Smokey & the Bandit Will Change Your Life
March 26, 2018 9:53 AM   Subscribe

Jalopnik Movie Club is back. This week, we’re reviewing Smokey And The Bandit, a movie about beer and Pontiac. Jalopnik, of course, will talk more about the vehicles than the people, but that's okay because all the vehicles have people in them (except the smashed ones, vehicles, that is, not people). And the comments are good, too.
posted by MovableBookLady (53 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was definitely the best of the two-fisted redneck action comedies that had their heyday in the late 70s. (Sorry, Clint—yours were uniformly terrible, although Ruth Gordon and Clyde the orangutan put in some fine work.) I also loved the sequel as a child, but in retrospect it was a true stinker (except for Dom Deluise, who was always a delight.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:15 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I admittedly had to look up what serves as the foundation of this story, which is that Coors beer was not legally sold East of the Mississippi River until the mid-’80s because of how it was canned.

I remember when there was this mystique around Coors, like it was way better than, oh, Tuborg Gold
posted by thelonius at 10:20 AM on March 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


The people were pretty smashed too, given the MacGuffin was literally a truckload of Coors being smuggled from Colorado to Alabama. (Back in the day when Coors was a genuine cult item rather than mass-market commodity product. Mind, it didn't taste any better then than now, it was just one of those things, and microbrews didn't exist yet.)
posted by ardgedee at 10:21 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Some previous discussion on FanFare

I suppose it would have been different if I had been older and more worldly when I saw them, but I don't see SatB movies in the same ballpark as the Every Which Way series. SatB is like a more-mature Herbie movie, while EWWs are like a lighter Walking Tall (maybe more Bad Day at Black Rock).
posted by rhizome at 10:23 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oh man I love this movie so much. I saw it in the theater with my older brothers when I was eight. It was one of the first times I remember seeing people swear. When i was eight I think the coolest thing about the movie was that the car fit inside the truck.

So when my son was eight I said "ok, son, we're gonna watch this here movie." and sat him down to watch Smokey and the Bandit. When the first person said "shit" he looked at me and said "dad, he just said the S word!" Then, within a couple of minutes, they said it again. And again.

So he started counting but gave up at around #35, which was maybe twenty minutes into the film. But he loved the movie, and I enjoyed watching it again.

One of the things that is jarring for me in films of this era is all the smoking. It's like they can't show a character on screen unless they've got a cigarette. Even though I lived through that era when the air was constantly filled with smoke, it's still hard to see in a film. I'm glad we mostly got past that.

I loved Jerry Reed in that film. Him and his hound. Flash, I think his name was. When he drove over the bikes. So perfect.

I might have to watch it one of these nights.

And yeah, when they finally started selling Coors here and I got to taste it I wondered what all the fuss was about. It's watery shit beer.
posted by bondcliff at 10:26 AM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


And yeah, when they finally started selling Coors here and I got to taste it I wondered what all the fuss was about. It's watery shit beer.

Compared to the other beers of the era it was way better. We are kind of spoiled now with better beer, but in the 1970’s the choices for good beer weren’t at plentiful.
posted by jmauro at 10:33 AM on March 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


it's still watery shit beer.
posted by bondcliff at 10:34 AM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


My wife recently read Hal Needham's memoir, and it prompted more looking-up-from-the-book-and-telling-me-awesome-stuff than any other book she's read recently. One of the best things that she got out of it was that Needham wrote the script for Smokey because he, after doing stunts in a ton of violent movies, was tired of violence and wanted to make an exciting, action-packed movie with a lot of fun and no person-on-person violence. And i think he aced the fuck out of that goal.

