It may be hard to remember now, but there was a time when Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in Hollywood. Throughout the seventies and early eighties, Reynolds sold millions of tickets using mostly his easy grin and patented good ol’boy charm. And no Reynolds movie made more money than 1977’s bootlegging comedy Smokey and the Bandit. Yet, as Reynolds aficionado Larry Aydlette said in his recent Burt Reynolds blogathon, Smokey has lost a lot of its luster today. Many critics look upon it with scorn, and more importantly the film has taken on the air of a movie that’s more often remembered than revisited. So where did the love go?
What made Smokey a hit? The easy answer is Reynolds, but there was more to the film’s popularity than Burt. The seventies saw a rise in movies marketed to Southern audiences- a rise that helped to contribute to Reynolds’ box-office success- and Smokey and the Bandit came along at just the right time to benefit from this movement. But Smokey was a big hit all over the country, not just down South. Audiences loved the character of Bandit, the legendary outlaw truck driver who was smooth and confident but also life-sized. The movie also benefited from the era’s CB radio craze, and contributed more than a few colorful expressions to the vernacular. Smokey and the Bandit had something for everyone to enjoy- comedy, vehicular mayhem, anti-authority sentiments, a l
ittle romance, Bandit’s iconic Pontiac Trans Am- and as such it reached a broad base of moviegoers who made Smokey the second-biggest hit of 1977 (after Star Wars) and kept the film in some theatres for years on end.
What happened? Reynolds may have been the era’s biggest draw, but his biggest downfall has always been an unfortunate inability to discern quality from junk. While Reynolds occasionally leveraged his Smokey popularity to take on more adventurous projects (1979’s Starting Over, 1981’s Reynolds-directed Sharky’s Machine), more typical were the rash of Smokey sequels and ripoffs designed to piggyback on the original film’s success. So began a string of Bandit-like cocky showoff roles for Burt, most of which are indistinguishable today. By the mid-eighties after Burt had made three Smokeys, two Cannonball Runs, and many other movies in this vein, audiences decided they’d been to this well too often, and Reynolds’ popularity went into free-fall.
Does Smokey and the Bandit still work? That’s a big 10-4 there, good buddy. The plot is simplicity itself- Bandit (Reynolds) and best pal Snowman (regular Reynolds costar Jerry Reed) take a bet that they can make a round trip from Atlanta to Texarkana, Texas and back in 28 hours, bringing back 400 cases of (then-illegal in Georgia) Coors beer for Big Enos and Little Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick and Paul Williams). But after they’ve picked up the beer and started heading eastbound and down towards home, Bandit picks up a runaway bride who he christens Frog (Sally Field), and in doing so runs afoul of Texas Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), the father of Frog’s betrothed.
OK, so Smokey and the Bandit will never be mistaken for great art- as far as onscreen cross-country drives go, it’s no
Two Lane Blacktop. But in the intervening three decades, the movie has lost almost none of its charm. Much of the film feels like a live-action Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon, with Bandit smooth-talking his way out of scrapes while the rootin’ tootin’ Sheriff Justice fulminates about his ever-slippery quarry. However, the film is made with real style and wit, and even if the film hits every note we expect it to- there’s even a short romantic interlude where Bandit and Frog take time out from the drive to do a little offscreen he-in’ and she-in’- it’s pretty darn irresistible.
The key to the film rests in the performances, which for the genre are first-rate. At the center of the film is Reynolds, who gives the best star turn of his career. It’s tempting to say that Reynolds was only playing himself, but to do so would be to underestimate the comic verve and star presence he brought to the film. Whether he’s trying quips over the squawk box with Snowman or pissing off Justice, Reynolds makes it all look easy.
For her part, Field makes a funny and surprisingly romantic counterpart for Reynolds- a talky, insecure, very seventies leading lady who’s a far cry from the damsels in distress and one-dimensional sex symbols that populate most movies of this sort. In addition, she and Reynolds have a palpable chemistry (which later translated into an offscreen romance between the two), and it’s this comfort level between the two that really sells their scenes together, most of which consist primarily of two people talking in a car. And Jackie Gleason remains, as ever, a treasure, giving a blustery performance that’s as agreeably salty as a bag of pretzels. Sheriff Justice may be a sumbitch with a badge, but darn if Gleason doesn’t make the guy lovable.
Like its star, Smokey and the Bandit is an unassuming movie with no ambitions except to show audiences a good time. It’s
what you might call cinematic comfort food- there’s nothing new or bold about it, but it’s highly satisfying all the same. Thirty years down the line, Smokey also evokes a bygone era in movies, both in terms of its pre-CGI car chases (courtesy of stunt driver turned director Needham) and its pre-irony iconography. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a big-screen hero sporting a cowboy hat without so much as a wink to the audience, but it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of the film, and of Burt Reynolds’ performance, that Bandit can still pull it off with ease. And of course, that Trans Am is as awesome today as it ever was.