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Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 movie starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams, and Mike Henry. It inspired several other trucking films, including two sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II (originally known as Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again in the U.K.), and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. There were also a series of 1994 television movies (Bandit Goes Country, Bandit Bandit, Beauty and the Bandit and Bandit's Silver Angel) from original director/writer Hal Needham loosely based on the earlier version, with Emmy-winning actor Brian Bloom now playing Bandit . The three original movies introduced two generations of the Pontiac Trans Am. The film was the second highest grossing film of 1977, beaten only by .
The movie was filmed primarily in Georgia in the cities of McDonough and Jonesboro.
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Quotations
Let me have a diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, and make it fast, I'm in a god-damn hurry!
This is sheriff Buford T. Justice. I'm in pursuit of a black Trans Am. He's all mine so stay outta the way.
You sumbitch! (Frequently directed at the Bandit)
You sumbitch! You did that on purpose! You're going away 'till you're gray! I got the evidence!
after kicking one of the car thieves in the rear That's an attention-getter.
I'm gonna barbecue yo' ass in molasses!
Encyclopedia
Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 movie starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams, and Mike Henry. It inspired several other trucking films, including two sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II (originally known as Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again in the U.K.), and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. There were also a series of 1994 television movies (Bandit Goes Country, Bandit Bandit, Beauty and the Bandit and Bandit's Silver Angel) from original director/writer Hal Needham loosely based on the earlier version, with Emmy-winning actor Brian Bloom now playing Bandit . The three original movies introduced two generations of the Pontiac Trans Am. The film was the second highest grossing film of 1977, beaten only by .
The movie was filmed primarily in Georgia in the cities of McDonough and Jonesboro. The scenes in Texarkana were filmed in Jonesboro and the surrounding area, and many of the chase scenes were filmed in the surrounding areas and in McDonough. The scene at the race track was filmed at Lakewood Speedway at the old Lakewood Fairgrounds on the south side of Atlanta. The roller coaster seen in the movie was the Greyhound. It had not been used for some time and was repainted for the first Smokey and the Bandit film. It was destroyed in the second film and a flash back scene used in the third.
The film made use of five modified 1977 Pontiac Trans Ams that were each built according to the required stuntwork. All were damaged during the rigors of filming the stunts. The particular car used to jump over the river towards the middle of the movie was reportedly totaled doing the stunt.
Plot As the movie begins, rich Texan Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Paul Williams), are trying to find a truck driver willing to haul Coors beer to Georgia for their refreshment. Unfortunately, due to state liquor regulations of the time, shipping Coors east of Texas is considered bootlegging, and the truck drivers who had taken the bet previously had been discovered and arrested. At a local truck rodeo, the Texans locate legendary truck driver Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) and offer him US$80,000 (US$270,000 in 2007 dollars) to haul 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas to the "Southern Classic" stock car race in Georgia - in 28 hours. Bandit accepts the bet and recruits fellow trucker Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) to drive the truck (Snow brings along his dog, a Basset Hound named "Fred", for company). Bandit purchases a black Pontiac Trans Am, which he will drive himself as a "blocker" car to deflect attention away from the truck and its cargo.
The duo reach Texas ahead of schedule, load their truck with Coors, and immediately head back towards Georgia. Shortly thereafter, Bandit picks up professional dancer and apparent runaway bride Carrie (Sally Field), whom he nicknames "Frog" because "you're always hopping around". However, by picking up Carrie, Bo becomes the target of Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason), whose handsome yet very simple-minded son Junior (Henry) was to have been Carrie's groom.
The remainder of the film is essentially one big high-speed chase, as Bandit and Frog attract continuous attention from local and state police while Snowman barrels eastward with the Coors beer. Despite leaving his home jurisdiction, Sheriff Justice and his son continue to pursue Bandit, even as various mishaps cause their squad car to disintegrate around them. Bandit and Snowman are greatly assisted by a number of colorful characters met along the way, many of whom they contact through their CB radios; these acquaintances allow them to escape police pursuit on numerous occasions. Interestingly, neither Justice nor any of the other police officers are ever aware of Snowman's illegal cargo of Coors.
Despite near-constant police pursuit and several roadblocks, Bandit, Snowman, and Frog arrive at the Southern Classic with a full trailer of Coors and ten minutes to spare, underscored by "Marching Through Georgia" as their vehicles roar into the grounds. Instead of taking their payoff, they accept the Texans' new offer to drive to Boston and bring back clam chowder in 18 hours, double or nothing. As they are leaving for Boston in one of Big Enos' Cadillacs (leaving him an even dozen), they see Justice's badly damaged car on the roadside. Bandit calls Justice over the radio and describes himself as Big Enos in order to put him on a false lead, but then decides that Justice is "too good a man" and tells him "look over your left shoulder." As Bandit and his friends drive off, Justice shouts defiantly that he isn't finished yet and resumes his pursuit while his son runs behind him, begging his father not to leave him behind.
Production Director Hal Needham originally planned the film as a low budget B movie, with Jerry Reed as the Bandit. It wasn't until Needham's old friend Burt Reynolds read the script and said he'd do it that the movie was aimed at a more mainstream release, with Reed now playing Bandit's friend Snowman. (Reed would eventually play the Bandit in Smokey and the Bandit Part III).
"Buford T. Justice" was the name of a real Florida Highway Patrolman known to Burt Reynolds' father, who himself was once Chief of Police of Riviera Beach, Florida. His father was also the inspiration for the word "sumbitch" used in the movie, a phrase he reportedly uttered quite often, according to Reynolds.
Jackie Gleason was given quite free rein over ad-libbing dialogue and making suggestions. In particular, the cafe scene with himself and Burt Reynolds was not in the original story, it was Gleason's idea.
Reportedly, director Hal Needham had great difficulty in getting any studios or producers to take his project seriously (he was better known in the film industry as a stuntman). He managed to get studio attention after his friend, Burt Reynolds, agreed to star in the film.
The movie made use of five black Trans Ams, and two Pontiac LeMans cars, all donated by Pontiac. All five cars were more or less destroyed by the end of shooting, with only one model of each car barely running by then, mostly due to cannibalizing the other three cars. Year One, an aftermarket auto parts supplier has an original 1977 movie Trans Am signed by Burt Reynolds. Plans are in development to make an updated version of the Bandit Trans Am. The idea is how would Burt order his Trans Am with today's technology.
The film also made use of three Kenworth W900A short-frame semi trucks which Jerry Reed's character "Snowman" can be seen driving, each equipped with 38" sleepers. Two units were 1974 models, as evidenced by standard silver Kenworth emblems on the truck grille, and one unit was a 1973 model, as evidenced by the gold-painted Kenworth emblem on the truck's grille signifying Kenworth's 50 years in business. The paint code for each truck was coffee brown with gold trim, and the 48-foot mural trailer used was manufactured by Hobbs Trailers in Texas with a Thermo King Refrigeration unit.
Soundtrack The theme music "Eastbound and Down" is sung by Jerry Reed (who plays Snowman). It became his signature song and is found on multiple albums, including Country Legends and his new live album Jerry Reed: Live Still.
Reaction Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film a good rating (3 stars out of a possible 4) and characterized the film this way in his Movie Guide annual: "About as subtle as The Three Stooges, but a classic compared to the sequels and countless rip-offs which followed."
Television censorship and alternate versions - When Smokey and the Bandit first aired on American network television in the early 1980s, censors were faced with the challenge of toning down the raw language of the original film. For this purpose, they overdubbed dialogue deemed offensive, which was (and remains, to an extent) common practice. The most noted change made for network broadcast was the replacing of Buford's often-spoken phrase "Sumbitch" (a contraction of "Son of a Bitch"; usually in reference to the Bandit) with the nonsense phrase "Scum Bum". This phrase achieved a level of popularity with children, and the 2007 Hot Wheels release of the 1970 Firebird Trans Am has "Scum Bum" emblazoned on its tail. The TV prints of the first two Bandit films are still shown regularly on television, although a few TV stations aired the unedited version in recent years as some of the phraseology (i.e. "(son of a) bitch", "ass", etc.) became more acceptable on TV.
- The original actors mostly redubbed their own lines for the television version except for Jackie Gleason. Actor Henry Corden, who voiced Fred Flintstone after original performer Alan Reed died, was used to replace a considerable amount of Sheriff Justice's dialogue. This creates an interesting series of connections, as The Flintstones was very much based upon the 1950s sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason, with Fred Flintstone being based upon Gleason's character, Ralph Kramden.
