Movie review: ‘Smokey and the Bandit’

FloridaGator80
A promotional still photo from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”

“Smokey and the Bandit” is arguably the signature action comedy of the 1970s and for decades in reruns kept Burt Reynolds alive as his career ebbed and flowed. The film was so influential with fans that General Motors could tell by the spikes in Pontiac Firebird Trans Am sales when “Smokey and the Bandit” was on TV for a rerun (remember, those were the days before streaming video, DVD kiosks and 500 cable/dish channels). Hey, “Smokey and the Bandit” was even nominated for an Oscar – best film editing and it didn’t win. Still, “Smokey and the Bandit” is not Burt’s best Burt-being-Burt film (I’ll save that designation for “Hooper” – click here to read my review), but he is and always will be the “Bandit.” And, remember, it’s always tough to beat “iconic” in film.

‘Smokey and the Bandit’
(1977; 96 minutes; rated PG; directed by Hal Needham and starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field and Jackie Gleason)

BURT’S THE ‘BANDIT,’ BUT DON’T FORGET ‘THE GREAT ONE’

(NOTE: I expanded and reorganized this review with some additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on July 22, 2017. I again expanded the review on Nov. 26, 2019. I again expanded the review on Jan. 17, 2021. I again expanded the review on Nov. 26, 2025.)

You can’t say “Smokey and the Bandit” without saying “Burt Reynolds.” As that goes, I guess you also can’t say “Burt Reynolds” without saying “the Bandit.”

“Bandit” and “Burt” are cinematic synonyms. Yet, I remember most being blown away with the films showcase of comedy by the legendary Jackie Gleason. At the time of the film, he was a literally huge entertainment personality in the twilight of his career when he signed on for this one. The “Great One” did a great job and it remains totally unappreciated for it by critics pretty much beyond myself.

Gleason, who will always be remembered for TV’s “The Honeymooners,” would only cash checks and look foolish with the “Smokey and the Bandit” sequels, but in the original he showed the rest of the cast the right way to do both verbal and physical comedy. Even his nonchalant way of holding a cigarette, which is more suited to his Miami Beach heydays and not the tough rural sheriff he plays here, easily brings a grin all by itself.

With his top-shelf TV career and an exceptional dramatic turn in the film “The Hustler” and subsequent Oscar nomination for it, Gleason came through with flying colors as the habitually frustrated and congenitally profane “Sheriff Buford T. Justice” in “Smokey and the Bandit.” He even smoothly handles his character’s only slightly disguised racism. After meeting a black sheriff after just talking on the CB, he notes, “You sounded a lot taller on the radio.”

By the way, everyone in the film is known by their “handle” – that is the nickname that CB radio users assumed or were given as their identity on the air. So, in the spirit of the film, I’m calling several actors by their first names.

As to the plot, Burt as “Bo ‘Bandit’ Darville” (the “Bandit’s” real name is a great trivia question) and his sidekick, country singer Jerry Reed as “Cledus ‘Snowman’ Snow,” accept a bet to get to Texas from Georgia and haul 400 cases of Coors beer back in 28 hours. Along the way, they hook up with Sally Field, who plays “Carrie” the “Frog” (she doesn’t get a last name here) and get chased by Gleason and his son. Mike Henry plays “Junior.” He’s Gleason’s dim-witted, dense but good-natured son, who is the main target of the sheriff’s verbal abuse.

The rest of the plot and the ending are pretty much predictable, so I won’t go into them here. If you haven’t watched the movie, I can only ask, “Why not?”

Here’s a look at some of the primary cast:

  • An Oscar nominee (sadly, not for this one), Reynolds is the “Bandit,” a fast-driving, fast-talking good ol’ Southern boy. He is at his fluid best here, moving smoothly from one scene to the next and never losing his cool or his charm. It is the trademark Reynolds role (or his “Bandit” persona, if you will) and it has his high-pitched laugh, aw-shucks attitude and he’s just the kind of guy that everyone would enjoy as the life of any party. Reynolds career would fade by the end of 1980s after stinkers such as “Stroker Ace” with to-be-girlfriend Loni Anderson (he turned down “Terms of Endearment” because of his contract to play “Stroker” – click here for my review), but see his career revived in film with roles in “Boogie Nights” – his nomination – and later in a critically well-received role in “Striptease” and on TV with the wonderful “Evening Shade.” Sadly, the “Bandit” won’t ride again as Burt passed at 82 in 2018 from a heart attack.
  • A promotional still photo from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”

