THE BIG BUS
US, 1976, 89 minutes, Colour.
Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, John Beck, Rene Auberjonois, Ned Beatty, Jose Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Harold Gould, Larry Hagman, Sally Kellerman, Lynn Redgrave.
Directed by James Frawley.
The Big Bus shows how many audiences have found the disaster trend preposterous. This film has searched out the most preposterous highlights and relished compressing them into 89 minutes of fun. Airport, Airport 1975, Juggernaut have been particularly pillaged for bombs, collisions and little old ladies, but there are continued allusions to The Italian Job, Ship of Fools, 2001, even a misfired earthquake. The characters are skits on the motley types who have gone on recent cinema trips. The whole treatment is corny but makes no bones about it and, generally gets away with it, especially since the screenplay hurries us on to the next piece of impending doom. A good laugh.
1. Why was this film made? The tone of the title and its implications? The disaster trend of the 70s and its appeal? The necessity of a preposterous parody? The success of this film in fulfilling the need?
2. The build-up, the opening and the explanation and audience expectations? The pillaging of films like Airport, Airport 1975, Juggernaut, 2001? The use of the incidents, the characters, music and styles? How well did they combine? The gradual build-up and the propelling forward of the screenplay to each step of impending doom?
3. The quality of the humour? How clever, how corny, how broad? The ideas behind the film and its execution? The value of this kind of parody? Parodying the audience expectations for sensationalism? Comment on this as regards situations, characters, types? The language of the disaster trends and sensation?
4. The opening with the building and launching of the bus? The satire on the Press, the bus itself and its expectations, the atmosphere? The appropriateness of the use of Panavision and the music?
5. The launching of the bus and the people who managed it: the slapdash, the sentimentality, the injury of the maker with the St. Christopher medal and his not being moved, his decisions about the voyage? His daughter having to go? The manager and his sentimentality about Jack leaving when disaster was on the road etc.? What was this parodying?
6. The presentation of Dan in the bar brawl and the discussion about survival and cannibalism, the parody of a western brawl by the bus drivers as the new cowboys?
7. The cemetery sequence with Dan talking to the grave and all the people talking to the graves etc.?
8. The presentation of the bus itself, the visual impact, the Richard Strauss music launching?
9. Comment on the passengers and the parody of their types, the quality of the skits: the priest and his loss of faith, celibacy questions, rediscovery of faith and leading the people in Irving Berlin's songs: the old lady who looked like a stowaway and her vulgar language; the couple who were being divorced, their making love, their hate, the time of their divorce and their wanting to remarry? The fashion designer as a nymphomaniac on her arrival at the bus station, her snobbery, her decking out the people in her fashions; the vet who was asked to operate and was successful in using animal principles; the man who was dying in six months, the piano singer and his ironic lyrics about disasters?
10. Comment on the crew: Dan as a hero, the background of his cannibalism, his love life, his relationship with Kitty, his capacity for heroics, the heroics during the trip? The satire in Shoulder and his various blackouts and his comments on how he goofed? Kitty as the heroine: daughter of the maker, the designer, her relationship with Dan, her talking to the passengers, her drowning in soft drink and pretending in order to win Dan etc.? The hostesses as so glamorous? The managing crew back at the Centre and their squabbles about quitting, salary raises etc.?
11. The sensations with the bombs? The bomber and his various disguises? Iron Man and his masterminding of things? The earthquake and its misfiring?
12. The tension of dismantling the bomb and Dan's heroics? The fact that the bomb blew up?
13. The satire on the skidding of the foam through 'Springfield' and the landing in Airport?
14. The melodramatics of the bus hanging over the cliff, using the soft drink for ballast, Dan marrying the couple on his way to rescue Kitty, people freezing and using the fashion clothes, using the chandelier and the underwear in order to rescue the bus? Comment on the way that people's lives changed and finding love, religion, etc.? Their singing of the Irving Berlin song as a hymn?
15. The sudden ending and the impending disaster as the bus parted in two? The overall quality of the humour, the value of this kind of parody?
