Rating: 3.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 13/52 | 70s Disaster
Before there was Airplane!, there was The Big Bus.
A man orders a Pepsi from a hot dog vendor just outside the Cyclops Nuclear Project site. And what is the Cyclops? It is the world’s first nuclear-powered bus, which aims to make the first non-stop trip from New York City to Denver. The hot dog vendor looks in earnest at the bustle just beyond the gates. Guards check identification as people drive in and out. TV cameras, red ropes, and men in silver outfits — is it time for them to unveil the Cyclops?
Professor Baxter, the scientist in charge, delicately inserts the nuclear payload into a canister. Cut to outside, where the press and Kitty Baxter, daughter and designer, witness an explosion from within the warehouse. At that moment, the hot dog vendor runs away and dives into a passing Cadillac. The police and fire department arrive on the scene. The hot dog vendor arrives at a mansion, entering the office of Ironman, a tycoon inside an iron lung. All around his office are paintings of major disasters depicted in other 70s disaster flicks.
Professor Baxter is critically wounded, and both drivers are dead. Professor Baxter, still conscious, knows one man who can drive that bus, and it’s Dan Torrance, a former lover of Kitty’s. Dan Torrance is a disgraced bus driver whose backstory I won’t get into, but involves eating all of his passengers. Kitty tracks him down to recruit him for the job. But she has to train him first. Will Dan have what it takes? Will the Big Bus make its maiden trek across the US of A? Or will Ironman and his cronies wreck the whole affair?
This film is silly as hell. Every shot is aiming for at least one joke, so even if there’s an eye-roller (this movie has several), you’re not far from a satisfied snort or, hell, a mild chuckle. Stockard Channing grounds this movie, like Leslie Nielsen in Airplane!. She acts with deadly seriousness that makes her jokes that much funnier.
Speaking of Airplane!, it took over as THE disaster movie parody, becoming one of the most iconic comedies in film history. So, it makes sense that this movie sort of faded from cultural consciousness. It’s also a shame, because this one is still plenty entertaining. I might argue that, with a few exceptions, this movie’s sense of humor has aged better than Airplane!.
Like many disaster flicks, we get a stacked cast of oddball characters with backstories and whatnot. Thankfully, this movie knows that we don’t care all that much, so it moves on quicker, but it does through those cliche beats at the most random times, which is pretty funny.
I like the bus design! The filmmakers drove it on the highway enough to get convincing external footage, although they never drove it 90mph :(. I love the rainbow colors inside! The bus drives so fast that it shatters gas station windows and blows away roadside tomato stands. The film has plenty of action set pieces, and some of them are pretty fun!
Like any comedy, your experience will largely depend on your sense of humor. If you like your jokes dumb and your sets stylish, you could do worse.
** Stray Thoughts / Spoilers **
- When the scientist can’t quite get the nuclear payload into the cannister, they get a guy to go in and realign it by hand.
- Is this the movie where Stephen King got the name Danny Torrance?\
- The bus driver in the bar with an open carton of milk and a rocks glass plays plastered. When a bar brawl breaks out, he smashes a milk carton against the edge of the bar, and it shatters like a bottle.
- — I don’t care what anyone says, I did not eat 110 passengers!
- Larry Hagman spotting! Right between I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas.
- The graveyard is chock-full of men talking to their dead fathers.
- — You’re looking great, kid. — So am I.
- Young(ish) René Auberjonois!
- Everyone at the table has to clink glasses.
- The vet is the only doctor on the bus.
- — Papa, why’d you take this road? — I just felt like it! Who knows where fate will take us?
- The movie features both Pepsi and Coca-Cola prominently. I think Pepsi is in it solely because Coca-Cola didn’t want to be associated with the guy who bombed the bus.