Citizens Band (1977)

          While not a particularly interesting movie, the offbeat comedy Citizens Band represents the convergence of two interesting careers. For director Jonathan Demme, the movie was a breakthrough studio job after making three low-budget exploitation flicks for producer Roger Corman. For second-time screenwriter Paul Brickman, the movie provided a transition between working on existing material (Brickman debuted with the script for 1977’s The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training) and creating brand-new characters; Brickman later blossomed as the writer/director of the extraordinary Risky Business (1983). A further point of interest is that while Citizens Band tangentially belongs to the mid-’70s vogue for trucker movies, it’s much more concerned with the possibilities of a communication format to bridge distances between people. In other words, this is an earnest project from serious people, so it can’t be discounted. Nonetheless, watching all 98 minutes of the loosely plotted and sluggishly paced feature requires abundant patience.

          Since Citizens Band never even remotely approaches outright hilarity, the charms of the picture are found in small character moments and—one of Demme’s specialties—scenes that celebrate human compassion and understanding. One wonders, however, whether a shambling assortment of kind-hearted vignettes was what Brickman had in mind, since certain sequences feel as if they were conceived to become full-on comedy setpieces. While Demme’s preference for intimacy over spectacle gives Citizens Band an amiable sense of reality, this directorial approach results in a decidedly low-energy cinematic experience.

          Anyway, in lieu of a proper storyline, the movie has a number of interconnected subplots. The main character, if only by default since he has the largest number of scenes, is Spider (Paul LeMat), a small-town CB-radio operator who watches out for truckers and vainly tries to keep emergency frequencies free of outside chatter. Spider lives with his ornery father (Roberts Blossom), a former trucker, and Spider’s part of a love triangle involving his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Electra (Candy Clark), and Spider’s brother, Blood (Bruce McGill). The Spider scenes are quite sleepy except when he plays vigilante by destroying radio equipment belonging to rule-breaking CB operators. Another thread of the movie involves a long-haul trucker nicknamed “Chrome Angel” (Charles Napier), who is revealed as a secret bigamist; the first meeting of his two wives plays out with unexpected warmth. There’s also some material involving various eccentric radio enthusiasts, such as Hot Coffee (Alix Elias), a plain-Jane hooker catering to truckers. The movie toggles back and forth between various characters, presenting one inconsequential scene after another. (Don’t be fooled by the exciting opening sequence of a truck derailment; thrills are in short supply thereafter.)

          Citizens Band has a slick look, thanks to inventive cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, though it’s questionable whether his moody style actually suits the material. Yet the presence of artful lighting is just one more random point in Citizens Band’s favor. The movie’s a collection of many things, some of which merit attention; the problem is that these things never coalesce into a worthwhile whole.

Citizens Band: FUNKY

The Bad News Bears (1976) & The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) & The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

          Foul-mouthed and politically incorrect, The Bad News Bears presents a startlingly funny vision of childhood. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to include some of the movie’s edgier jokes in a contemporary film, and that’s a shame—screenwriter Bill Lancaster and director Michael Ritchie lend believable spark to their story by showing characters trading cruel epithets about disability and race. This warts-and-all approach elevates The Bad News Bears from being just another underdog tale in the classic sports-movie tradition; the movie is also a wicked look at growing up the hard way.

          The main adult character is Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), a former minor-league player now gone to seed—he’s a rumpled drunk who works as a pool cleaner in Southern California. Buttermaker gets recruited to coach a newly formed Little League team, the Bears, which comprises rejects from other squads: bad seeds, minorities, nerds, runts, slobs. A paragon of insensitivity, Buttermaker is the worst possible person to corral this gang, since he’s as appalled by these losers as everyone else. To give the team a remote chance of success, Buttermaker enlists a pair of ringers.

          First up is 12-year-old pitcher Amanda Whurlizer (Tatum O’Neal), whose mother used to date Buttermaker. She’s a wise-beyond-her-years handful, demanding endless financial perks in exchange for participating. Next, Buttermaker woos Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), a local dropout who zooms around town on a Harley and makes a sketchy living with small-time scams. Watching the younger kids get schooled by the self-serving Amanda and Kelly is hilarious, especially since Buttermaker observes the whole pathetic spectacle with a mix of cynical detachment and whatever-works ruthlessness.

          The contrivance, of course, is that Buttermaker falls in love with the team because of how hard the kids try to please him, but Matthau’s unsentimental performance sells the illusion nicely. Better still, Ritchie does an amazing job with the ballpark scenes, using the strains of Bizet’s “Carmen” as a leitmotif for the Bears’ outfield ineptitude; these scenes are sly ballets of expertly staged physical comedy. Ritchie also pays careful attention to vignettes taking place off the field, ensuring that even minor characters are sketched beautifully.

          It helps a great deal that O’Neal was in the midst of her hot streak of precocious performances, and that Haley, in his breakout role, presented a memorable mixture of bravado and insecurity. Even the movie’s main villain, the super-competitive coach (Vic Morrow) of an opposing team, comes across as a fully realized individual, since the dynamic he shares with his long-suffering son speaks to the movie’s theme of what happens when winning eclipses other priorities.

          Predictably, the departure of key players behind and in front of the camera led to diminishing returns for the movie’s first sequel, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training. Written by Paul Brickman (who later wrote and directed Risky Business), Breaking Training is enervated and overly sweet but basically palatable. The story focuses on Kelly (still played by Haley) and his estranged dad, Mike (William Devane), who takes over as the Bears’ coach. Mike tries to rally the team for a big exhibition game at the Houston Astrodome, and a combination of formulaic plot elements and unwelcome sentimentality makes Breaking Training feel second-rate. Wasn’t eschewing the cheap emotionalism of traditional sports movies the point of the original film? Still, the interplay between the misfit kids, most of whom are played by the same actors, remains enjoyable, so group scenes are fun to watch.

          In fact, Breaking Training is a near-masterpiece compared to the final theatrical film of the original series, The Bad News Bears Go to Japan. Although original screenwriter Bill Lancaster returned for this entry, the gimmick of the Bears getting exploited by a slick promoter (Tony Curtis) feels forced, as does the uninteresting romantic subplot involving Kelly (once more played by Haley) and a pretty Japanese teenager. Even the game-time jokes start to feel tired by this point, so Japan is to be avoided by those who wish to leave their memories of the first picture untouched. The franchise soldiered on when CBS broadcast one season of a Bad News Bears TV series in 1979–1980, with Jack Warden playing Matthau’s old role of Morris Buttermaker. Then, in 2005, the Bears returned for director Richard Linklater’s pointless remake of the original film, with Billy Bob Thornton becoming the third actor to play Buttermaker.

The Bad News Bears: RIGHT ON

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training: FUNKY

The Bad News Bears Go to Japan: LAME