My review was written in September 1982 after a Times Square screening.
"Waitress" is a low-budget comedy picture from the team responsible for the successful "Squeeze Play". Only intermittently funny, the new film is serviceable in general situations.
Episodic in the extreme, pic limns the comic experiences of three waitresses at a New York City restaurant. Andrea (Carol Drake) is a feisty would-be Broadway actress working the restaurant gig until her big break. Jennifer (Carol Bevar) is a beautiful blonde fronting as a server while working on "how to meet men" article for a teen magazine, and Lindsey (Renata Majer) is a young girl who was kicked out of Troma Prep School and forced by her dad to work in his restaurant.
Getting off to a hectic start, "Waitress" becomes wearisome with its reliance on food gags, pratfalls , old puns and vulgar schtick. Pic bogs down in the middle for plot material and a romantic interlude involving cafe manager Jerry (Jim Harris), who is opposed to Andrea's acting career obsession, but reverts to sheer anarchy when Lindsey is put in charge of the eatery and succeeds in wrecking it. A very old-fashioned ending has all the leads' dreams come true.
Within a format which is closer to the sketch humor of drive-in films of yore, such as "If You Don't Stop It, You'll Go Blind" than sustained "Porky's" comedy, "Waitress" suffers from non-stop overacting. Although the leads are personable and in some cases attractive this is probably one credit they would like to forget. With more than 200 actors credited in the cast, most in bits, best performance is by Anthony Sarrero, genuinely amusing in a pleasantly overdone attempted cowboy style seduction of Jennifer.
Other actors simply try too hard here, with use of Three Stooges-style sound effects tending to overshadow any shadings. Tech credits are variable but adequate.
