Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

Buford T. Justice: [to his son] There's no way, *no* way that you came from *my* loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch yo mamma in da mouth!

The 70’s brought us quite a few movies with great car action such as Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971), The French Connection (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Vanishing Point (1971), What’s Up, Doc? (1972), The Getaway (1972), American Graffiti (1973), James Bond’s Live and Let Die (1973), The Seven-Ups (1973), Freebie and the Bean (1974), Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) and we are barely halfway through the decade!  Even Australia brought out some movies with classic car action such as The Cars that Ate Paris (1974), The Man from Hong Kong (1975), The FJ Holden (1977) and of course who could forget Mad Max (1979).  Whilst they all had various amounts of car action, few probably had as much rubber burning, tyre-smokin action than Smokey and the Bandit.  So, if you’re in the mood for a growling V8, tyre smoking comedy, this just might be what you’re looking for.

The story is quite simple.  Big Enos (Pat McCormick) and his son Little Enos (Paul Williams) challenge the Bandit (Burt Reynolds) to bring a truck load of Coors beer from Texas to Georgia, which is illegal and called bootlegging (the beer could not be transported east of the Mississippi).  The Bandit takes up the challenge and Big & Little Enos fork out the cash to get the ball rolling and one of those requirements is a fast car to act as a block and watch-out for the Police/Smokey/Kojak’s.  The Bandit then enlists close friend Cledus (Jerry Reed) to drive the truck and they head to Texas to pick up the beer. As they start back the Bandit picks up hitch-hiker Carrie (Sally Field) dressing in a wedding gown and continues the trip.  What the Bandit does not realise is that Carrie was about to marry the son (Mike Henry) of Sherriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) of Texas police and he is not too pleased that Carrie stood her son up at the church.  Buford starts chasing the Bandit to get Carrie back but the Bandit is unaware of the connection and cannot understand why a Texas Sherriff is going out of his jurisdiction to catch him.  This then starts an all-out war chase between the police and the Bandit.  At the same time the Bandit needs to ensure the truck is not pulled over and inspected by the police.

As you can imagine there is a lot of chasing and rubber smoking action that is really what the movie is all about and to be honest, it’s a blast.  The film contains some great stunts and high speed driving (though some is just sped up) along with that sweet V8 exhaust.  Coming out at the cinema just two days after Star Wars the film had tough competition but ended up becoming the second highest grossing movie of the year in the U.S. with the first being, you guessed it, Star Wars.  So it was certainly popular then and has remained popular.  I saw this film on TV and Video several times in my younger years and it still gets some of the adrenalin pumping.

As with many movies there are always interesting bits of info and this is no exception.  If you interested in doing jumps in your car, keep this in mind.  After the jump shown in the above image, the car was totalled so don’t do this thinking you can simply drive home afterward!  As for grassy fields, there is a scene on a football field where the players (extras) were almost struck by the car due to the grass (unknown by the crew) being watered down before filming.

Burt Reynolds is in his usual self-confident state and suits the roll to a T.  Jackie Gleason however is just a real funny character and in fact the majority of his lines are improvised.  As he does swear a reasonable amount (it is not overly coarse language like many modern movies) his lines got re-dubbed for the television release.  His comments and mannerisms are simply brilliant and his need to put up with his “a-sandwich-short-of-a-picnic” son causes him to come to the realisation that his son could not come from his loins which gives context to the quote above.  

Overall this is a very funny movie with great characters that really add the second great ingredient of the film, the first being car action, and is well worth watching.

The Bluray reviewed is the Australian release that can be picked up for a very reasonable price. The image is in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is in great shape with a consistently sharp image.  The sound is clear and detailed in its DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 format.  There are no extras.

Overall this is a classic film that will no doubt stick around for many years to come mostly due to its solid car action, comedy and great characters.  Put this one on the list for those times you feel like some car action along with a laugh.  Highly recommended.

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