Stretcher-Bearer

By JAY COCKS

MOTHER, JUGS AND SPEED

Directed by PETER YATES Screenplay by TOM MANKIEWICZ

This won't do but it could have. Mother, Jugs and Speed involves the escapades of a bunch of Los Angeles ambulance drivers who hustle catastrophe for $42.50 plus 500-a-mile. Tom Mankiewicz's screenplay owes more than it ought to MASH, but it has found a way to get into the underbelly of a city, to survey the twilight territory where tragedy and comedy trip over each other and make an unsightly mess. What might have been a pitch-black comedy is a movie loaded down with cheapjack melodrama and sleazy yocks.

Bill Cosby and Harvey Keitel por tray two hot-shot drivers, Mother and Speed respectively. Raquel Welch also stars, and it does not require a good deal of sophistication to determine which role is hers. In the movie she does not like to be called Jugs (Jennifer is her proper name), and the sympathies of the film makers are entirely with her, even as they exploit her.

Welch retains a vestige of dignity, and a little something more. As last year's The Wild Party demonstrated, Welch can handle an emotionally diverse role. She has a moment here mourning the death of a pregnant mother in which she is quite affecting -- although Director Peter Yates (Bullit) has edited the scene much to her advantage.

Still, she is agile and relaxed, and does not seem particularly out of place either up against the affectless cool of Bill Cosby or the brush-fire intensity of Harvey Keitel, who is among the best young actors around.

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