1980 Week: Used Cars

          During the early years of his career, before he discovered the joys of motion-capture effects and ponderous drama, Robert Zemeckis was an expert manufacturer of zany comedy. He made his directorial debut with the zippy I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), about crazed Beatles fans, and he cowrote Steven Spielberg’s over-the-top World War II farce 1941 (1979). Yet Zemeckis’ next project arguably marked the apex of his cinematic apprenticeship. Used Cars, which Zemeckis cowrote and directed, is an adrenalized super-comedy filled with wall-to-wall action, jokes, plot twists, and youthful energy. The movie is gleefully crass and merrily overwrought, but for viewers who encounter Used Cars in the right mood, it’s a total blast.

          Conceived as a broad satire linking consumerism with politics and salesmanship, Used Cars stars Kurt Russell as salesman Rudy Russo. Working at decrepit New Deal Used Cars, which is run by amiable geezer Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), Rudy decides to run for a state Senate seat. Meanwhile, Luke’s twin brother, the dastardly Roy Fuchs (also played by Warden), schemes to put Luke out of business by opening Roy L. Fuchs Pre-Owned Automobiles directly across the street from New Deal. Eventually, Rudy finds himself in the middle of war between the brothers—even though Luke dies fairly early in the movie’s running time, and even though Luke’s daughter, Barbara (Deborah Harmon), emerges as both a challenging X-factor and Rudy’s potential love interest.

          As they later demonstrated with their Swiss-clock script for Back to the Future (1984), Zemeckis and longtime writing partner Bob Gale were highly adept at creating outrageously complicated storylines. The writers juggle literally dozens of major elements in Used Cars, from a superstitious mechanic (Gerrit Graham) to a pair of sleazy video pirates (played by Michael McKean and David L. Lander, better known as “Lenny and Squiggy” from TV’s Laverne & Shirley). The storyline also features Jimmy Carter, a live-TV wardrobe malfunction, a Mexican car salesman, professional football, and student drivers. Much of what happens onscreen is clever, and much of what happens onscreen is juvenile. It all coalescences into a jubilant brand of high-octane comedy, and gentle pokes at real-world issues keep the movie from becoming pointlessly silly.

          Russell is fantastic, blending oily charm with dunderheaded confidence; his character comes across as a reprobate version of a Frank Capra hero. Warden is wonderful, too, portraying Luke with avuncular likeability and Roy with devilish intensity, while Costar Graham is endearingly maniacal, freaking out whenever he realizes he’s near a red car. Zemeckis never pushed the boundaries of good taste this far again, opting for a family-friendly style in Back to the Future and other pictures, so the R-rated Used Cars remains his most grown-up yukfest, which is ironic given that so much of the film’s content is deliberately infantile. At its best, Used Cars is like a manic Warner Bros. cartoon, only with cursing and T&A.

Used Cars: GROOVY

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978)

          Robert Zemeckis’ directorial debut is hard to dislike—every iota of the film’s energy is devoted to stimulating audience engagement—but at the same time it’s unlikely to generate much in the way of passionate adoration. Slight in the extreme, the picture spins a fictional ensemble yarn around the Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan Show appearance in 1964, thus presenting in microcosm the whole scope of the “Beatlemania” phenomenon. First among the problems with this approach is the way the movie dances around the onscreen absence of the real Beatles. The Fab Four licensed more than a dozen of their early songs, so the soundtrack explodes with the joy of “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Please Please Me,” “She Loves You,” and the title song, among others. Yet whenever the Beatles are involved in a scene, Zemeckis uses stand-ins, vocal imitators, and cheat angles that show only backs or legs or such. (Admittedly, his staging of the band’s actual Ed Sullivan performance, footage of which is shown on the monitors of cameras during taping, is highly resourceful.)

          On a deeper level, I Wanna Hold Your Hand suffers from the use of stereotypical characterizations. None of the fictional people in the movie are offensive, per se, but they range from drab to obnoxious, so it’s hard to care what happens to any of them. The main characters are four young women from Jersey. Grace (Theresa Saldana) wants to shoot exclusive photos of the Beatles so she can start a career as a photojournalist; Janis (Susan Kendall Newman) hates the Beatles and plans to picket their appearance; Pam (Nancy Allen) is a nice girl who claims she’s above Beatlemania but, of course, ends up taking crazy risks to get near the lads from Liverpool; and Rosie (Wendie Jo Sperber) is a screaming superfan who’ll do anything to meet Paul McCartney. The guys who take part in the distaff quartet’s adventure are even less dimensional than the ladies. Larry (Marc McClure) is a nebbish who tags along because he’s hot for Grace; Tony (Bobby De Cicco) is an insufferable bad boy who hates the Beatles and therefore serves as a mild sort of antagonist; and Richard (Eddie Deezen) is a borderline-psycho nerd who matches Rosie’s fanaticism.

          As was the case with so many early Zemeckis projects, the story unfolds in a screwball-comedy style, with accidents and coincidences and misunderstandings colliding against each other to create chaos. There’s no question that co-writers Zemeckis and Bob Gale evince tremendous imagination throughout I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and the scribes treat their characters with obvious affection. But, man, after a while, the car chases and pratfalls and shouting matches get awfully loud and repetitive. That said, I Wanna Hold Your Hand marked the arrival of a naturally gifted filmmaker, and it’s impressive how well many scenes work given that the overall movie is so lightweight. Plus, of course, the excitement of the film’s soundtrack is impossible to deny.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand: FUNKY