I saw this movie while working for a private ambulance company in Los Angeles. Four of us got off work one morning and went to see the movie. Right from the beginning, we were laughing so hard that we could barely keep our seats. It was way too real! There is a ton of "inside" humor in this movie that makes it all the better to watch. Years later, I was working as a fire-service Paramedic and I would loan out my VHS tape copy of it to trainees and tell them it was a 'training film' they could watch at home. I always loved seeing their jaws drop when I told them later that everything in the movie was based on truth. As far as I am concerned it had great writing, great direction and great acting. One of my fire service coworkers actually drove the Cadillac ambulance for his company after the movie makers returned it. He said they left the paint job the same even though they weren't the 'company colors'. The part played by Raquel Welch really was true to life as when I worked on the private ambulance company, they hired their first female attendant to work the ambulance regularly. When I got on the FD, my entry class had the first three women on the department. Younger people have no idea how set the 'man's world' attitude was in those days. A great movie that never received its due for its realism (yes, even the humor is real, how do you think you keep semi-sane in that line of work?) that everyone won't 'understand' but those of us in that line of work love.
The last of the funny pre PC Comedies
I have always thought Ms Welsh was an underrated, underused actress and this small gem of a film with Bill Cosby is the main piece of evidence of my thesis. While its a true product of the 70's, its humor and charm still seems ring thru. I just wish they would make it into a DVD. She should also be seen in The 3 Musketeers.
Lightweight Dark Comedy
At the very least "Mother,Jugs & Speed" employs one of the more eclectic casts from a seventies film. Aside from Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, and Harvey Keitel the cast includes Allen Garfield, Larry Hagman, Bruce Davison, and Dick Butkus. The film is consistently engaging and funny. That said the comic elements do do not always mix well with the tragic ones. The film also pushes the envelope as to what you can do in a "PG" film. A couple of scenes come to mind where one of the EMTs tries to take advantage of an OD case and another where Cosby is receiving a massage with vibrators. Cosby is fine as the wisecracking Mother, Welch's range does not extend much beyond one of her pin-up posters as Jugs, and Keitel isn't really given much to do as Speed. Standing out in the cast are Hagman as the libidinous Murdoch and Garfield as the owner of the third-rate ambulance company. I think director Peter Yates and sciptwriter Tom Mankiewicz were shooting for bigger game, a dark comedy on the level of "M*A*SH*" or "The Hospital" but fall a little short. Instead they've delivered a pleasant diversion.
Martin Scorsese comes home to the mean streets of New York with Bringing Out the Dead, the hyperkinetic tale of an ambulance driver (Nicolas Cage) on three sleep-deprived, adrenaline-fueled nights amongst the dead and dying of the city. Less a coherent narrative than a mood piece, the film is a welcome return to form for Scorsese, who takes Joe Connelly's memoir and spins it into a slightly surreal, darkly comic tale of one man's redemption. Frank Pierce (Cage) is a man who feels impotent in his job as an EMT--less a lifesaver, he's more of a grief mop as he sardonically puts it, bearing witness to the pain and suffering of others. Haunted by the specter of a young homeless girl, something stirs in Frank when he meets Mary (Patricia Arquette), the daughter of a heart attack... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicolas Cage - Patricia Arquette Director(s): Martin Scorsese DVD Release Date: Released the 09 May 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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It's probably too easy to dismiss this movie as a scrappy, dated foray in 1970's sludge, but in '72 it was considered highly unusual and intriguing for a celebrity diva like Raquel Welch to appear in a roller derby drama, and the film was a pretty big hit and generated lots of publicity(Welch even made the cover of LIFE magazine, wearing her No. 11 jersey). I liked the deep-in-thought driving montage of Welch on her way to see her kids(with super-cool jazz music by Don Ellis)and I loved the skating-on-the-street scene with KC and her daughter(wow! Jodie Foster). The track sequences deliver exactly what we want: hard-driving action with some good editing and camera angles, and the satiric behind-the-scenes bits are quite funny(one little old lady spends all her money on roller games). The... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Raquel Welch Director(s): Jerrold Freedman DVD Release Date: Released the 31 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Raquel Welch in a two-piece fur bikini. That and the title is pretty much all anyone needs to know. If that indeed isn't enough, there are the dinosaurs of technician-artist Ray Harryhausen (along with some superimposed iguanas), and a prologue that tells you all you want to know about this "brutal world." Want more? There are volcanoes, barehanded wrestling with warthogs, and rival, subhuman, cannibalistic tribes--Lord, the list goes on and on! The portrait of humankind isn't the most flattering: we're petty, greedy, we grunt a lot, and we don't play well with others. Welch portrays a cavewoman from the tribe of the Blondes trying to make a life for herself with an outcast from the tribe of the Brunettes, which doesn't sit well with anybody. --Keith SimantonMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Raquel Welch Director(s): Don Chaffey DVD Release Date: Released the 09 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Susan George (Straw Dogs) is ex-groupie Mary and Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) is wannabe-NASCAR driver Larry. They're thieves on the run from sheriff Vic Morrow (The Blackboard Jungle), who carries neither gun nor badge. According to director John Hough (The Legend of Hell House), his white trash cult classic was "an action picture with a lot of stunts." That about sums it up. The Tarantino favorite is slim on character development, but overstuffed with automobile-oriented action (most revolving around a 1969 Dodge Charger). Notable stunts include a game of chicken with a couple of 18-wheelers, a low-flying helicopter chase, and a death-defying leap over a moving bridge (Speed would up the ante with a bus). Adapted from the novel The Chase, Dirty... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Peter Fonda - Susan George Director(s): John Hough DVD Release Date: Released the 28 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Burt Reynolds plays detective Steve Carella in this 1972 adaptation of an Ed McBain novel, and Jack Weston does his cynical best as Carella's partner, Meyer Meyer. A reflection of its raucous era, Fuzz is as much influenced by the antiauthority high jinks of Robert Altman's M*A*S*H as it is by the unblinking violence of The Godfather or Bonnie and Clyde. The mixed result is a tough-minded crime drama-comedy with one extreme subplot (punks setting sleeping winos ablaze for kicks) and another, more fantastic one (a mad bomber called Deaf Man, played by Yul Brynner, is targeting politicians with his surprise packages). Raquel Welch is also on board as an undercover/under-the-covers policewoman, and Tom Skerritt is the beneficiary of her largesse. Fuzz... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Burt Reynolds - Raquel Welch Director(s): Richard A. Colla DVD Release Date: Released the 06 February 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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