When film crew and cast have great fun on the set, the result on the screen usually doesn’t bring much fun to the audience. One of the most successful exceptions to this rule is Smokey and the Bandit, the 1977 action comedy directed by Hal Needham.
The protagonist, played by Burt Reynolds, is Bo “the Bandit” Darville, a professional truck driver whose skills at delivering all kinds of cargo in record time and without interference from law enforcement have made him legendary. As such, he is approached by two eccentric businessmen in Texarkana, Texas, and asked to deliver a shipment of unlicensed Coors beer to Atlanta, Georgia, in less than 28 hours; in exchange he would receive 80,000 US$. The Bandit agrees and recruits his friend Cledus “the Snowman” Snow (played by Jerry Reed) to actually drive the truck while he drives as a “blocker” and deliberately causes traffic violations in order to distract the police from his friend. During the trip he picks up Carrie “Frog” (played by Sally Field), a beautiful dancer who has just left the groom Junior Justice (played by Mike Henry) at the altar. This, however, complicates the endeavour because Junior’s father happens to be Buford T. Justice (played by Jackie Gleason), a county sheriff who is determined to bring Frog back and, with determination and little concern for jurisdiction, pursues the Bandit across county and state lines.
Before this film, Hal Needham was known exclusively as a stuntman, and his directorial debut was unsurprisingly devised as a low-budget and unambitious effort, with production actually starting without a finished script. It was Needham’s good fortune that his good friend Burt Lancaster, a Hollywood superstar at the zenith of his career, was interested in the project. He brought a big studio and a relatively big budget (mostly spent on cars being wrecked) into the film. The script, however, remained largely improvisational, with most of the lines ad-libbed, and the simple plot was just an excuse for one long chase and a series of stunts. Lancaster, quite comfortable with his charismatic screen image, was very relaxed on the set, and this resulted in one of the most iconic roles of his career. Sally Field was also comfortable in the potentially thankless role of his love interest and had great chemistry with Reynolds, which unsurprisingly coincided with the two of them becoming a real-life couple on the set. A huge contrast, on the other hand, was provided by comedian Jackie Gleason in the hysterical role of the bumbling lawman, which played right into the anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment sentiments of the audience. Another important element of the film was provided by Reynolds’ co-star, country singer and songwriter Jerry Reed, whose catchy theme song “Eastbound and Down” became a big hit. But the most memorable element of Smokey and the Bandit was making CB radios – extensively used by the protagonists and various other characters on the road – popular, by combining that kind of technology with anti-authoritarian attitudes. Critics, predictably, didn’t like the film, but the audience disagreed, making Smokey and the Bandit the most popular film of the year after Star Wars. Reynolds later explained such success with “the film never pretending to be something it wasn’t”. This spontaneity and authenticity, combined with talented people having fun, is seldom seen these days, and unsurprisingly, films that provide entertainment in the way that Smokey and the Bandit does are rare.
RATING: 7/10 (++)
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