Interesteg What makes it different from others?

StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Robert D. Ruplenas This had been, years ago, one of my favorites, but I hadn't had a chance to see it for many years until it cropped up on one of the cable movie channels recently. As a comedy, it certainly is never going to rank up there with Philadelphia Story or Young Frankenstein, but it is still worth seeing. It is definitely, as has been mentioned in this space, a product of its day, providing a very cynical commentary on civic institutions. It often appears a tad dated. However, as has been pointed out, it is probably the best movie that Bill Cosby ("Mother") - with his uncanny ability to pick lousy scripts - ever made, and he shines in it. It is one of Harvey Keitel's ("Speed") earliest movies, and we see here that his choice of making slightly off-the-wall movies was in evidence early. The fine character actor Allen Garfield puts in a fine performance as Harvey Fishbine, and it's great to see the late Larry Hagman in a well-played black sheep role. I wish I could say that we can see some sign of talent from Raquel Welch ("Jugs", natch), but honesty prevents me. As others have noted, the movie is indeed episodic, but a lot of those episodes are wonderfully done, my favorite being the attempt to bring the obscenely obese woman down the stairs on the gurney.

vcorchia It seems some of the criticism of this movie stems from the fact that it mixes comedy and drama. Well the fact is, Yates handles both types of scenes adeptly.On the comedy note, there are many great lines, Larry Hagman is over the top funny, and the scene where they try to get an overweight woman down a narrow stairway in a housing project is one of the single most hilarious scenes ever filmed.Raquel Welch does a good job, and obviously fits the bill for her character's anatomical requirements. Harvey Keitel is solid as always and Bill Cosby is outstanding as the "Mother" of this motley bunch, handling his scenes as the comic rebel and the seriously dramatic ones with equal aplomb.

Woodyanders Long before weary, burnt-out Nicholas Cage trolled around a crack-ravaged Hell's Kitchen in search of spiritual redemption in Martin Scorsese's hauntingly gloomy "Bringing Out the Dead" the choice happening trio of Billy Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel pounded an outrageously freaky, stressful and eventful Los Angeles beat as harried paramedics working for a low-rent ambulance service in this darkly humorous, often quirky and hugely underrated "M.A.S.H."-style seriocomic sleeper.Bill Cosby, prior to his sad degeneration into terminally cutesy middle-of-the-road blandness in the 80's with the lamentable "The Cosby Show," is in fine, funky form as hip, assured, sardonic crackerjack wheelman and smartaleck supreme Mother (next to the super, hard-boiled, unjustly neglected private eye picture "Hickey and Boggs" this flick rates as the coolest feature the Cos ever acted in), the phenomenally gorgeous Raquel Welch excels in an all-too-rare substantial part as stand-offish, yet still desirable dispatcher Jugs, and Harvey Keitel contributes his usual solid performance as moody ex-cop Speed. The eclectic supporting cast is likewise smack dab on the money excellent: Allen Garfield as the antsy, frazzle-nerved ambulance service owner, Larry Hagman as a smarmy, desperate libidinous loser, Bruce Davison as a naive rookie, L.Q. Jones as a laid-back local lawman, Toni Basil as a shotgun-wielding heroin addict, Dick Butkus as an amiable good ol' boy cowboy, and the ever-divine Severn Darden doing a deft reprise of his shameless shyster lawyer role from "Cisco Pike."Director Peter Yates, working from Tom Mankiewicz's sharp, brash, wildly episodic script, keeps the pace storming along at a furiously dynamic clip, staging car crashes with considerable aplomb and boldly veering the tone from hilariously raucous to alarmingly serious with frequently on-target, sometimes surprising and always genuinely eccentric results. Ralph Woolsey's glittering nighttime cinematography and the groovy, lively, pulsating soul score vividly capture the harrowing nonstop lunacy of both inner city blight and the intrinsic highly intensified pressure found in the paramedic profession. The loose, easy and funny camaraderie between Cosby, Welch and Keitel in particular really hits the spot something sweet. There's no denying that they make for a pretty unlikely threesome -- and it's the very oddballness of this engagingly flaky bunch which in turn gives the film its irresistibly off-center appeal.

sol **SPOILERS** Getting $42,50 per client and .50 per mile it take to get him, or her, to the nearest hospital is the life's-blood of the H&B Ambalance Company and the more bodies it hauls the more cash rolls into to it's coffers. Mother, Bill Cosby, is the wise old man of H&B who's seen just about everything there is to see in the ambulance business and doesn't mind seeing some more. As good as an ambulance driver Mother is he still has some hang ups, like we all do, in life. Mother carries on his rig a loaded .357 Magnum and a case of ice cold beer that he constantly sips as he drives wildly through the streets of L.A. Mother also has a very bad habit of buzzing the local nuns, scaring the hell out of them as they cross the streets outside their chapel. Jugs, Raquel Welch, is the pretty and busty, like her name suggests, dispatcher of the H&B Ambalance Company who has a dream of becoming an ambulance driver herself. Which is taking a toll on her social life by studying nights to get a diploma and license to be behind the wheel; and roll up and down the city streets at 60 to 100 MPH without worrying about red lights or being pulled over by police squad cars.Speed, Harvey Keitel, is a cop on suspension and awaiting trial for selling uppers and coke, not the bottled kind, to high school students on his beat which later proves that he didn't. Speed also has a way with the ladies in his sensitive way of sweet talking to them that has the almost unapproachable and untouchable Jugs falling for the cute and cuddly ex-cop as fast as it takes her to dispatch a rig to pick up a stiff off the street. Hilarious 1976 black comedy that has it's share of real drama and tragedy in it as well.There's Mother's partner Leroy, Bruce Davidson,gets shot to death a by a junkie, Toni Basil, because he didn't have the drugs that she so desperately craved. There was also a very graphic delivery scene of a baby on a H&B ambulance that was trying to get to a county hospital. This happened when the two ambulance drivers, Speed & Jugs, were told a snotty doctor at a local hospital emergency ward that they don't take obstetrics there. The baby was successfully delivered, by Jugs, but the mother died in childbirth. There's a very wild and bloody shootout at the end of the film when two of the H&B drivers Murdouc & Walker(Larry Hagman & Michael McManus) both drunk and doped up took over the company's office and held the boss' wife Peaches Fishbine, Valerie Curtin, hostage. The shoot-out ending with one of the drivers, Murdoc, getting shot to death by the police and the other badly burned. Allen Garfied was an added treat in the movie as H&B's owner Harry Fishbine who acted as if he were a general and that his workers were an advanced infantry unit about to storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day.