    Although a co-star and a two-time Oscar winner (not for this one), Field is pretty much just window dressing in this film, but she does have one quiet scene one-on-one with Reynolds that helps establish his human side. The future two-time Oscar winner’s ongoing chatter in the car is both sometimes amusing and sometimes disappointing, but hardly an award winner along the lines of “Norma Rae.” She won an Oscar for that one and also “Places in the Heart.” Field was nominated for “Lincoln” and is probably most-recognized for her work with Robin Williams in the iconic “ Doubtfire,” but that one isn’t her best work.

  • Simply put, Gleason dominates the acting here. He only has one direct scene with Reynolds – in a diner where he didn’t realize he was talking to the “Bandit” – and it wasn’t in the original script. Gleason suggested it during filming. The rest of the time they’re interacting via CB radio (although in the final scene they are separated by only 20 feet in their respective cars). Jackie died in 1987 in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 71 of colon and liver cancer.
  • A promotional still photo from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”

    A Grammy winner and four-time nominee, Reed is better remembered as a singer than as an actor, but he does managed a competent effort in this one. He’s solid as Burt’s sidekick and manages a decent scene where he takes revenget on a motorcycle gang that beats him up in a fight (he uses his 18-wheeler to destroy their motorcycles). Frankly Reed’s work with Burt in “Gator,” where he’s “Bama McCall” (click here to read my review), is probably his best work as an actor, but it was a dark role and nowhere near as free and fun-loving as the “Snowman.”  He had a thin acting resume of only 23 credits, including “The Waterboy” with Adam Sandler, and even did the rotten second sequel to this one, where he starts dressing like Burt’s character in the first two films. Reed died of complications from emphysema at 71 in 2008.

  • At the same time one-time pro football player and “Tarzan” star Henry, who played “Maj. Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan’s” husband “Lt. Col. Donald Penobscot” in the long-running “M*A*S*H” TV series, delivers a series of funny one-liners that any actor playing the straight man could envy. Henry should have received a nomination for keeping that straight face playing next to Gleason. He was also in John Wayne’s controversial Vietnam epic “The Green Berets” as well as the sci-fi classic “Soylent Green.” Henry died at 84 in 2021 of Parkinson’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
  • Another good job is done by three-time Primetime Emmy nominee (for writing) Pat McCormick and Paul Williams, who is better known for his musical career, as “‘Big’ Enos Burdette” and “‘Little’ Enos Burdette,” the father-son team that makes the bet with Reynolds. The two are just right with the blow-hard McCormick and sarcastically critical Williams in just the right amount of screen time for their roles. The duo would sink quickly with “Smokey and the Bandit II” and would just be big-screen torment in “Smokey and the Bandit Part 3.” Still, they played off each other and Burt well in this one. McCormick died at 78 in 2005 from complications from a stroke.

The chase scenes are low-key by action standards that would follow (much less the CGI spectacles today) and the trucker action on the highway is surprisingly effective.

The rest of supporting cast just pretty much sets up Reynolds and Gleason and gets out of the way to let the “Bandit” be the “Bandit.”

By the way … as to the “bootlegging” of Coors beer “east of the Mississippi” concept in the film. A variety of sources report that it wasn’t that it was “illegal” to sell Coors in the East, rather, it was that the company did not have a national distribution system (the beer needed to be shipped cold and was just not sold in the East and therefore not technically licensed in some states). However, you’ll still find that many people recall when Coors was “illegal” in the East.

A promotional still photo from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Also, Pontiac saw sales of Firebird Tans Am vehicles spike not only with the movie, but also when it was shown in “reruns” in the days before streaming and movie services made it ubiquitous. The “Trans Am” comes from the original Trans-American Sedan Championship car-racing series founded in 1966.

“Smokey and the Bandit” was the second most-popular film in the U.S. in 1977 with $126.7 million in ticket sales, according to Wiki. It hauled in a cumulative box office of more than $300 million across the globe, after being made on a budget of $4 million, also according to Wiki. What a return. What a movie! It stood no chance of being No. 1 as that was earned with $307.2 million by the inaugural “Star Wars” film “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.” Absolutely no way to beat that one, Burt. Here are the other films from 1977 that I’ve reviewed:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

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