CITIZENS BAND

"What do you expect, Spider, with twenty million units out there?"

I remember the CB radio craze in the mid-seventies, and I too was caught up in it. Hollywood decided to do something about it: One result of this was Jonathan Demme's 1977 feature film, Citizens Band -- also known as Handle With Care. ("CB" is short for Citizen's Band.) This entertaining film stars Paul Le Mat -- who was hot back then due to the great success of American Graffiti -- who plays CB enthusiast Spider Thermodyne. He is serious about his hobby, to the point that he chastises people who misuse the airwaves (which is quite a few). There are some funny moments as Spider takes matters into his own hands after deciding enough is enough.

Along for the ride are Candy Clark, who also appeared in Graffiti and was nominated for an Oscar because of it, and always memorable character actor Charles Napier. Roberts Blossom plays Le Mat's drunkard father by looking the part. He is very good.

Citizens Band follows several different characters as they are connected in some way to the hobbyist's radio. Some folk we get to know more than others but enough is presented as to give us an idea as to who is up to what. This movie is a fairly short one at 98 minutes.

TVO played this one two weeks ago on their "Saturday Night at the Movies" weekly series. Scheduling Citizens Band makes a good counterpoint to many of the classics that network screens on the program. While it might not be considered high end fare, and what you would typically expect to see on SNATM, the film is a lot of fun... and reminds older folk like me of that time.