CAR WASH (1976) **1/2 "That," my wife informed our children at the conclusion, and after they'd expressed admiration, "was the '70s." It was a time when even a day at the car wash could be an adventure, a hotbed of revolutionary rhetoric and pranks and intrigue. Driven by a pumpin' soundtrack and one of the hottest musical themes of that very hot and pumpin' decade the general feel is one of Black Culture, just beyond that level accessible to honkeys. Yeah, the man got us down, but he's a fool anyway. Believe it. That being the case it's extraordinary to note that the script was written by none other than Joel Schumacher. What's a nice Jewish boy (with Swedish mother, no less) from New York know about the inner mechanizations of the brothuh's from L.A.? Perhaps more than anything else, it was a decade in which social boundaries were decimated. My experience is that the cultural-cross pollinization of the culture that had the best time, and the most focused culture, led to some intense partying. Learn to talk like Garret Morris and you shall never stay saddened. Richard Pryor's portrayal of a ghetto preacher (replete with his portrait gracing the shoeshine man's wall beside those of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy) is absolute perfection, don't let anyone tell you that man couldn't do anything he wanted. Similar for George Carlin as the cabbie who thinks that he must be a liberal, although several aspects of that crystal have been betrayed over the years. BUT...my beloved brothers and sisters, what could this bit of Amerifunkincana be widdout a glorious new superhero? Franklyn Ajaye is the heart and soul of this film, perhaps as counterpoint with Ivan Dixon. When Schumacher decides to suddenly cash in all of his comedy chips at the end and make a statement it's neither pedantic nor unwelcome. The '70s was the decade you could break all the rules.
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