Drivers’ Cinema: Smokey And The Bandit (1977)

The late, and often times great, stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham guided 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit to become the second highest grossing film of the year, just a bit behind a little known film by the name of Star Wars. This event started a partnership with Burt Reynolds (at the time the biggest movie star in the world) that spanned five films, including Hooper, and The Cannonball Run. Needham and Reynolds also made sequels to Smokey and the Bandit, and The Cannonball Run, but while not nearly as good as the originals, who could blame them for going back to the well and trying again?

Smokey and the Bandit starts off in Georgia where Big Enos (Pat McCormick) & Little Enos (Paul Williams), two big shots who wear absurd matching blue cowboy suits and hats (that would surely get them lynched in many parts of the south these days) hire a legendary, smooth-talking drifter called “the Bandit” (Burt Reynolds) to drive to Texas, and collect a trailer full of bootlegged Coors beer for $80,000. Oh! And it must be done within twenty-eight hours…or fail and receive nothing. Bandit accepts the bet and recruits Cletus AKA The Snowman (Jerry Reed) and his Basset Hound partner to drive the truck while Bandit drives the ‘blocker’ car, so he can run interference and turn attention away from the Snowman’s truck and its illegal cargo of Coors beer (unavailable at the time in Georgia)… read more >