1976 - MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED - a comedy/drama about ambulance chasers

The director is Peter Yates a man who flipped between interesting pictures like, The Friends of Eddie Coyle and junk like For Pete's Sake.  The writer is Tom Mankiewicz the son of director Joseph Mankiewicz who specialized in standard light Hollywood entertainments like the James Bond movies and garbage like the movie version of Dragnet.  Mankiewicz was a go to guy when you needed your script doctored.  His hands are all over a lot of 70's and 80's movies and TV shows which he was not credited for.

 Mother, Jugs and Speed is a black comedy about an independent ambulance service in Los Angeles.  They are in competition with another another ambulance service to secure the rights to providing the city of Los Angeles with transportation to their hospital.  The film has lots of  bits of black comedy as they drive around dealing with sick people in need of their services.  The film is interlaced with dramatic scenes as a counterpoint to all of the comedy.  The film clearly wants to be the MASH of the contemporary 1970's Los Angele scene I guess.

  

Harvey Keitel is "Speed" a disgraced cop working for the service.  Where someone got the idea Keitel a rather intense actor from the Martin Scorcese school would be a leading man is kind of a head scratcher.  Raquel Welch is tastelessly nicknamed "Jugs." Her main duty is to apparently provide the sex in the movie.  Bill Cosby is "Mother,"  who does most of the heavy comedy lifting in the film.

 

Is the film funny? I guess so, but even for a black comedy it's awfully cynical.  This is a slick piece of product from the Hollywood studio system. No auteur stuff here thank you.

The running time is 98 minutes, apparently it made money.