SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Universal, 1977) Universal Home Video

With its East Bound and Down banjo-pluckin’, knee-slapping, rip-snorting redneck humor cutting a swath through the backwaters of some bucolic bumble-weed in the deep south, stuntman turned director, Hal Needham’s Smokey and the Bandit (1977) isn’t so much a movie as a four-minute comedy skit woefully stretched to accommodate a 1 ½ hour film. I must be getting old, but I don’t seem to find the humor in such single-minded dumb show, this one about a swaggering lady’s man who rustles contraband beer across state lines on a well-paid dare. Smokey and the Bandit hails from another time in American picture-making, one that retrospectively does not hold up nearly as well as some, to belly-flop more than a few times on its own comedy sword that is about as sophisticated as a cold nose to the crotch. The funniest line is owed Jackie Gleason’s hayseed lawman who, after tolerating one too many screw-ups from his adult son proclaims, “There’s no way you came from my loins. I’m goin’ home and pop yo’ mama in the mouth!”  Sally Fields, who would make a stab at the legitimate apple-knocker in Norma Rae (1979) herein goes for the tart-talking dolly instead, and, on the run, while Burt Reynolds is…well…Burt Reynolds. Honestly, did the guy ever assimilate into character? But I digress.

In a post studio-system/post-modern/post production code-legislated Hollywood, where anything goes – and usually, went - this sort of loudmouth gibberish took on a ‘progressive’ quality, or at the very least, an altitude for being brash, ballsy and daring. But actually, looking back on good many of these ‘then’ perceived ‘breakout’ movies now, situates their ilk uncomfortably between a sort truncated and Americanized response to Italy’s post-war neorealism meets the Hugh Hefner category in storytelling, where boys aspiring to play at being real men, instead thump their chests and tell wink/nudge jokes about spanking their monkeys as their female costars emerge from half shadow, half dressed, and, with a cigarette to loosely dangle from their lips.  Was it good for you too? Smokey and the Bandit borrows on just about every heavy-handed cliché of its He-Haw sect - the simpleton, cigar-chomping Southern bigot, serialized in Saturday morning Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, the cowboy-hat-wearing good ole boy in his muscle car, just out for a drag-racing spree, and, the dipsy-doodle bro-mantic chemistry that makes imbecilic morons lead with the cleft in their chins and an ‘aw shucks, Ellie May, somebody done shot Mr. Ed’ genius for doing the wrong thing, nevertheless, though rather predictably, to comes out all right in the end.

Smokey and the Bandit is oft mis-credited as the movie to have inspired The Dukes of Hazzard TV series. But actually, a 1975 TV movie, Moonrunners is owed this honor, although the overwhelming popularity of Smokey and the Bandit undoubtedly convinced television executives there was an international market for such corn-fed claptrap peddled ad nauseam about the ‘simple’ folk.  Yet, in Smokey and the Bandit there is not a bright bulb among these dead-headed yokels. James Lee Barrett, Charles Shyer and Alan Mandel’s screenplay is very dim bunkum with crotch-kicking zingers interpolated between one overwrought and utterly improbable cross-country car chase. The picture’s plot is, at least, based in fact. At the time, Coors beer could not be distributed in certain states west of the Mississippi River, thereby adding an edgy danger to this brash bootlegging. Despite my inherent love/hate relationship with this movie, the cultural impact of Smokey and The Bandit cannot be ignored. It was the second-highest grossing movie of the year, runner up only to Star Wars and spawning a ‘tradition’ of hick flicks that not only catapulted Burt Reynolds to international stardom but also created a minor cottage industry for grassroots stories with themes devoted to the common man.