Also, everyone praising jerry reed's presence both in the film and on the soundtrack is dead right. Put on some headphones some time and listen to the lead guitar work on "East Bound and Down." It's unreal.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 10:36 AM on March 26, 2018 [18 favorites]


I loves me some Jerry Reed.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:40 AM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Flash, I think his name was

Fred. As in, "Hold onna ya ass, Fred!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:41 AM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


The people were pretty smashed too

Because one of those people was Jackie Gleason. According to Burt Reynolds,
Jackie drank on set, sometimes before 11 AM. He’d look over his shoulder and say “Mal! Hamburger!” And that meant glass of bourbon. Whenever he said “Mal! Hamburger!” that meant go get me a tall glass of bourbon.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:49 AM on March 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


in the 1970’s the choices for good beer weren’t at plentiful.
Despite a distinctive, sort of nutty flavor, the beer wasn't all that light and occasionally had a rotten taste. B PLUS
-Robert Christgau, reviewing Coors in a 1975 issue of Oui.
posted by Iridic at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


Burt Reynolds was voted the favorite male actor in my high-school yearbook. Hard to remember now but he was a huge star in the '70s.
posted by octothorpe at 10:56 AM on March 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I was twelve in 1977 and I think I saw almost every movie released that year. Smokey and the Bandit was my favorite of the bunch and probably still is.
And yes, that includes that space movie.
posted by rocket88 at 11:26 AM on March 26, 2018


Back in those days Coors wasn’t pasteurized so it had to be shipped and stored with refrigeration. Hence the distribution limitation.

Any given Sunday of my childhood had this or The Jerk showing on TBS. Both were a fantastic antidote for church.
posted by hwyengr at 11:29 AM on March 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


I can still hear the song in my head....

♬ East bound and down, loaded up and truckin',
We're gonna do what they say can't be done.
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run. ♬
posted by ShakeyJake at 12:02 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Robert Christgau, reviewing Coors in a 1975 issue of Oui.

This is the most delightfully 70s phrase I've read since that collection of magazine ads for cocaine paraphernalia.

(rating Anchor Steam below Coors is nuts, though)
posted by atoxyl at 12:38 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


After having only had Coors Light, I tried original Coors last summer and it was... actually pretty decent! It's not amazing or anything but it's definitely head and shoulders over the other American macrobrews I've had.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:45 PM on March 26, 2018


...given the MacGuffin was literally a truckload of Coors being smuggled from Colorado to Alabama.

Texarkana, TX to Atlanta, GA.

Anyway...Given the national brands of US beer at the time, Coors really was markedly better than most. Of course, if you could get your hands on some Anchor Steam, then Coors also came up as pisswater.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:48 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wasn't smuggling Coors how Jonny Depp's character in Blow got in to the drug biz?

Even to this day, I think Coors is the best of the big time mass market American lagers. Although with all the craft brewery buyouts, technically breweries Ballast Point and Golden Road fit in their as well so who knows what the actual category is these days.
posted by sideshow at 1:04 PM on March 26, 2018


Is that what this movie was about? I always thought it was one of what seemed like a bunch of "truckers on CB radios" movies I thought were around in the 70s. ...Maybe I'm the only one who believes such a genre exists.

And the cache afforded to Coors makes The Kid in The Stand suddenly make more sense.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:09 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I always thought it was one of what seemed like a bunch of "truckers on CB radios"

It is very much also that.
posted by bondcliff at 1:17 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I can still hear the song in my head....

It's in heavy rotation on my mental playlist...
posted by mikelieman at 1:34 PM on March 26, 2018


...given the MacGuffin was literally a truckload of Coors being smuggled from Colorado to Alabama.

Texarkana, TX to Atlanta, GA.


♬The boys are thirsty in Atlanta
and there's beer in Texarcana
And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes.♬
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:35 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


(Twangy strings) dnyur dnyur dnyur...


I was always really amused by how the lyrics change after they pick up the beer and turn around, going from WEST bound and down to EAST bound and down...

The mister and I both had fathers who were, for however long a time, truckers in the 70's. SATB is a Father's Day ritual in my house.

(Fred is my favorite.)
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 2:32 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I always thought it was one of what seemed like a bunch of "truckers on CB radios" movies I thought were around in the 70s. ...Maybe I'm the only one who believes such a genre exists.

