Carol Worthington Movies

The Big Bus is set aboard a nonstop, nuclear-powered luxury bus commandeered by Joseph Bologna. Naturally, Bologna is a tortured hero with a deep dark secret (he keeps insisting he didn't eat all those passengers on his last disastrous drive). Stockard Channing and Harold Gould play the designers of the big bus, and of course they have a few skeletons in their closet. In fact, there isn't a passenger on the all-star manifest that isn't hiding something. The supporting cast features contributions by René Auberjonois (parodying his M*A*S*H role), Ned Beatty, José Ferrer, Ruth Gordon (doing a devastating send-up of Airport's Helen Hayes), Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, and many others; Murphy Dunne contributes a memorable bit as a smarmy cocktail pianist. Unfortunately, The Big Bus was dumped onto the summer 1976 release schedule without fanfare by Paramount, and it sank without a trace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The cheerleading team at Aloha High are popular with their fellow students (except for a couple of stuck-up rich girls), but they're a major cause of the school's lecherous reputation for underage sex and drug abuse. The fun-loving gals spike the lunchroom spaghetti sauce with a concoction of pot, pills, and powders, hold wild orgies in the boys' locker room, and never bother to attend their classes. The school board considers a merger with Aloha's biggest rivals, the vocational school Lincoln High, but the cheerleaders refuse to mix with the low-class juvenile delinquents that go there. A new principal, ex-Marine Hall Walker (Norman Thomas Marshall), might whip the school into shape, but it'll mean forcing the cheerleaders out of the squad and back into the classroom. Though the girls prove their importance to Aloha spirit at the crucial moment of a big basketball game, it turns out that more sinister forces are at work when the school is blown up and the principal is kidnapped. It's up to the cheerleaders to save the day and unravel a conspiracy to steal Aloha High's land for a shopping mall. Carl Ballantine, David Hasselhoff, and genre vet Rainbeaux Smith appear in this energetic sex comedy. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

James L. Brooks' Thursday's Game is a witty made-for-television comedy about two businessmen (Bob Newhart and Gene Wilder) who meet every Thursday night to play poker and discuss their professional and personal problems. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Robert Morse recreated his Tony-winning stage role in this 1967 film version of Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical. A humble window washer at the New York offices of World Wide Wickets, J. Pierpont Finch applies the lessons he's learned from a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to wangle his way to the top of the executive heap. Though advised by the mailroom supervisor (Sammy Smith) to keep a low profile and play things "The Company Way," Finch follows his own skewed set of rules, endearing himself to bombastic company president J. B. Biggely (Rudy Vallee) by posing as a graduate of Grand Old Ivy, Biggely's alma mater. As he climbs to the top, Finch manages to dispose of an over-amorous rival by arranging a tryst between that rival and curvaceous secretary Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur)--who happens to be Biggely's live-in girlfriend. Finch also gets rid of the troublesome Mr. Ovington (Murray Matheson) by exposing the latter as an alumnus of Old Ivy's hated rival university. Graduating to vice-president, Finch feels secure enough to sing the show's one genuine love song "I Believe In You"--to himself! Actually, he's really in love with true-blue secretary Rosemary (Michele Lee), but won't admit to this until he suffers a career setback. Most of Loesser's songs survived the transition from stage to screen, with the exception of "Paris Original," which is heard merely as background music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his efforts to help Tim (Bill Bixby) pay his household expenses, Uncle Martin (Ray Walston) tries to raise money by creating paintings in the exact styles of such famous artists as Van Gogh. The plan backfires when it is Tim, rather than Martin, who is lauded as an artistic genius--and as a result, Tim is coerced into giving a public demonstration of his painting process! Richard Deacon of The Dick Van Dyke Show fame makes his second My Favorite Martian appearance, this time in the role of a wealthy art patron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide