When adding films to my potential viewing list for this series on Letterboxd -- and I've only got 11 so I still have an opening -- I wasn't sure whether or not Michael Schultz's 1976 film Car Wash counted as a blaxploitation movie. It would be the first movie I'd be watching where crime plays no explicit role in the plot, although there is a minor criminal act that occurs as part of the multiplicity of set pieces that make up the film. What's more, it is, I believe, the first film I've considered for this series where there is no reference to blaxploitation within the characterization of the film on Wikipedia.
However, having rubber-stumped it to go ahead -- remember, I've only pulled out 11 candidates for this series so far -- I found it felt quite appropriate for Blaxploitaudient as soon as I started watching. Then just now, to make extra sure the word "blaxploitation" did not appear on this film's Wikipedia entry just to support my claim in the previous paragraph, I found the word does appear after the text for the entry -- as one of the Wikipedia categories with which Car Wash is associated. If Wikipedia feels Car Wash belongs as part of a category called "blaxploitation films," then so should I.
Now that we've confirmed its right to be here, let's get into the movie proper.
Car Wash is the quintessence of the hangout film. In fact, if you had told me Richard Linklater based the structure of Dazed and Confused on Car Wash, I would not have been surprised. The film takes place entirely within one day at an urban Los Angeles car wash next to an urban Los Angeles diner, the latter of which gives the film a secondary location to relieve some of the burden on the primary location. We follow more than a dozen characters as they arrive for work and clock out at night, or drop by regularly to hang out with the people who actually work there, with cameos from other actors (some famous, some not) as customers of the two establishments.
"Follow" might be a strong word. Joel Schumacher's script doesn't give us many hard story arcs to keep track of, and the exposure to characters is initially only a glancing one. Over the course of the narrative, we do get an increasingly firm understanding of who everybody is, and even some sense of their goals in life, but the script has no interest in ramming this down our throats, or possibly giving us definitive conclusions to every storyline.
There are a number of guys who wash the cars, who love playing pranks on each other and sometimes on the customers. There's the profits-first owner and his son, who is an amateur Marxist. There's the car wash employee who is sweet on the waitress at the diner. There's the ex-con who is just trying to keep his job despite embarrassing visits from his parole officer. There's the cabby who makes more visits to the car wash than is probably necessary. There's the Black Panther wannabe who has given himself a Muslim name. There's the whore with the heart of gold who is potentially waiting to do business in the back alley.
And sure enough, I was comforted to see, the majority of these characters are Black, which was really what I wanted in order to feel good about including this film in this series. I wasn't expecting them all to be Black, because there are white characters in each of the blaxploitation movies I've watched so far in 2024. Just 70%, and Car Wash hits that percentage easily enough, with one Native American character thrown in for good measure. (Though, given the Los Angeles location, surprisingly few if any Latinos.)
And what a cast. When looking up the posters for possible inclusion with this post, I was amused to find the DVD cover that shows Richard Pryor and George Carlin as though they were the stars of the movie. Pryor has one scene that is short and sort of superfluous -- except that it also features the Pointer Sisters, which I enjoyed -- as he appears as a character in a limo named Daddy Rich. Carlin is the aforementioned cab driver, but after appearing several times in the front half of the movie, he basically disappears. Neither of these guys would accurately be described as the star of the movie.
Then again, in an ensemble movie, I suppose if you are going to emphasize anyone, might as well emphasize the two guys who had the biggest careers outside of this. Others I knew and really enjoyed were Garrett Morris of SNL fame, Antonio Fargus (who is making his second appearance in this series after last month's Foxy Brown, and plays an out homosexual), Bill Duke (who plays the would-be political activist with anger and frustration to spare), Melanie Mayron (the car wash cashier) and others whose faces I recognized if maybe I didn't know their names before this. (On Wikipedia just now I noticed there was a TV-only version of this movie in which Danny DeVito appears.)
At first thinking the movie might be too slight to really make an impression on me, I got into its groove and enjoyed it in the same way (though perhaps not to quite the same extent) that I enjoy the aforementioned Dazed and Confused. There are a lot of funny little bits here, such as the woman who stops at the car wash with her husband in a full body cast in the passenger seat, and how Morris interacts with the man whose words cannot be fully heard. I also enjoyed the pranks, such as one employee stuffing his co-worker's burrito with hot peppers.
And the individual story arcs did ultimately strike me, particularly the two that culminate in a joint scene at the end of the movie. That's the story involving the ex-con (played by Ivan Dixon) and Duke's frustrated revolutionary, who was fired earlier in the day and tries to hold up the car wash after closing. (Spoiler alert, I guess.) The ex-con Lonnie needs to prove to the world, perhaps especially himself, that he is trustworthy, so when Duke's Abdullah tries to rob the place while Lonnie is counting the cash, the stakes are high. However, more than anything, Lonnie cares for his hurting brother, so the way he talks him down from the possible heist, knowing from experience the impact it could have on Abdullah's future, is a lot more than a man just trying to save his own hide. Given the tone the film had had the whole time, I knew it could not conclude with some sort of minor tragedy, and Car Wash proved me right.
Director Schultz had directed Cooley High, another blaxploitation adjacent film, the year before, and this seems well within that mode. I find it a slightly more unusual project for Schumacher, whose career would feature many different modes, but not a lot that really would come to remind me of this. I learned also just now that this was originally envisioned as a stage production to be adapted for the screen, which is how Schumacher got involved, though it sounds as though the stage version never took off. It was also possibly going to be a musical, which is why we get one song from the Pointer Sisters and another half-song from the car wash employee who is smitten with the diner waitress.
Oh, and I can't forget to mention the titular song, which plays a couple times and which I always love hearing.
Okay we've crossed the halfway point in Blaxploitaudient. On to July.
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