There definitely was a trucker genre, Smokey and the Bandit was the high point. Trucker exploitation films became a drive-in staple in the mid-late 70s. "Convoy" (directed by, of all people, Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson!), "White Line Fever," "Truck Stop Women," "High Ballin'," "Breaker! Breaker!" (Chuck Norris' first starring vehicle)," come to mind, to name just a few. There were plenty more.

TV tried to ride the trucker craze with "Movin' On" and "BJ and the Bear." Jerry Reed also had his own attempt at trucker TV stardom, "Concrete Cowboys" (the pilot episode co-starred Tom Selleck using a ridiculous southern accent.).
posted by bawanaal at 2:37 PM on March 26, 2018 [12 favorites]


I always thought it was one of what seemed like a bunch of "truckers on CB radios"

It is very much also that.


It basically gave the opportunity for them to riff/turn lines into jokes since CBs are one-way communication.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:41 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yes, and the second-hand price of Pace CB-166 CB radios has been astronomic ever since. Unlike Cannonball Run, which just used some icky-arse piece of car audio kit and pretended it was a CB.
posted by Devonian at 2:41 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Smokey and the Bandit was the high point.

Wikipedia has a list of seventy-five trucker films.

Hoffa seems like a reach. Patrick Swayze's Black Dog is not his best work.
posted by box at 3:10 PM on March 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


It's stupid, fun and mostly harmless. It's also fun to see anything where Paul Williams shows up, he's a Clint Howard level that guy.
posted by Ferreous at 3:45 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


This made my day.

I recently forced my son to watch a handful of classic car chase films - Vanishing Point, Bullitt, Mad Max, Gone in 60 Seconds ( original), The Blues Brothers.... and we ended it with Smokey and the Bandit. By far, this one was his favorite, and for good reason. It's a kick-ass, manly movie with beer, women, trucks and awesome cars, with bonus jokes and a seriously bad ass soundtrack.

Best film ever. Well, maybe not. But best film ever while you are watching it. It's goofy, fun, awesome. Nuff said.
posted by bradth27 at 4:31 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just watched a few clips from TFA and remembered how fun this movie was. Field and Reynolds had great chemistry and the tone was just right.
posted by octothorpe at 5:52 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


. "Convoy" (directed by, of all people, Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson!),

Peckinpah's bar-fight scene in Convoy is transcendental.
posted by mikelieman at 6:01 PM on March 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Peckinpah was in pretty bad shape at that point and was lucky to get any work. He didn't get another job for four years after that.
posted by octothorpe at 6:09 PM on March 26, 2018


I love this movie, can't not watch it when I happen across it channel surfing.

"You can think about it, but don't do it."
posted by Mitheral at 10:31 PM on March 26, 2018


I caught SatB on TV just this past year and was pleased at how well it held up from my first viewing at 13. Hit me right in my soft spot for basset hounds and Trans-Ams.

From the comments: My hormones were raging and Sally Field was hot (not Heather Locklear flashy hot, but girl next store conceivably obtainable hot). "Girl next store." I can't even.
posted by bryon at 10:50 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Re: quality of Coors. The MacGuffin could have been anything that couldn't be bought locally, a physical proof of work. And as a bonus it was illegal to transport so heavy consequences for the driver if caught that people like the Eno's get off on.
posted by Mitheral at 10:59 PM on March 26, 2018


And on a thread inspired rewatch I noticed something I hadn't seen before: After Bandit picks up Frog she asks "Are we really going 110?" to which Bandit replies in the affirmative. But they aren't really even in character (at least as an American would see it in '77). The dialog is accompanied by a zoom in on the dash where we see the the Firebird's imperial/metric speedometer plainly showing the car is going 110 km/h or 70ish MPH. The car's speedometer doesn't even go up to 110MPH. I kind of wonder if I've previously just seen the nuber as Canadian and not noticed the discrepancy.