- In the United Kingdom, the heavily dubbed version was shown for a number of years, particularly by the BBC. However, in more recent years, the original version has been shown, usually with the stronger language edited out (often quite awkwardly).
- The theatrical release of the movie itself had a few lines deleted, including a creative edit in which Sheriff Justice tells a sheriff's deputy to "fuck off." His expletive is obscured when a passing big rig sounds its horn (although it is quite probable that this was done for comedic effect as much as actual censorship).
- In 2005, a DVD re-release was issued of Smokey and the Bandit featuring a digitally-remastered audio track with 5.1 Dolby-compatible surround sound. It should be noted however that many of the film's original sounds were replaced. For instance, the diesel engine start and run up sequence in the opening sequence of the film was completely dubbed over with a totally new sound. A few other examples of "sound effect replacement" occur when Bandit takes off after managing to get a reluctant Cletus involved in the bet, and after he comes to a screeching halt on a roadway moments before picking up Carrie. (Note: earlier DVD releases of the film have the original soundtrack intact.)
- A brief scene in which Sally Field crawls from the front to back seat of Bandit's Trans Am has been cut from at least one TV version of the film. In the scene, Field is wearing very tight jeans which accent her buttocks.
Trivia- The selection of Coors as the contraband of choice centered on the limited distribution of that brand across the country in the 1970s. The resulting inability to legally purchase Coors beer in many states resulted in a minor bootlegging fad, and many cross-country vacationers travelling by car were asked by friends and neighbors to bring back six-packs and cases of the beverage. The fad died out in the early 1980s when state and local issues that had previously prevented Coors distributorships from opening in and/or shipping to those regions were loosened and/or repealed.
- After the first movie came out in 1977, sales of the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am (in particular, those with the black and gold color scheme featured in the film) skyrocketed over 100% from 1976 sales levels due to the movie's popularity. Pontiac readily acknowledges the power of the film. Although Pontiac never produced a "Bandit Edition," it did release several Special Edition cars featuring the Black and Gold paint scheme. These cars trace their origins back to the 1974 Chicago Auto Show where a special one-off Black and Gold Trans Am was featured. In 1981, a company called "Trans Am Specialties" of Cherry Hill NJ, paid Universal Studios for the rights to use the Bandit name. Trans Am Specialties converted a limited run of black Trans Ams to "Bandit" Trans Ams. In the late 1980s, a company named "Choo Choo Customs" created a "Bandit II" package for the Firebird. This was a cosmetic package for the Third Generation Firebirds and they were NOT Trans Ams.
- Several people who would later star in the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard (which is very much in the same vein as Smokey and the Bandit) had cameos in this movie. Sonny Shroyer (who played Deputy Enos Strate in the The Dukes of Hazzard) has several lines of dialogue as a Georgia State Trooper on a motorcycle who pulls over Jerry Reed. Ben Jones who played Cooter is seen very early on in the movie: when Big Enos asks where he might find the Bandit, Jones' only line is, "I ain't seen 'im." John Schneider (who played Bo Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard) also had a cameo in a crowd scene towards the end of the movie, where he can be seen wearing a large cowboy hat. Incidentally, Burt Reynolds would go on to star in the film version of The Dukes of Hazzard as Boss Hogg.
- Sheriff Justice's line "Let me have a Diablo sandwich, a Dr Pepper, and make it fast, I'm in a goddamn hurry." has inspired the name of a music group, the Diablo Sandwich Band , a hot sandwich maker and a recipe .
- Reynolds breaks the fourth wall in the movie as The Bandit & The Snowman pass through Mississippi, something he also does in the sequel, Smokey and the Bandit II. In the original movie, Bandit outruns a Mississippi Highway Patrol cruiser and hides behind a bank. As the police unit races past, Bandit looks straight at the camera and grins at the viewer.
- When the camera looks at the speedometer at 20:09 into the movie, it shows 70 mph/110 km/h and Sally Field's character looks and yells "are we really going 110, we're going 110".
- The tractor-trailer that Jerry Reed's character drives in the movie is a period Kenworth W900 with a Hobbs van trailer.
- In a recent pre-race interview where he was asked about his favorite comedy movie, NASCAR Driver Tony Stewart said it was Smokey and the Bandit.
See also The Bandit Run
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