Car Wash (1976)

Boy, there's been some weird people in here today.

After his drug-addled, drink-fuelled and disastrous twenties, Joel Schumacher started his Hollywood career as a costume and production designer, clothing the likes of Dyan Cannon and Raquel Welch in The Last of Sheila (1973) before pivoting to screenwriting as a stepping stone to his dream career of directing. Sparkle (1976) – a rags-to-riches melodrama about a Harlem girl group – was a modest success, but his follow-up would prove to be a genuine cult classic, an ensemble comedy heavily influenced by Robert Altman (particularly 1970’s M*A*S*H) with an all-Black cast and a decidedly working-class outlook.

Car Wash began as a stage-based musical comedy idea, presented by producers Art Linson and Gary Stromberg to Universal studio head Ned Tanen. According to Schumacher: “Then, if that became a success, they would make that into a movie. Ned Tanen said it was the worst idea he’d ever heard in his life, but he had read the script for Sparkle, and if they could get the writer, he might make a movie called Car Wash. That’s how the whole thing started.” Schumacher’s script leaned into the sunbaked blue-collar milieu, with a particular focus on what he later called the “celebration of the downtrodden minority … and how people who’ve suffered use humour to get along.”

And that’s about as close as we’re likely to get to a plot synopsis of Car Wash, which follows an ensemble through a ten-hour day at the Dee-Luxe car wash run by Mr B (Sully Boyar), during which time pranks are pulled, romantic relationships are tested or pursued, a bookie (Garrett Morris) is arrested, a kid named Calvin blows raspberries, a radio phone-in contest is won, a vicious dog is unleashed, a car-sick kid ruins his mother’s day, a transplanted New York cabbie (George Carlin) attempts to find the “big, tall, blonde, black” prostitute who skipped out on a fare, an ex-con (Ivan Dixon) tries to connect with a Black revolutionary (Bill Duke), a stoned college student (Richard Brestoff) attempts to use his Little Red Book to radicalise the employees, and a money-grubbing evangelist Daddy Rich (Richard Pryor) stops by to preach the prosperity gospel. Oh yeah, and there’s also a guy (Irwin Corey) who may or may not be the infamous “pop bottle bomber” who’s currently terrorising Los Angeles.

If all this sounds a bit broad and unwieldy, fear not, gentle reader. Michael Schultz was already a dab hand at ensemble work by the time he came to direct Car Wash – as one of the original directors in the Negro Ensemble Company,¹ he had directed the first run of Lorraine Hansberry’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1968-9) and had been nominated for a Tony for Don Peterson’s teen rehab drama Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie (1969).² His previous film, Cooley High (1975) was a Chicago-based take on American Graffiti (and arguably the better film) which proved to be not only a box office hit but also a landmark movie in Black cinema. Schultz intended to bring the same magic to Car Wash, encouraging Schumacher to build on the serious elements in his script and ground the movie’s shenanigans in a recognizable reality, much to Universal’s distaste: “I kept saying if people don’t believe the character it’s not going to be funny. If there isn’t a serious aspect to the humour it’s not going to be funny.”

This serious aspect centres on the main relationship between the ex-con Lonnie and the young revolutionary Abdullah (formerly Duane), and Schultz went out of his way to protect his vision from the executives, who had already cut some of the more serious material from the script:³ “I shot the picture in sequence. I knew as I fought with them, what I really wanted was the ending that wound up on film, where these two black men, one who had been in prison, the other who is on his way, embrace and you get the wisdom passed on. I knew they wouldn’t want that. If I stretched it out, they couldn’t do anything to change it.”

If Car Wash has a dramatic through-line, it’s the relationship between Lonnie and Abdullah, and luckily Schultz had a couple of fine actors to bring it to the fore among the background pranks. Ivan Dixon was probably best known for his turn in long-running sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, but also boasted strong performances in both the original run of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and neorealist independent drama Nothing but a Man (1964) and directed two key Black movies of the 1970s, Trouble Man (1972) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973). Opposite Dixon, Bill Duke made his feature debut in Car Wash, and displays the kind of intimidating (yet vulnerable) presence that would make him a stalwart heavy of ‘80s action movies.⁴ Lonnie and Abdullah’s relationship is the melancholic beating heart of Car Wash, a story simple enough to follow and emotionally strong enough to resonate: both men are confined by crime, whether past or future, and the film goes to great lengths to emphasise the disenfranchisement of both characters without sacrificing verisimilitude or lapsing into melodrama.

That this serious storyline works alongside the puking kids, shitting dogs, mild sexual harassment, and broad gags is miraculous, but it speaks to a wider vision that positions the japes in a semi-realistic and humanist context. These guys all have their own dreams, whether it’s soul man stardom (Floyd and Lloyd), winning back a one-date girlfriend (T.C.), keeping a struggling business afloat (Mr B), or just existing as a flamboyant gay man (Lindy), but the movie actively resists judging the characters for their dreams: they are, after all, what gets them through their shift. And for all the pranks pulled, they never feel mean-spirited; they’re more playful mini-rebellions to break the monotony of the work. The white student son of Mr B might get pranked into becoming the world’s first “human car wash” because of his stoned insistence on getting his colleagues into Chairman Mao, but his goodbyes are heartfelt. So too is the treatment of Lindy (Antonio Fargas), an openly gay man in an aggressively masculine environment: he may at first appear to be a standard ‘70s stereotype, but there’s a militancy and self-confidence in Lindy that clearly inspires respect. It helps of course that Fargas gets some of the best lines, most notably his riposte to Abdullah’s claim that he represents the emasculation of the Black Male: “Honey, I’m more man than you’ll ever be, and more woman than you’ll ever get.”⁵