Also the car has obviously just been started for the shot; the temperature guage is barely off the peg.
posted by Mitheral at 11:31 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


The MacGuffin could have been anything that couldn't be bought locally, a physical proof of work

I don't know.....beer is clearly more thematic than, say, bootlegged curtain rods
posted by thelonius at 1:11 AM on March 27, 2018


Yeah, well, the CB/PA switch on the CB radio is clearly in the PA position, where the radio bit's actually turned off and the set's configured as a PA amplifier. None of the radio conversations between the Bandit and Snowman could have worked. So I think we can agree that we're not running at Kubrickian levels of perfectionism viz continuity and realism here - shockingly slack, in fact, and no doubt this contributed heavily to the poor showing at the Academy awards that year.

One of my favourite pipe dreams is - what if Kubrick had made Convoy? Or Smokey and the Bandit?

(I am available for consultancy and prop work on all matters concerning radio technology and use at script level, set design, principle photography and editing. In fact, try stopping me. I'm also an excellent companion for viewing any movie that uses radio as a plot device, where my in-depth sector knowledge, painstaking analysis and attention to detail has long been celebrated by my peers, who show their appreciation by beating me repeatedly with any removable object within reach.)

10-10, we down, we gone, breaker-break.
posted by Devonian at 5:08 AM on March 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


what if Kubrick had made Convoy? Or Smokey and the Bandit?

After the disappointing sales for Werner Herzog's "The Cannonball Run", they never would have greenlit these projects
posted by thelonius at 5:46 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


The MacGuffin could have been anything that couldn't be bought locally, a physical proof of work

I always felt they should have made the sequel about driving to Boston to get clam chowder.
posted by bondcliff at 6:45 AM on March 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm also an excellent companion for viewing any movie that uses radio as a plot device, where my in-depth sector knowledge, painstaking analysis and attention to detail has long been celebrated by my peers, who show their appreciation by beating me repeatedly with any removable object within reach.

What's your technical readout of Gi Joe and Cobra in their cartoons talking to one another via the radio when driving or flying?
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:24 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I actually had to explain to my kid what "10-4" meant, and the whole 70s CB radio thing, so perhaps it is time to watch this with him, even though I would never have put it in my fave movies as a kid.

Watching comedies from this era with my kid is always a fraught thing for me, though, because the sexism/racism/etc. is just so gross. Much like the constant smoking mentioned upthread, it was totally normal then but really sticks out now.
posted by emjaybee at 7:32 AM on March 27, 2018


Oh, I nearly forgot - For many people, Sally Field was known strictly for "Gidget" and "The Flying Nun" (squeaky-clean wholesome family TV fare), so to see her playing this character in SATB was kinda stunning.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:14 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I wouldn't go quite that far, she did full-backal nudity in "Stay Hungry" (FanFare) a year or two before, and "Sybil" was also from 1976, which IIRC was her most surprising-slash-breakout role from these years.
posted by rhizome at 10:15 AM on March 27, 2018


I recently watched SATB with my 5 year old and she loved it. Note that she is a tough audience, e.g. Back To The Future was rejected as "boring" before any time travel even happened, and Raiders of the Lost Ark was dumped during the first college professor scene. Oh my god the SATB sequel is terrible though. Worse than Grease 2.
posted by w0mbat at 11:13 AM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Worse than "Stayin' Alive"?
posted by thelonius at 11:54 AM on March 27, 2018


Probably not worse than Cannonball Run II.
posted by box at 12:46 PM on March 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


What's your technical readout of Gi Joe and Cobra in their cartoons talking to one another via the radio when driving or flying?

I'm not aware of that particular oeuvre - if it did play in the UK, I missed it - but if you can point me at an online clip...
posted by Devonian at 4:15 PM on March 27, 2018


I also loved the sequel as a child, but in retrospect it was a true stinker

You've not seen Part 3 then have ya?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:58 PM on March 27, 2018


Is that the one without Burt Reynolds? I think I watched it once, but I've pretty much blocked every detail about it out of my mind.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:06 AM on March 28, 2018


he made some sort of cameo. It was a bad bad bad sequel.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 11:39 AM on March 28, 2018


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