MOTHER, JUGS AND SPEED

US, 1976, 98 minutes, Colour.
Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Harvey Keitel, Allen Garfield, Larry Hagman, Bruce Davison.
Directed by Peter Yates.

Is America itself the Cuckoo's Nest? The prologue to this black comedy indicates yes. With nods in the direction of M*A*S*H, this satire shows us the paramedics working the urban ambulance systems. It is rough and tumble: vulgar, with moments of uproarious hilarity (especially involving a fat lady patient); moving, with moments of humanity (especially a birth and death in the back of an ambulance); honest, in showing that people do not suffer as we would like them to; critical of city administration and lack of funds, equipment and training. There are laughs turning literally into sudden death. A fair example of the comedy of insanity. Direction is by Peter Yates who also directed Bullitt and Breaking Away.

1. An enjoyable comedy? The serious undertones? The M*A*S*H style? social involvement, human nature, exasperation, black comedy with a message? A successful blend of the comic and the serious with the message in this film?

2. The Los Angeles settings: the people, the streets, the accidents, the ambulances, the atmosphere of the city? A background of realism for the farce? For the seriousness of the message?

3. Panavision photography? The blending of the stars? The score, the song? Glossy entertainment production?

4. The world of the ambulance drivers - as real, meeting serious needs, the serious issues of life and death, ordinary people trying to behave well as drivers, their exploitive side, the business attitudes? A cross-section of people as drivers meeting the other cross-section as patients?

5. How well did the film illustrate the world of the drivers? the initial wrestling accident, the fat lady and her injury? and the humour of her falling down the stairs and out into the street, missing the traffic, the girl and her taking of drugs and the dead body (and the irony of rival firms trying to get the corpse?), the golfer and the driving over the golf course, the woman with the shotgun and her actually killing a driver as well as herself, the old man and his continued calls and his dying in the van, the rich girl and her taking pills, the mother and her giving birth in the ambulance after being refused from the hospitals, the joy of the birth, the sudden sorrow of the haemorrhage and death? A world of laughing and crying and having to cope - often more than once per night?

6. The presentation of the two companies: Unity and the negro backing and the personnel? Harry Fishbein and his talk, double talk, deals, betting? The humour of Naomi, his wife, and her devotion, their baby and affectionate talk to one another? Harry's chauvinist attitudes? The rivalry ? and the ironic humour of their combining at the end?

7. The crews in action - their deals, bets, getting used to illness? A surface callousness? Jokes to survive? The role of humour, anger, violence? Mother as hero - various quirks, mistakes? Leroy and his hopes and the sudden violence of his death? Murdoch and his being presumptuous, callous sex talk, bets. the attempted rape. the violence even to death? Jugs and her ambitions? Tony walking into this world? The ambulance crews as presenting a microcosm ? who was right, wrong?

8. Bill Cosby's style as Mother - as a character, personal manner.. feelings, joking? His reaction to Harry and continually baiting him, to Tony and breaking him in, the offhand attitudes towards Jennifer? His being provoked and punching Murdoch? The massage parlour sequence? His reaction to Leroy's death? His behaviour in the court? His role in the final shoot-out and his continuing in the work? The presentation of the ambiguities and the dilemmas in this kind of job?

9. Raquel Welch as Jennifer, her work, becoming the sex object of the crews, her disliking her nickname? Her interaction with Tony? the revelation that she had done the course, qualified? Her pushing to drive the ambulance? The humour of the ride with Tony in the back, the police and the pursuit, Tony's quick thinking and warding off the police? Their sexual liaison? Working together, waiting for Mother at the massage parlour? coping with the birth and her grief at the death of the woman? Mother reading her a lecture on her rights as a driver and her having to cope with the difficulties?

10. Tony and his arrival, the policeman with the accusation, his fitting in? His teaming with Murdoch, the old man dying, his stopping the ambulance to prevent Murdoch raping the would-be suicide? The friendship with Jennifer, the liaison? The birth? His attitude towards grief? His being reinstated and a future with Jennifer?

11. The ordinary person's attitude towards ambulance drivers and their expectations of them? The demands?

12. The social implications? the city's hearing about the ambulance companies. the rivalry, the decision to combine?

13. The melodramatics of the siege? the man who had been bitten by the dog and had rabies, Murdoch and his violence, playing with guns and trying to throw his weight around? The SWAT team. the police? The rookie policeman and his killing of Murdoch? The mad world and the violence always ready to erupt?

14. The implications of black comedy, the exaggerations presented,, the purpose? Satire and pessimism and optimism? Mother's comment about suffering and people not suffering the way we want them to? A presentation of ambiguity in principles, feeling? And the humorous touch with Mother scuttling the nuns as they crossed the road?