Even when the movie threatens to derail with the bombastic appearance of Richard Pryor, playing a Reverend Ike-inspired preacher (flanked by The Pointer Sisters no less!), it never stretches the comedy to breaking point: Pryor may have been “too coked out to know any better,” grabbing an easy $10,000 payday to boost the potential box office, but Daddy Rich’s appearance is carefully undermined by Abdullah’s disgust, as well as some canny framing on Schultz’s part, making sure that Pryor’s degenerate man of God is situated satirically between portraits of Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And while Carlin is doing a standard cabbie schtick, he’s never given enough screen time to turn it into the George Carlin Hour.⁶ Indeed, the ensemble nature of the cast⁷ – including stage actors and stand-ups – prevents Car Wash from leaning too hard into the comedy. This means it’s never bust-a-gut funny – though I still get a chuckle from the “That’s from Ibid, page 150!” line – but then ensemble comedies rarely are, instead becoming a mildly amusing hang-out picture. And this works better in the long run: broad comedies tend to age like milk, and Car Wash’s restless structure means that even if a gag veers into low comedy, it flies by without upsetting the tonal balance too much. This was a clever move on Schultz’s part, and as he acknowledged, resulted in the film’s longevity with audiences: “To me, what makes this picture have a life that’s gone on for twenty-some-odd years is that it is grounded in a reality.”

Most critics appeared to agree, with many – like Ebert and Canby – noting that it took real skill to juggle this many characters and plot lines (though it was undoubtedly helped by the constant radio presence as a linking device), as well as praising the good-natured comedy.⁸ Many identified M*A*S*H as a precursor to Car Wash, but the key difference between the two films is that the Korean War-set ensemble comedy is notably nastier in tone (especially when it comes to women). As much as I love Altman, broad comedy wasn’t his forte, and he never appeared particularly interested in class, whereas Car Wash is obviously concerned with both. Universal had high hopes for the film, not least because of its outstanding disco soundtrack (produced by Motown legend Norman Whitfield) and resulting Billboard success, and while box office was good, it wasn’t good enough for the execs, who blamed waning audience interest in Blaxploitation⁹ for what they saw as lacklustre receipts.

Schultz would struggle to replicate his earlier success in a Hollywood that was increasingly ambivalent to his talents and Black-oriented movies in general, before moving into television. As for Schumacher, well, he would suffer some of the critical drubbing for The Wiz (1978) before making his directorial debut in 1981 with the Lily Tomlin-starring The Incredible Shrinking Woman. As for Car Wash, it became something of a cult classic, apparently a favourite of Michael Bay of all people, and its legacy continues, with NBC working on a television version as of last year. Whether the series manages the tone correctly is yet to be seen, but there’s undeniable potential in adapting a charming, multiracial, borderline progressive comedy for modern audiences.

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Next Up: “How fast must a man go to get from where he's at?”

1. The NEC’s alumni read like a Who’s Who of Black actors, including Car Wash cast members Bill Duke, Antonio Fargas, and Garrett Morris, as well as Keith David, Danny Glover, Angela Bassett, Richard Roundtree, Laurence Fishburne, Cleavon Little, Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington among many, many others.

2. Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? also marked the Broadway debut of an actor probably best known for his Sky Fibre Broadband adverts: Al Pacino.

3. This included a scene between Snapper (Clarence Muse) and Abdullah, to further expand upon the generational differences.

4. And of course a solid director in his own right, on television with – I shit you not – episodes of Falcon Crest and Hill Street Blues, as well as his feature adaptation of Chester Himes’s A Rage in Harlem (1991) and cult classic Deep Cover (1992).

5. I may be wrong, but I believe this line (or a version of it) also appeared in Schumacher’s 1999 film Flawless. I’d check into it, but I’m not sure I want to revisit that movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman or no Philip Seymour Hoffman.

6. Though apparently he did cut a deal to write his own lines. Outside of his opening spiel, I can’t think what he could have added: he spends most of the movie repeating the “big, tall, black, blonde chick” stuff.

7. And what a cast it is - introduced alphabetically in the opening credits and including a veritable smogasbord of “That Guy/Gal”s: Sully Boyer was the bank manager in Dog Day Afternoon, Jack Kehoe was Jerry Geisler in Midnight Run, Melanie Mayron popped up in Harry and Tonto and thirtysomething, Lorraine Gary played Ellen Brody in Jaws, Tim Thomerson is probably best known for Trancers, Franklin Ajaye was in Deadwood, and even Jason Bernard (who plays Lonnie’s parole officer) is recognisably the tough Marquette in Cagney & Lacey. And yes, that is Brooke Adams, who plays a significantly larger role (along with Danny DeVito) in the television version of the movie.

8. Pauline Kael trigger warning: “Many people resist quality; they’re afraid of being outclassed. They’re safe with Car Wash: it has no more class than a Hostess Twinkie, and it, too, may make you gag a little.” I’m not surprised Kael had a blind spot for this one.

9. For the record, I’m not fond of the term “Blaxploitation,” mostly because it was initially coined by Junius Griffin as a pejorative and tends to diminish many movies labelled as such, but I’m aware it’s fallen into common usage and it’s sometimes effective shorthand.