Citizens Band

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.

Speaking of whimsy (I just saw Life Aquatic), here's another ensemble piece, this one centered on an array of Southern jes' folks who live out their fantasy lives via CB radio. From bigamist trucker to alcoholic dad to humorous Nazi to overbearing but good-hearted gym teacher to every individual we glimpse in between, everyone is acutely and humanely drawn, and the action moves forward in an organic, relaxed way that is extremely endearing. Only at the end, when the whole ensemble converges to witness the dad's happy redemption, do things feel badly contrived; up to then the gentleness and fluidity of Demme's and writer Paul Brickman's conception carry us along smiling.

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.

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).

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!