The Big Bus (1976) on Netflix
A bomb injures the scientist in charge of Cyclops, a nuclear-powered bus built for a nonstop trip from New York to Denver. Kitty Baxter turns to Dan Torrance, a disgraced driver.
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- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb5.7/104,103 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
Coyote Bus Lines builds Cyclops, a nuclear-powered double-decker bus meant to make a nonstop trip from New York City to Denver. A bomb goes off as the engine takes on nuclear fuel, and Professor Baxter, the scientist leading the project, is critically hurt. The line is left without a driver or co-driver. Kitty, the professor's daughter, designed Cyclops, and she asks Dan Torrance to take the wheel. Dan once had a promising career, ruined by a crash on Mount Diablo and by the charge that he ate his passengers.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Big Bus (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The bus in the film was built as two separate vehicles: the rear half was a drivable unit, the two halves were joined at the filming location for shooting, and the rear driver, unable to see, had to be directed by radio.
- John Landis cast Murphy Dunne as the leader of "Murph and the Magic Tones" in The Blues Brothers after seeing him play a cheesy lounge singer in an earlier film; Landis never names The Big Bus, but it was Dunne's only previous lounge-singer role.
- A 1990s Film Score Monthly poll asking readers which film score they most wanted released put The Big Bus among the top 20, and in 2000 a bootleg CD of the soundtrack surfaced as a prized collectable.
- Footage of passengers boarding the bus in New York was shot at the Trailways Los Angeles bus station, and Trailways is thanked in the closing credits for its help in creating the film's bus.
