The Big Bus

The Big Bus
June 23, 1976
Paramount
Comedy, Action
VHS
A-

This note-perfect parody of '70s disaster movies is not only in my opinion much more enjoyable than the more famous and successful Airplane (1980), but it's the most fun I've had with any of my movies since Some Like It Hot.  It's partly that I'm a '70s kid and I love the bright colors and tackiness of this Ford-era movie, especially on the title vehicle, including the Bicentennial dining room.  But it really is dead on, from its David Shire score (as overwrought as anything in the Airport movies, but with whimsical touches like a sample from "Home Sweet Home" when the "flags of all nations" are raised to slow down the bus), to the dialogue, with such quotable lines as Joseph Bologna defensively exclaiming "You eat one lousy foot-- they call you a cannibal!", and a pre-Benson Rene Auberjonois as a doubting priest taunting Ruth Gordon, "Where's your god now, old woman?"  I also love all the exchanges between a pre-Soap Richard Mulligan and a post-MASH Sally Kellerman as a soon to be divorced couple, as well as Richard B. Shull (around the time of Holmes and Yo-Yo) hitting all the cliches in his "I wanna live" speech when Lynn Redgrave seduces him in a tub.

It's a very big bus, with a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a piano bar where Murphy Dunne (who wrote his own material) anticipates Bill Murray's lounge singer by a year or so.  The bus is nuclear-powered and on a non-stop trip from New York to Denver, although the scenery is very obviously Californian, from the street with the Thrifty's to the mountains.  And, yes, very '70s, with the sodas that poor Stockard Channing almost drowns in including Fanta and Fresca.

She's wonderful, the whole cast is wonderful!  I haven't even mentioned Larry Hagman as the doctor who insists that Harold Gould (wounded by a St. Christopher's medal) can't be moved, or Ned Beatty and Howard Hesseman as the bickering technicians, or Jose Ferrer and Stuart Margolin as villainous brothers (despite being born almost 30 years apart), or Vic Tayback in a tiny plum of a role as a bus driver who gets in a broken milk carton vs. broken candle bar fight.

I spent most of the time grinning, when I wasn't giggling.  This viewing, I was struck by the fact that it actually works on a story level.  I mean it's not just gags, there's actually a plot that's somewhat resolved.  (After a literal cliffhanger, the bus faces another disaster as the credits start rolling.)  And I don't think you have to have seen Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, Airport, or Airport '75 (they still hadn't released '77 or Concorde at that point) to enjoy it, although it probably helps if you're a movie buff and can appreciate all the tropes.  Even on this viewing, I found new things to appreciate, like the Edith Head glasses on Redgrave's designer character.  Judging from the IMDB reviews and comments, as well as other online reviews, this movie doesn't do it for everyone, but I think if you like it, you'll like it a lot.

This time Vito Scotti plays a barber.  Harry Holcolmbe, who plays the older priest, was Capt. Malone in Escape to Witch Mountain.  Of the unnamed bus passengers, a few would go on to other cult/obscure movies I own: Selma Archerd to Americathon and Can't Stop the Music, Nick Pellegrino to I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Cynthia Szigeti to both The Gong Show Movie and Johnny Dangerously, and Andrew Winner to Valley Girl.

And James Frawley would go on to direct The Muppet Movie.