By Lee Pfeiffer
Having been friends with a number of people in my life who are- or have been- car salesman, one thing becomes clear very quickly: you need to have a thick skin and a good sense of humor in order to survive in this curious profession. Not even bank robbers have seen their reputations degraded as much as car salesman- especially those who specialize in used cars...er, make that "previously owned vehicles", in the parlance of today. As with any profession, generalities can be dangerous. There are undoubtedly many reputable people selling cars but even they will tell you that, behind the scenes, the overriding strategies are to close the deal, no matter what it takes. I've always found it rather ironic that while, on the national level, car companies spend a fortune to present their products in TV ads that have production values that suggest class, style and elegance- while at the local level, car dealers swamp the airwaves with home-made ads that are cheap, cheesy and unintentionally hilarious. The consumer sees an ad during the Super Bowl with a guy who looks like 007 behind the wheel of a spanking new vehicle. Yet his local dealership sells the same product through ads featuring the owner, his mother, his cutesy kids - and in some cases over the top comic scenarios that are something out of the old Second City TV skits. (A local dealer near me is a portly fellow who routinely sells his cars while dressed in tights as a super hero!)
Car dealerships already had shaky reputations by the time director Robert Zemeckis rode a semi over the profession with his 1980 comedy "Used Cars". Twilight Time has released the special 2002 DVD edition as a limited edition (3,000 units) Blu-ray title. The film clearly exploited the new screen freedoms in the realm of tasteless humor that had been introduced a couple of years before by director John Landis with "National Lampoon's Animal House". There are those who consider "Used Cars" to be on par with that comedy classic, while others feel its "everything-but-the-kitchen sink" structure makes it more chaotic than consistently funny. In this writer's opinion, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Zemeckis and his co-writer Bob Gale had previously written and directed the 1978 film "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", which Steven Spielberg produced. The underrated and largely under-exposed comedy was the antithesis of "Used Cars" in that it was a sweet-natured look at how the arrival of The Beatles in America wreaked havoc on the lives of New York teenagers. Zemeckis and Gale went on to write Spielberg's epic 1979 WWII comedy "1941" before getting the green light to do "Used Cars", which was executive produced by Spielberg and John Milius.
"Used Cars" opens on a cynical shot of Arizona car salesman Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell) tampering with the odometer on a beat-up vehicle in the hopes he can sucker some poor soul into buying it. Rudy is a charismatic young man who is a charming as he is soulless in terms of his moral fiber. He is intent on raising $10,000 so he can afford to be a credible candidate in the forthcoming race for state senator, a job he presumes will enable him to benefit from even greater graft and corruption. Meanwhile, the only person he respects is the owner of the car lot, the elderly Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden), a man in precarious health whose days are clearly numbered. Luke is locked in a constant daily battle with his more affluent brother Roy (also played by Warden) who has a successful car lot directly across the highway from Luke. Despite the fact that Roy's sales far out-gross those of Luke, he is intent on using dirty tricks to gain control over his less fortunate brother's lot so that he can have the biggest dealership in the state. Much of the humor derives from Rudy's intense attempts to use chicanery to outwit Roy's attempts to seize Luke's property. When Luke suddenly expires, Rudy fears that Roy will inherit the car lot. He enlists the assistance of his two slovenly co-workers Jeff (Gerritt Graham) and Jim (Frank McRae) to hatch an audacious plan whereby they bury Luke inside a car on his own lot then try to convince Roy that he has taken a sudden trip to Florida. Roy isn't buying it and uses his affluence to buy off local officials to launch an investigation. Complicating matters is the arrival of Luke's estranged daughter Barbara (Deborah Harmon). Rudy woos and beds her while hiding the fact that her dad is actually dead. As the film unwinds, the story becomes increasingly ludicrous and culminates in a wildly ambitious sequence in which Rudy organizers a fleet of 250 dilapidated vehicles driven by high school students on a race across the Arizona desert as part of a scheme to ensure Barbara inherits her father's car lot.
"Used Cars" boasts some truly amusing performances with Kurt Russell as the glue that holds this disparate cast together. For Russell, who had recently won acclaim for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in a TV movie, the Zemeckis film was pivotal in proving he could also draw audiences to movie theaters. (Heretofore, he was primarily known as the child and teen age star of many Walt Disney films). Every cast member is impressive and adds immeasurably to the fun, but it's Jack Warden's terrific tour de force performance as both brothers that dominates the film. Zemeckis and Gale have some misfires among the machine gun-fire like rapidity of jokes and comic situations, but they score more than they miss their targets. In one amusing sequence, they actually incorporate footage of then President Jimmy Carter in an outlandish manner. The highlight of the film is clearly the junk heap car race across the desert with Rudy and Roy battling each other from side-by-side pick up trucks like a modern version of the "Ben-Hur" chariot race. The sequence is so over-the-top and logistically impressive that you can honestly say that you've never seen anything like it. "Used Cars" has something to offend everyone: vulgar language abounds, there is disrespect for the dead, the American political system is mocked in a cynical manner and there is plenty of gratuitous tits-and-ass. No wonder I feel like watching it again.
The Twilight Time releases keeps the features from the previous special edition DVD including an award-winning 2003 commentary track featuring Zemeckis, Gale and Russell that is delightful throughout. The guys even goof about their own sloppiness in making the film (the opening frames accidentally reveal a soundman's arm and boom mic in a rear view mirror of a car). Clearly, they had as good a time reflecting on the experience as they did in making the film. There is an isolated score by Patrick Williams and an unused score by the estimable Ernest Gold. Additionally, there are radio spots and a TV ad done for a local Arizona car dealership where the movie was shot in which Kurt Russell actually appears (obviously as a favor) on camera with the lot's owner and help's pitch that week's specials on used cars! A gag reel and some outtakes are surprisingly flat and unfunny. There is also an original trailer from the days in which trailers themselves did not have to be rated. Thus, it's packed with gratuitous nudity even though it was screened to family audiences, which must have caused countless parents to have "that" conversation with their kids before they were ready to do so. There is also a terrific gallery of promotional materials including one ad that features notes from Steven Spielberg in which he complains that they may have produced a distasteful movie, but the ad campaign he is rejecting went too far in pointing this out. The movie was released during the presidential election period of 1980 and one ad notes that Ronald Reagan was not the only actor vying for the nation's top office- and invites audiences to see then incumbent President Jimmy Carter's movie debut. (As mentioned previously, this is a sly reference to newsreel footage seen in the film.) This particular ad also featured the likenesses of both candidates. Try doing that today!
The Twilight Time release is top notch. The film is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it is inspired lunacy that, at times, makes Animal House look as sophisticated as 'Love's Labour's Lost'.
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