This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2016) |
Handle with Care | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jonathan Demme |
Written by | Paul Brickman |
Produced by | Freddie Fields |
Starring | Paul Le Mat Candy Clark Ann Wedgeworth Marcia Rodd Charles Napier |
Cinematography | Jordan Cronenweth |
Edited by | John F. Link |
Music by | Bill Conti |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $5 million |
Box office | $815,000 |
Handle with Care (also released as Citizens Band) is a 1977 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme. It takes place in a small town in Nebraska and is based on the wide popularity of citizens band radio, widely known as CB at the time. [2] The film was originally released as Citizens Band and was later released in an edited version as Handle with Care.
A paperback novelization of the film written by E.M. Corder was published by Pocket Books in 1977.
Spider is a young man who makes a meager living repairing CB radios and spends his spare time volunteering with REACT International. He lives with his father, an irascible retired truck driver whose CB handle is Papa Thermodyne.
Chrome Angel is a truck driver named Harold who is injured in an accident and then issues an emergency call over CB radio. Spider rescues him and takes him to the hospital. During his recovery, Harold is visited by local prostitute Debbie (alias Hot Coffee), who solicits customers over CB. Chrome Angel has two wives, Connie, who calls herself Portland Angel, and Joyce, who lives in Dallas. The women do not know that he is married to both. The two wives arrive in town to discover that Chrome Angel has been seeing Hot Coffee and that they are married to the same man.
Spider's former fiancée Pam (Electra) is a cheerleading coach and physical-education teacher who conducts erotic conversations over the CB with teenage boys. She is romantically interested in Spider's older brother Dean, who goes by the handle of Blood.
After Spider's activities with REACT are disrupted by a gang of local kids holding a frivolous conversation on Channel 9, which is reserved for emergency communications, he decides to embark on a singlehanded nationwide crusade to shutter illegal CB stations, such as those using unlawful linear amplifiers. Spider's targets include the Red Baron, a neo-Nazi who uses a high-powered CB base station to broadcast white-supremacist hate speech, and the Hustler, a teenage boy who reads pornography aloud over the air. Spider and a partner from REACT begin a spree of cutting antenna cables, intimidating offenders by visiting their homes and claiming to be Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials in the hope of cleaning the CB airwaves.
The myriad complicated friendships and odd romantic relationships finally come to a head. Finally, the whole town comes together in a search-and-rescue effort after Papa Thermodyne suddenly disappears.
The film's initial release resulted in disappointing box-office results, leading Paramount to reconsider its campaign and distribution strategy, including renaming the film to deemphasize the CB radio connection because some thought that the word "Band" in the title indicated that it was a musical. [3] The film was renamed Handle with Care for its New York Film Festival showing on September 30, 1977. [4]
The film grossed only $815,530 in the United States and Canada. [5]
Handle with Care currently holds a 100% rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with an average critical score of 7.9/10, based on nine reviews. [6]
John Simon called the film "a lovely, hilarious, semisatirical folk comedy, only needing a better ending." [7]
In 2003, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list. [8]
Citizens band radio is a land mobile radio system, a system allowing short-distance one-to-many bidirectional voice communication among individuals, using two-way radios operating near 27 MHz in the high frequency or shortwave band. Citizens band is distinct from other personal radio service allocations such as FRS, GMRS, MURS, UHF CB and the Amateur Radio Service. In many countries, CB operation does not require a license and may be used for business or personal communications.
Citizens band radio is a system of short-distance radio communications between individuals on a selection of 40 channels within the 27-MHz band. In the United Kingdom, CB radio was first legally introduced in 1981, but had been used illegally for some years prior to that.
Manos: The Hands of Fate is a 1966 American independent no-budget supernatural folk horror film written, directed, and produced by Harold P. Warren. It stars Tom Neyman, John Reynolds, Diane Mahree, and Warren. The film follows a family getting lost during their vacation road trip through the Texas desert and becoming stranded at the lodge of a polygynous pagan cult led by the Master who decides their fate.
