stories were very good and very funny, some were quite dull to be honest. It's worth no more than a 5, but in fairness it's a 5 that's worth watching.

In the heartland town of Union, Blayne Lovejoy (Paul Le Mat) is a young man who volunteers for REACT (Radio Emergency Associated Communication Teams) offering assistance under the handle of "Spider" to truckers and motorists via CB while working in CB Radio repair. Blayne lives with his father Floyd "Papa Thermodyne" (Roberts Blossom) which has put a strain on Blayne as he's recently ended his engagement with Pam (Candy Clark).

Citizens Band (Also known under the titles of Handle with Care and The Great American Citizens Band) is a 1977 dramedy film directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Paul Brickman who'd eventually write Risky Business. The film was one of a number of film's put out by Hollywood during the height of the CB fad with hits such as Smokey and the Bandit and Convoy to more obscure works such as Smokey Bites the Dust. Several directors passed on the project until Jonathan Demme accepted the role of director having fallen in love with the characters of the script rather than the story itself. Made for a budget of less than $2 million, Paramount hoped the film would be a sleeper hit and adopted a "wait and see" approach with the film given very little marketing or promotional push with the hope being the film would be spread by word of mouth and catch onto the CB wave. The film underperformed at the box office with Paramount eventually recalling the prints and trying to release the film under the new title of Handle with Care after coming to believe the film was being mistaken as a musical for the presence of "Band" in the title. While critical reception was positive and actor Peter Falk loved the film enough to bring Demme on to Columbo to direct an episode, the movie has largely fallen into obscurity which is a shame because it's way better than stuff like Convoy or various other films that tried to tap into the CB Radio craze.

At its core, Citizens Band is a character study of small town and on the road eccentrics who come together via CB adopting various handles and identities that come with those handles with the characters' interactions over CB often revealing thoughts and motivations left unspoken or muted in their interpersonal connections. Paul Le Mat is really good as Blayne Lovejoy "Spider" who is torn between loyalty to his ailing father and his desire to make something of his life which has left him strained in his relationship with his ex-fiance Pam and brother Dean who are well-played by Candy Calrk and Bruce McGill. Despite taking more of a dramatic turn with CB Radio in comparison to Smokey and the Bandit or Convoy, the movie still allows for humorous asides such as a subplot involving a trucker named "Chrome Angel" played by Charles Napier who has two wives in Portland and Dallas who come to be aware of each other leading to a messy situation that is mediated by prostitute "Hot Coffee" in a scene that's uncomfortably funny. The one downside of the film is the ending which has a search and rescue climax that feels very at odds with all the time we spent building up the characters and their personalities and it doesn't feel like it addresses everything that was set up.

It really is a shame Citizens Band was such a flop upon release because if Paramount had put faith in the film it probably could've tapped into the same blockbuster status Smokey and the Bandit rode despite being released in the shadow of Star Wars. If you have the wherewithal to check out Citizens Band I highly recommend you do so.

Paul Le Mat lives in the small town Union, Nebraska in a kind of junkyard owned by his dad Roberts Blossom. He operates a CB citizens rescue service that helps motorists in need, and he's becoming increasingly annoyed with CB users who are breaking the rules ... cluttering channels with nonsense and refusing to give up channels in the case of emergencies. He sets out to track them all down and put them out of commission.

Blossoms is a retired trucker, who disconnected and drinks heavily, but tends to come to life when talking to his old friends on the CB. Le Mat had been dating Candy Clark, but she left him due to his resistance to moving away from Blossoms. He commits to moving out and tries to get back with her, not realizing that she has been secretly dating the local high school coach Bruce McGill ... Le Mat's brother.

Meanwhile, trucker Charles Napier crashes his truck outside of town and has to camp out in Union while he heals and his truck is getting fixed. He calls his wives ... one in Dallas and one in Portland (Ann Wedgeworth and Marcia Rodd) ... to tell them he'll be laid up for a while. Unfortunately, both come to town to see him and become aware of each others' existence.

Jonathan Demme's first studio film bears some resemblance to a Roger Corman outing. It's not wildly different in tone from one of Corman's car chase comedies like Ron Howard's "Grand Theft Auto" (released the same year) and it has a definite exploitation element with it's tapping into the CB radio craze.

It's ultimately not much like a Corman film, and it really points in the direction his career will be heading. The sprawling, character rich script by Paul Brickman (who will go on to write and direct "Risky Business") plays a bit like a Robert Altman film with the misanthropic streak replaced by a deep humanism. The "bad guys" in this film ... Harry Northrup's neo-Nazi, Ed Begley, Jr.'s radio preacher, McGill's deeply jealous brother ... are all redeemed to some degree by the film's end, and it ultimately feels like a statement about how maybe we all can just get along. Even the Napier bigamy plotline is resolved in a surprising way with the help of Napier's prostitute friend Alix Elias (to whom the film takes an equally nonjudgmental view of).

Given the CB craze's similarity to internet culture, it's interesting what a really positive stance this film ends up taking, with everyone's ability to adopt different identities being looked at them being allowed to become who they really are.