The Crown International Files: My Chauffeur

Rating:

My Chauffeur is a sort of a “fish out of water” story, only in this case the “fish” is a hip, young woman and the “water” is a snooty all-male limousine service run by Howard Hesseman. Yes, after WKRP in Cincinnati and before Head of the Class, Mr. Hesseman played an important supporting role in this, the finest “lady limo driver movie” of the 80′s. Or at least one of the best. Maybe.

After an utterly bizarre opening credits sequence more suited to a Merchant Ivory production than Crown International, we are introduced to bouncy, carefree Casey Meadows (Deborah Foreman). She’s trying to make a living working in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant when a mysterious benefactor hires her for his personal limousine service. Suddenly Casey finds herself surrounded by hateful old men who mostly all believe that the world of driving rich people around is no place for a lady. For her first assignment, they give her one of their toughest clients: an enormously unlikeable punk rocker who immediately demands Casey take her clothes off. After this charming introduction, he and his friends chase down a large woman in a public park and steal her panties. But at the end of the day, he ends up on stage more or less when he’s supposed to be, so… mission accomplished?

I honestly thought this guy was going to die during this scene.

Meanwhile, a terrifying Patrick Bateman/Jim Profit type named Battle (Sam J. Jones, aka Flash Gordon 1980!) sits scowling behind a desk and slashing the payroll budgets of several companies he runs. There is no question his business cards have both a tasteful thickness and a watermark, as this scene clearly demonstrates. It is soon revealed that this sociopath is the son of Witherspoon (E. G. Marshall), the benefactor who hired Casey Meadows into his personal chauffeur service. And so the mystery deepens: who is Witherspoon, what is his connection to Casey Meadows, and why do we have to spend any time with the creepy Battle? All this is piling up while the audience is also forced to wonder: How many times can Casey get fired from the limo service before she realizes she should actually stop showing up for work?

Casey and Battle’s paths first cross when Battle’s fiancee announces she’s leaving him during a screaming fight in the limo as Casey drives them around. After which Battle decides to drink an entire bottle of alcohol stored in the back seat of the limo, and there’s another scene of a public park being terrorized. Battle goes crazy, runs out of the limo, strips and runs around the park. The film shows a tasteful, surprising restraint by not including bit players who see this and the punk rocker scene earlier and shrug it off with “Hey, that’s Los Angeles!” Casey manages to wrangle Battle back into the limo and then takes him to her apartment, where he wakes up the next day and immediately returns to his lovable, job-slashing self and, presumably, to the dirty cardboard box where he usually sleeps. The audience senses that this is a man who needs to learn some important lessons about himself, such as “love is more important than homework.”

My Chauffeur is feather-light, with a mostly predictable storyline that nevertheless delivers some modest surprises. For example, when you see “Introducing: Penn & Teller” in the opening credits, you will not be prepared for what they actually do in this movie. Casey runs into various characters in need of chauffeuring and learns important lessons herself, although she never quite loses her weirdly anachronistic sense of humor. She shifts wildly between Valley Girl slang and near-vaudeville goofing, giving the film a strange tone. It’s a curious relic of the 80′s, and it’s passably entertaining if you’re looking to be slightly distracted.