Starlight Express is a 1984 rock opera, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. It tells the story of a young but obsolete steam engine, Rusty, who races in a championship against modern locomotives of diesel and electric engines in the hope of impressing a first-class observation car, Pearl. Famously, the actors perform on roller skates.
John Henry Creach, better known as Papa John Creach, was an American blues violinist who also played classical, jazz, R&B, pop and acid rock music. Early in his career, he performed as a journeyman musician with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Stuff Smith, Charlie Christian, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Nat King Cole and Roy Milton.
Singles is a 1992 American romantic comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, and Matt Dillon. It features appearances from several musicians prominent in the early 1990s grunge movement in Seattle.
Convoy is a 1978 American road action comedy film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, Burt Young, Madge Sinclair and Franklyn Ajaye. The film is based on the 1975 country and western novelty song "Convoy" by C. W. McCall. The film was made when the CB radio/trucking craze was at its peak in the United States, and followed the similarly themed films White Line Fever (1975) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977).
Dudley Sutton was an English actor. Active in radio, stage, film and television, he was arguably best known for his role of Tinker Dill in the BBC Television drama series Lovejoy.
Jack Angel was an American voice actor and radio personality. He provided voice-overs for animation and video games. Angel had voiced characters in shows by Hasbro and Hanna-Barbera such as Super Friends, The Transformers and G.I. Joe and was involved in numerous productions by Disney and Pixar. Before becoming involved with voiceover work, Angel was initially a disc jockey for radio stations, namely KMPC and KFI. The day of his death, October 18, a piece of lost 1980s paraphernalia that contained his voice as the lead role, being the U.S. dub of TUGS, was discovered.
Murray Hamilton was an American stage, screen and television character actor who appeared in such films as Anatomy of a Murder, The Hustler, The Graduate, Jaws and The Amityville Horror.
The Wrong Coast is a stop motion adult animated television series. The series emulates a Hollywood gossip show with fake news and features, and includes many parodies of Hollywood movies, often utilizing the voices of real stars. It was produced by Blueprint Entertainment, Cuppa Coffee Studios and Curious Pictures, with stop-motion animation provided by Cuppa Coffee Studios. The theme song is performed by They Might Be Giants. The show features famous celebrity Mark Hamill as the voice of Jameson Burkwright.
Larry Bishop is an American actor, screenwriter and film director. He is the son of Sylvia Ruzga and comedian Joey Bishop. He has been featured in many Hollywood movies including Hell Ride.
The male prostitute or hustler is a frequent stereotype in literature and movies in the West from the 1960s on, and especially in movies and books with a gay perspective in which he may be considered a stock character. He also appears occasionally in popular music, some contemporary fashion advertising, and the visual arts.
The outlaw biker film is a film genre that portrays its characters as motorcycle riding rebels. The characters are usually members of an outlaw motorcycle club.
The Stepford Children is a 1987 American made-for-television horror science fiction thriller film inspired by the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives. It was directed by Alan J. Levi with a screenplay by Bill Bleich and starring Barbara Eden, Don Murray, Tammy Lauren, Randall Batinkoff and Pat Corley. It is the second in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.
June Claire Sebastian was an American actress known for her work in B movies in the late 1950s.
Carmen Electra is an American actress, model, singer, and media personality. She began her career as a singer after moving to Minneapolis where she met Prince who produced her self-titled debut studio album, released in 1993. Electra began glamour modeling in 1996 with appearances in Playboy magazine, before relocating to Los Angeles, where she had her breakthrough portraying Lani McKenzie in the action drama series Baywatch (1997–1998).
Abigail Clayton is an American retired pornographic actress active during the Golden Age of Porn. She was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2008.
Vansploitation is a term and film genre used to describe American independent films from the 1970s, in which a van or vans are the main key element to the plot, and feature comedic stories about young adults.
Maximalist film or maximalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of maximalism.