Cinema Sunday: Smokey and the Bandit

Today's Cinema Sunday takes us back to the halcyon days of 1977 where denim was a ubiquitous fashion staple and Burt Reynolds was the king of the movies. 

Today the spotlight falls on Smokey and the Bandit.  

Andrea and I watched this movie a couple of months ago on a whim and pretty much enjoyed ourselves. 

All you need to know is there's people driving real fast from Texas to Georgia in a race against time and the long arm of the law. The why's and wherefores' aren't really that important: something to do with winning a bet to illegally transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta within 28 hours, if you must know. 

What is important is the chase. 

The Bandit (Burt Reynolds) drives a sleek black Pontiac Trans Am to distract law enforcement and keep the attention off the Snowman (Jerry Reed) who is driving the truck carrying the beer.  

The Bandit has an unexpected passenger, the winsome runaway bride named Carrie (Sally Field) who is being pursued by the father of the jilted groom, the irascible Texas county sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason).

And we're off to the races.  

Mostly we're here for some really fast and awfully furious driving by the Bandit, the sexy and flirtatious banter between Carrie and the Bandit and watching Buford T. Justice grumble, grouse, bitch and complain every damn second that black Trans Am eludes him as his own car suffers a series of increasingly damaging collisions. 

By the end of the movie, Buford T. Justice's car is barely a chassis and a steering wheel column while the Bandit continues to make a damn fool of him over ever single mile of interstate and country back road. 

Other cops join in to stop Bandit and Snowman only to be stymied by a vast and varied network of cheering citizens connected by CB radio eager to do what they can to help keep Bandit and Snowman out of the grasp of Buford T. Justice and any other lawmen who are on his tail. 

Now I could tell you that Bandit stays ahead of the law and Snowman gets the beer to Atlanta just in the nick of time and Buford T. Justice is left a blustering blubbering buffoon and no, none of that's a spoiler for the end because really, who cares? If any movie embodies the spirit of "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey", well, it's Smokey and the Bandit. 

No less a cinematic authority than director Alfred Hitchcock stated that Smokey and the Bandit was one of his favorite movies. And indeed Smokey and the Bandit has a Hichcockian flair with the whole getting to beer to Atlanta plot being little more than a McGuffin.

"McGuffin" is the word Alfred Hitchcock used to describe a plot device that sets the bigger story in motion, the adventure, the romance, the danger.  Hitchcock's view was the McGuffin is not really that big of a deal. It's what the characters do and how they react to their circumstances that really drives a movie and not so much why they are doing what they do.

In Smokey and the Bandit, 400 cases of Coors beer in the back of Snowman's truck is a McGuffin. 

Speaking of which, why was smuggling Coors beer across state lines such a big deal in 1977?

Time for a Cinema Sunday History Lesson!

In 1977, Coors was unavailable for sale east of Oklahoma. Its lack of additives and preservatives meant that Coors could spoil in one week without refrigeration, explaining the film's 28-hour deadline. Beer lovers on the east coast would go to incredible lengths to get their hands on Coors.  For example, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a steady supply airlifted by the Air Force to Washington DC.  

Coors is still brewed just outside Denver Colorado. It is now sold in all states as Coors ships it in refrigerated train cars and bottled locally and sold in different parts of the country including the eastern US states.

This has been your Cinema Sunday History Lesson!

Smokey and the Bandit is a fast pace romp, a most pleasant diversion for a couple of hours. 

Warning: Smokey and the Bandit was followed by 2 sequels and must not be watched. I personally haven't watched them and I do not intend to. I've read the summaries and they ain't pretty. The 2nd movie is a misbegotten re-hash of the first movie (inexplicably, Carrie is on the run from another wedding to Buford T. Justice's useless son. Really?) and Burt Reynolds is on the record as immensely regretting being any part of. And the 3rd film was designed as starring vehicle for Jackie Gleason returning as Buford T. Justice and an assortment of other characters performed by Gleason. 

But the first is still best and Smokey and the Bandit  holds up pretty damn well.   

Let's wrap today's post with a clip of Jerry Reed's "Eastbound and Down" from Smokey and the Bandit.