The Big Bus

source: The Big Bus

source: The Big Bus

This movie is so absurdly funny, it passes all expectations. I saw it in a crowded theater and everyone was laughing so hard it was impossible to keep from joining in the fun. The thought of a bus with a bowling alley and a swimming pool is so imaginative and points out the lengths the writer ( a cohen) and the director will go for jokes. If you are depressed pick up this flick on video and laugh yourself to health.

The popularity of the disaster movie in the early seventies meant that it was only a matter of time before someone attempted to parody the genre. Probably the funniest disaster movie parody is "The Cassandra Crossing", but that was intended to be a serious film and only counts as a parody because it was so badly made. The best-known deliberate disaster movie spoof is "Airplane" from 1980, but four years earlier there was "The Big Bus". The opening voice-over makes it clear what the film's targets are, as there are obvious implied references to "The Poseidon Adventure", "Earthquake", "The Towering Inferno" and "The Hindenburg". The plot concerns the maiden journey (from New York to Denver) of the world's first nuclear powered bus and the attempts that are made to sabotage it on behalf of the oil industry. "Straight" disaster movies are often based around the concept of a motley collection of people, brought together by chance, who are forced to work together by the threatened disaster. "The Big Bus" seizes hold of this concept and takes it to the limit. The passengers include a priest who has lost his faith (his arguments in favour of atheism include the claim that a just God would have given the devout old lady next to him a window seat rather than an aisle seat), an about-to-be-divorced couple who bicker constantly when they are not trying to seduce one another, and a man who has only six months to live and constantly reminds everyone of the fact. The crew are just as eccentric as the passengers; Dan the driver (who is also the ex-boyfriend of the bus's female designer) is a suspected cannibal, although he defends himself by claiming that he only ever ate a single foot. ("You eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal. What a world!") The co-driver (named "Shoulders" because of an unfortunate tendency to drive on the shoulders of the road) also has an even more unfortunate tendency to fall asleep at the wrong moment, including while driving. There is also a scantily-dressed stewardess named (satirising the American fondness for double-barrelled Christian names) Mary-Jane-Beth-Sue and an appallingly tactless and tasteless piano player. Some of the humour in "The Big Bus" comes from sending up the conventions of the genre, such as exaggeratedly portentous music or the scene (probably inspired by "The Poseidon Adventure") where Dan has to rescue his ex-girlfriend Stockard Channing from drowning in soft drinks. Its targets, however, range wider than the confines of the disaster genre. The faithless priest Father Kudos, for example, is an obvious reference to Father Karras in "The Exorcist", and the use of the opening theme from Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" may echo its earlier use in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". The scene where the bus is left seesawing on the edge of a cliff is taken from the ending to "The Italian Job". Indeed, the film's range of targets is not confined to the cinema. The constant mentions of cannibalism seem to be a reference to Piers Paul Read's book "Alive!", about a plane crash in the Andes, which was a bestseller in the seventies but which was not made into a film until 1993. Perhaps it was this scattergun approach, firing off its satirical bullets in all directions, which meant that I did not find the film particularly funny. It might have worked better if it had concentrated on sending up the disaster genre and had not tried to cram in so many extra targets. When you are aiming at so many targets, you need to hit them all, and too many of the bullets are either duds or fly harmlessly wide. For every funny joke there are several unfunny ones. As I watched this film, I couldn't help thinking that it would had been a lot better if Mel Brooks, the master of the parody, had been the director. 4/10

A great many quality actors must have had tax bills to pay. The endless stream of single-entendres deliberately avoids irony. A few bitchy comments by bored wives, the vicar who doesn't believe and the driver who ate 110 people don't make comic lines worth a half hour TV show. To see the talents of Ruth Gordon etc wasted on this drivel (Gordon gets the only funny line- so she must be ad-libbing) is embarrassing. Its one of those films where everybody shouts in the belief that you can make a situation hysterically funny by simply behaving hysterically! I tried it on a nine-year old- he left by the end of reel two!

It's sad, but I've seen this film over 100 times! Favourite scenes: The fight in the bus garage: "Watch it, he's got a broken milk carton"! The bar, where the pianist sings "Six Months To Live" to the terminally ill passenger! The Bi-Centennial dinner scene, where Dan denies eating 180 passengers, but admits to eating a foot: "Eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal"! The cliff-hanger ending: "I know it looked like I fell, but it was all part of my plan"! All in all brilliant.

