Citizens Band

Speaking of whimsy (I just saw Life Aquatic), here's another ensemble piece, this one centered on an array of Southern jes' folks who live out their fantasy lives via CB radio. From bigamist trucker to alcoholic dad to humorous Nazi to overbearing but good-hearted gym teacher to every individual we glimpse in between, everyone is acutely and humanely drawn, and the action moves forward in an organic, relaxed way that is extremely endearing. Only at the end, when the whole ensemble converges to witness the dad's happy redemption, do things feel badly contrived; up to then the gentleness and fluidity of Demme's and writer Paul Brickman's conception carry us along smiling.

This quite funny but nevertheless deep film, along with the great 'Melvin and Howard' can be viewed as part of the ongoing saga of Paul Le Mat, the guy who played the hotrodding eternal teenager, John Milner, in 'American Graffiti.' Le Mat is perfect for these films because he embodies a uniquely American mixture of down to earth hipness, non-cynicism and hard edged goodwill. He is somewhere between Audie Murphy and Steve McQueen with some touches of Elvis and Jerry Lewis thrown in. Demme uses him as the springboard for his explorations of what's authentic and non-cynical in ordinary American life.

All the events in 'Citizen's Band' are connected by the CB radios all the characters use. This allows for events that happen to characters far apart from each other (such as the bigamist trucker and Le Mat), to become connected into the snapshot or slice of life that becomes the film. The characters don't have to necessarily all run into each other, even though some of them do. Oliver Stone's supercynical and ridiculous 'Talk Radio' features a similar set-up. In fact, there, we never actually have to meet any of the on-air personalities.

Demme uses an Altman type setup to show how vast an area of 'craziness' the term 'normal people' covers and how all this can be non-cynical in nature at least as often as it is cynical.

I still enjoy this movie even though some parts are slow and seem to drag on a bit. I really wish they would release it to Blu-Ray or DVD, I have a VHS copy but would prefer a DVD or Blu-ray copy. I did see it on Netflix a few months ago. When I watch this movie it brings back memories. I live in a very small town where there isn't much to do, back in the late 80's and 90's the only thing that interested me was getting on Citizens Band radio. I would always look forward to the weekends so I could get on my base station at home or get in my truck and drive around and talk for hours and hours. My friends and I would do the dumbest things on the radio like dead keying on channel 19 just to irritate everyone. We would use linear amplifiers with our base stations and mobile radios so it would be near impossible for anyone in the area to be heard. We did so many stupid things on the radio back then that it would take far too long to list everything. We would also track people down by using the signal strength meter on the mobile radio to find out where people were broadcasting from so we could get their home address if they were on a base station or find out what type of vehicle they were driving and write down their license plate number and make and model of their vehicle. Now days citizen band radio isn't very popular. I always wanted to see an updated version of this movie but I know it wouldn't be very popular now days. I guess the closest thing would be the movie Joy Ride (2001).

I especially enjoyed this film because I was present when it was made in Marysville, CA. I worked security for the film and in fact I drove the police car flashing the spotlight when the cows were let out of the truck and made a mess all over the parking lot. The cow manure was hand made by compost purchased at the local Montgomery Wards Store. It was fun to watch it being made and the money wasn't too bad either. Charles Napier was a lot of fun to talk to as was most of the crew and cast. Paul LaMat wasn't too friendly but I guess he had more important things on his mind other than talking to peons. It amazed me how the talented the crew and prop people are, making cow dung, etc. to look so very real. Several movies have been made here in the 60's and 70's and most are supposed to be made in small southern towns.

Another example of a movie featuring independent stories that find a connecting point, "Handle With Care" (or "Citizens Band") puts its own twist on the genre by having the stories connect through the use of CB radios by the main characters.

As with almost any movie of this type, some of the stories are better than others. The story featuring "Spider" (Paul Le Mat) as a sort of CB super-hero who makes sure that people don't abuse the airwaves was a bit silly, and reminded me a lot of the old '70's TV series "Emergency," combined with a bit of "Batman" - without the costume. Like the paramedics of "Emergency" kept responding to largely unrelated emergencies with at best only a loose thread holding every episode together, Spider similarly dealt with an injured trucker (Charles Napier) and a pilot forced to crashland on a highway, and - like the Caped Crusader without the cape - he took on a boy who used the radio for underhanded purposes, a neo-Nazi who spread hatred and a radical Catholic priest who was trying to convert listeners. The best story was of that rescued trucker, who turns out to be a bigamist and who has to deal with both wives coming to see if he's OK. That story was also responsible for most of the humour in the movie, and was, I thought quite well done. Spider's dysfunctional family, and the sexual CB fantasies of "Warlock" and "Electra" were other connecting stories.

It was an inconsistent movie - some stories were very good and very funny, some were quite dull to be honest. It's worth no more than a 5, but in fairness it's a 5 that's worth watching.