We’ve begun summer of 2025 in earnest and I’m continuing the fractured phrase: Hooray for Hollyweird! Most of us love movies and I enjoy recommending what you should watch on any given day. So, Hooray for Hollyweird … and for today’s recommendation, let’s take our action in the South with Burt Reynolds starring in the title role of “Gator.”
Reynolds was “Bobby ‘Gator’ McKlusky” in two films in the 1970s and “Gator” was the second in 1976 and was Reynolds’ debut as the director of a flick. In both films, Reynolds’ moonshining ways allows himself to work with law enforcement to bring some bad guys to justice. The other film is “White Lightning” from 1973.
In “Gator,” Reynolds is up against Jerry Reed as “Bama McCall” and you’d be hard-pressed to find another actor who conveys the depravity of a criminal any better than Reed did in this one. No matter your opinion of Reed as an actor, this effort is top-shelf all the way. His sidekick is a 7-foot-3 giant who drives a car by sticking his head out of the sunroof!
“Gator” is just an action flick of the 1970s with a Southern drawl and you’ll especially enjoy Jack Warden as the Jewish federal agent from New York who is forced to work with Reynolds as well as even talk show host Merv Griffin, who plays a political character (the governor of Georgia) with anti-Semitic comment.
You won’t find any computer-enhanced effects (they hadn’t been created yet), so it’s cars and boats doing what today would be considered basic “jumps” that looked pretty cool at the time.
Lauren Hutton provides the love interest in the story, but, like so many female characters in the 1970s, her “Aggie Maybank” is just window dressing in the film and really didn’t move “Gator” ahead in any way.
“Gator” isn’t very good cinema, but it’s fun and frivolous and I’ve never asked more from a film. We’re in a streaming day and you can easily find “Gator” … and then you’ll definitely say … “Hooray for Hollyweird!”
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