The Big Bus (1976) Paramount/Comedy RT: 88 minutes Rated PG (language, comic violence) Director: James Frawley Screenplay: Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman Music: David Shire Cinematographer: Harry Stradling Jr. Release date: June 23, 1976 (US) Cast: Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, Rene Auberjonois, John Beck, Ned Beatty, Bob Dishy, Jose Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Harold Gould, Larry Hagman, Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, Lynn Redgrave, Richard B. Shull, Stuart Margolin, Howard Hesseman, Mary Wilcox, Walter Brooke, Vic Tayback, Murphy Dunne, Raymond Guth, Miriam Byrd-Nethery, Dennis Kort, James Jeter, Vito Scotti, Harry Holcombe, Morgan Upton, Beans Morocco, Della Thomas, Jess Nadelman, Michael W. Schwartz. Box Office: $3.5M (US)
Rating: ***
Before there was Airplane, there was The Big Bus, a funny spoof of disaster movies centering on the world’s first nuclear-powered bus, the Cyclops. It was only a matter of time. As the prologue states, there have already been movies about “big earthquakes”, “big boats sinking”, “big buildings burning” and “big German balloons busting”. Why not big buses exploding? It’s either that or a big fake meteor hurtling towards Earth. Wait a minute….
The Cyclops, so named for its single front headlight, is days away from making its maiden voyage, a non-stop run from New York to Denver, when a bomb goes off in the lab injuring both the driver and co-driver. In need of a quick replacement, bus designer Kitty Baxter (Channing, Grease) reluctantly agrees to recruit her ex-lover Dan Torrance (Bologna, My Favorite Year), a disgraced driver accused of surviving a big crash by eating all of his passengers. He denies it, claiming he only unknowingly ate a foot. He gets on board as does Shoulders (Beck, Rollerball), a young driver with a reputation for driving on road shoulders and blacking out in times of stress.
Not everybody wants to see Cyclops succeed. Ironman (Ferrer, Dune), an evil tycoon encased in a huge iron lung, is out to sabotage it on behalf of Arab oil sheiks. When his first attempt to put a halt to things fails, he has his dim brother Alex (Margolin, Kelly’s Heroes) plant a time bomb on the bus itself. Naturally, it’ll be Dan who has to try to defuse the bomb to save everybody’s life.
Like the genre it lovingly parodies, The Big Bus has a passenger manifest comprised of a cast of all-stars playing character types we’ve met before- a priest questioning his faith (Auberjonois, Benson), a little old lady (Gordon, Harold and Maude), a guy with only six months to live (Shull, Splash), a veterinarian who lost his license (Dishy, Critical Condition), a fashion designer with a personal score to settle (Redgrave, Georgy Girl) and an about-to-be divorced couple, Claude (Mulligan, Soap) and Sybil (Kellerman, MASH), still attracted to each other. Back at mission control, bickering engineers Shorty (Beatty, Network) and Johnny (Hesseman, WKRP in Cincinnati) attempt to keep the bus on the road after project leader Baxter (Gould, Rhoda) is critically injured in the blast. Throw in an obnoxious lounge singer (Dunne, The Blues Brothers) and an arrogant doctor (Hagman, Dallas). You’re ready to roll!
With all the big stars in The Big Bus, you’d think nothing could top any one of them. Well, you’d be wrong in thinking this. Cyclops is the BIGGEST star of The Big Bus. It’s like a cruise ship on wheels. It’s a huge double-decker, articulated bus that can hold up to 110 passengers. It has a cocktail lounge, swimming pool, bowling alley (one lane only) and captain’s dining room. Since it’s powered by nuclear energy, it never has to stop for gas. It’s self-washing and self-tire changing, functions it performs while in motion no less. It never has to stop for any reason (except maybe sabotage). Basically, it’s the future of bus travel.
As a comedy, The Big Bus largely succeeds. While never approaching the total zaniness of Airplane, it has a genuinely silly spirit that shows in its upending of the genre’s clichés. The pilot…. er, driver Dan has a troubled past that affects his performance. His father, also a bus driver, died while trying to navigate a notoriously dangerous mountain road. He’s never gotten over it. From that, you can safely deduce that Dan will find himself on that very same road by movie’s end. Director James Frawley (The Muppet Movie) hits all the marks of the genre, some more successfully than others. He also infuses the movie with jokes and sight gags that range from silly to dumb. One of my favorite bits is a bar fight in which somebody wields a broken milk carton like a dangerous weapon- “Look out! He’s got a broken milk carton!” Another funny bit has a pick-up truck with a family of hillbillies embedded in the side of the bus after crashing into it. Don’t even get me started on the soda pop flood.
The cast, a game bunch of talents, looks like they’re having a good time goofing on disaster movie character types. Somehow they manage to play their roles straight-faced with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. It’s a great ensemble cast. Everybody has a moment or two. There aren’t any bad performances in The Big Bus. The actors deliver exactly what the material calls for and have fun doing it. It must be infectious because I had fun watching it. It’s a good-natured mindless comedy; it aims for the funny bone and makes a direct hit.