I remember seeing this film way back in 1977 when it was on cable, or was it 1976? I'm sure this film didn't take long to get to cable. Being very much into cars (especially older cars), and basically any kind of vehicular mayhem and madness in films, I dug the hell of of "The Big Bus" back in the day. So almost 30 years later, I rent it on DVD. And I must ask, how did this garbage ever get to DVD? Especially with all the great stuff not in DVD yet. WOW, is this film BAD. Not even "good" 70's badness. It's just BAD. The bus is packed with tons of 70's "Z-list" faces including some that you'll remember but don't care a hoot about. The story is garbage - the direction and acting worse. Stockard Channing looks OK. The non-existent plot is really just an excuse to film the huge bus cruising down the street. There's even an excuse for the bus to cruise through foam, which doesn't look nearly as cool as you'd think it would. But really, the Big Bus itelf is the star of the show, and it does command your attention whenever it is on screen. It's a great-looking vehicle, and it's actually real, not computer-generated crap! So every so often during the insipid plot, the film will show a scene of the bus cruising along the highway, and those actual shots are pretty good. SPOILER! The thing I remember most as a kid about "The Big Bus" is the big scene where the bus tilts over a cliff. This in itself is an amazing piece of film work - the bus is actually dangling, with nary anything in sight that is hlding it there (of course it's there, just hidden off-camera very well). Then the stars go from the hanging bus into the back of the pickup truck sticking out of the side of the bus, and it's for real! NO COMPUTER GENERATED GARBAGE!! Even in such a crappy movie, there are redeeming features simply for the fact that elbow grease made the film. Even better - how does the bus, that weighs many, many tons - level out to back off the edge of the cliff? By releasing some luggage! I remember the whole "bus off the cliff" thing from an old episode of "Night Gallery" I believe, but it is done very well here. The film would have been much more fun with a better plot, as if crooks stole the bus and it got involved in some chases, so we can see the bus smash through stuff, including roadblocks. Maybe in the invitable remake, we'll see a computer-generated Big Bus smash through everything CGI. *YAWN*. Listen. This movie sucks. But if you like watching interesting vehicles, are a bus fan (there are many), and like viewing some great camera shots of that big 'ol bus off that cliff, definitely rent this and FF to the bus scenes. Again - how did this slop beat so many movies to DVD? Did this actually sell ten copies on DVD?

That said The BIG BUS is just interesting enough to make you never want to turn it off once you start watching it. The BIG BUS is insidicous in its nature. The BIG BUS lures you into its silly mindless plot. The BIG BUS is not about serious movie making or production values or, deeper meanings. It almost seems someone had a few weeks to kill in Hollywood and a bit of unexposed film laying about and, a few favors to call in from industry friends and, the BIG BUS was the result of that otherwise shared idle time. For a film that aspired to so little its odd they hit the mark. To say this film is chewing gum for the eyes would suggest it had hidden in it some posh deep seeded ideal which it doesn't. The BIG BUS far from being chewing gum for the eyes is more like cotton candy for the eyes. Like Cotton Candy the Big BUS is just sticky and messy enough to get you caught up in it but the whole time your brain is finding new and heitherfore unexplored depths to the meaning of the words stuck in neutral gear. You should watch the BIG BUS for the same reason you eat Cotton Candy. The BIG BUS is the movie you want to see when you just want to spend time focusing your energy on the active art of enjoying an experience that too soon melts in your mind becoming nothing but a nagging memory in its all too sweet but crowded hour!

Seeing the interesting cast of mostly character actors, I was expecting more laughs from "The Big Bus". Even though it tries hard, nine out of ten jokes misfire, and are just plain silly or stupid. Another problem is the same joke is worked to death, for example the Diablo Pass incident, or the doctor caring for his patient in the parking lot. Other jokes simply go on for far too long and become tedious. The nuclear bus visuals are impressive, but overall the characters seem more like they are doing stand up comedy, than playing in a movie. A very frantic finish is the best part of the film, but even that cannot save "The Big Bus". - MERK

I probably shouldn't like this film, but sweet damn, I do. Very much. By way of synopsis: this is the story of the inaugural non-stop atomic bus service from New York to Denver. Cyclops, an articulated twin deck bus (with a swimming pool and a bowling alley on board of course), is beset by various unlikely perils en route. This venerable spoof predates "Airplane!" by four years, and is at least its equal in cheesy quality. This film is cheese, and it's matured for 28 years. With no word of a lie, it is THE cheesiest film I have ever seen, and I've witnessed some fine acts of cheese. And there are some pretty bad moments to be sure, the sort of moments where you cringe so violently that ligaments tear, but there's comedy of fine calibre in this too: both by way of deadpan "throwaway" lines, and the overall situation (sublimely funny). The grandfather of a genre (and I'd argue, an exemplar), The Big Bus deserves far more recognition than it presently receives. A fine spoof with no high ideas of itself, which doesn't need to stoop low... by virtue of starting low. Perhaps that's my favourite thing about this film: it was written, acted, and produced without shame. And for that, it's the best quality low quality you'll ever see.