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I especially enjoyed this film because I was present when it was made in Marysville, CA. I worked security for the film and in fact I drove the police car flashing the spotlight when the cows were let out of the truck and made a mess all over the parking lot. The cow manure was hand made by compost purchased at the local Montgomery Wards Store. It was fun to watch it being made and the money wasn't too bad either. Charles Napier was a lot of fun to talk to as was most of the crew and cast. Paul LaMat wasn't too friendly but I guess he had more important things on his mind other than talking to peons. It amazed me how the talented the crew and prop people are, making cow dung, etc. to look so very real. Several movies have been made here in the 60's and 70's and most are supposed to be made in small southern towns.

I still enjoy this movie even though some parts are slow and seem to drag on a bit. I really wish they would release it to Blu-Ray or DVD, I have a VHS copy but would prefer a DVD or Blu-ray copy. I did see it on Netflix a few months ago. When I watch this movie it brings back memories. I live in a very small town where there isn't much to do, back in the late 80's and 90's the only thing that interested me was getting on Citizens Band radio. I would always look forward to the weekends so I could get on my base station at home or get in my truck and drive around and talk for hours and hours. My friends and I would do the dumbest things on the radio like dead keying on channel 19 just to irritate everyone. We would use linear amplifiers with our base stations and mobile radios so it would be near impossible for anyone in the area to be heard. We did so many stupid things on the radio back then that it would take far too long to list everything. We would also track people down by using the signal strength meter on the mobile radio to find out where people were broadcasting from so we could get their home address if they were on a base station or find out what type of vehicle they were driving and write down their license plate number and make and model of their vehicle. Now days citizen band radio isn't very popular. I always wanted to see an updated version of this movie but I know it wouldn't be very popular now days. I guess the closest thing would be the movie Joy Ride (2001).

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.

This quite funny but nevertheless deep film, along with the great 'Melvin and Howard' can be viewed as part of the ongoing saga of Paul Le Mat, the guy who played the hotrodding eternal teenager, John Milner, in 'American Graffiti.' Le Mat is perfect for these films because he embodies a uniquely American mixture of down to earth hipness, non-cynicism and hard edged goodwill. He is somewhere between Audie Murphy and Steve McQueen with some touches of Elvis and Jerry Lewis thrown in. Demme uses him as the springboard for his explorations of what's authentic and non-cynical in ordinary American life.

All the events in 'Citizen's Band' are connected by the CB radios all the characters use. This allows for events that happen to characters far apart from each other (such as the bigamist trucker and Le Mat), to become connected into the snapshot or slice of life that becomes the film. The characters don't have to necessarily all run into each other, even though some of them do. Oliver Stone's supercynical and ridiculous 'Talk Radio' features a similar set-up. In fact, there, we never actually have to meet any of the on-air personalities.

Demme uses an Altman type setup to show how vast an area of 'craziness' the term 'normal people' covers and how all this can be non-cynical in nature at least as often as it is cynical.

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.