Interestingly, Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham got on famously throughout the shoot – not such a miraculous feat until one considers how difficult Reynolds could be on the set of a movie for whose direction, he had no respect. The mentoring between Reynolds and Needham echoes the lifelong apprenticeship between John Wayne and John Ford, without all the built-in animosity, and, with Reynolds, unlike Wayne, decidedly possessing the upper hand. Needham, an Arkansas sharecropper’s son arrived in Hollywood as Reynolds’ stunt double. After Needham’s wife kicked him out of their house, he showed up on the rising star’s doorstep to ask for a few days stay to collect his thoughts. Needham ended up living with Reynolds for the next eleven years during which he wrote the first few drafts of Smokey’s screenplay. At the time, Reynolds did not think much of the plot but agreed to star in it, provided Universal put Needham in the director’s chair. They did and the rest, as they still say, is history.

Burt Reynolds is Bo ‘Bandit’ Darville – an ambitionless, Teflon-coated, adrenaline junkie trucker who is more than content to live the life of a carny sideshow attraction, provided he can find rich dummies to finance his passion for fast cars. At present his flunkies are Big Enos (Pat McCormick) and Little Enos Burdette (Paul Williams) – father/son Texas’ wheeler-dealers who pay the Bandit $80,000 just to haul a truckload of Coors in twenty-eight hours from Texarkana to the Southern Classic in Georgia for their personal refreshment. However, Big Enos has ulterior motives, secretly hoping he can end the Bandit’s lucky streak with this daredevil’s wager. Bandit accepts the challenge; then ropes his good buddy, Cledus ‘Snowman’ Snow (Jerry Reed) into coming along for the ride. Cledus lives with his wife, Waynette (Linda McClure) and their gaggle of unruly kids. Waynette doesn’t want Cledus to go. But since when does a good ole boy ever listen to anything his barefoot and pregnant woman wants? So, Snowman and Bandit are off to Texarkana to pick up their shipment of Coors, along with Snowman’s bloodshot-eyed Basset Hound, Fred.

The better half of this title refers to ‘Smokey’ - CB slang for highway patrolmen. So, it’s perhaps little wonder that the bulk of our story and the memorable lines from here on do not go to Burt Reynolds ‘butch’ racer, but to Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Portague County – especially when the latter is played by one of the all-time great comedians, Jackie Gleason. How sweet it is, indeed, to see Gleason here, at the top of his game as the portly and persnickety sheriff, perennially exacerbated by the one man to whom all his law-enforcing arsenal is useless. Gleason’s lawman is really the more fascinating character in this extended travelogue through the backwaters of five states; a pompous, maniacal, thoroughly ridiculous and frustrated bigot who uses the law to his own purpose, though not to his advantage. Truth is - Justice just can’t win. Bandit purchases a Trans Am to drive as a ‘blocker’ – deflecting attention away from the truck and its cargo. The drive from Georgia to Texas is without incident. Bandit and Snowman break into a warehouse, load up their cargo in record time and begin their trek back to Georgia. (Aside: except for a few brief scenes reshot in California, the production never left Georgia and was primarily shot in and around the cities of McDonough, Jonesboro, and Lithonia.)  Unfortunately, on a lonely country road, Bandit nearly runs over runaway bride, Carrie (Sally Fields) a professional dancer who has just escaped a loveless marriage to the Sheriff’s ineffectual dull-headed son, Jr. (Mike Henry).

Without even knowing who she is, Bandit decides to take Carrie with him. She jumps in the back of his car, changes out of her wedding dress and then proceeds to tell him everything about her life. The two flirt, are coy, yet frank in their assessment of each other, but obviously destined to fall in love before the final fadeout. Of course, none of this makes any sense at all. Still, after some harrowing road races with the Sheriff and other members from various law enforcement divisions, the Bandit and Carrie find a brief respite, drive into the woods and make love.  Ho-hum. Whatever. Without Bandit to run cover for him, Snowman gets pulled over by a state trooper.  But before he is even asked to show his manifest, Snowman is saved by Bandit who does some pretty snazzy stunt work to encourage the trooper to follow him instead. The Bandit, Snowman, Carrie – whom Bandit has since nicknamed ‘Frog’ – the Sheriff and his son race through the backwoods of Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, along the way coming in contact with some pretty loopy characters, like prostitute, Foxy Lady (Ingeborg Kjeldsen) who lures Smokies into her brothel – a makeshift metal trailer parked near the highway.

Bandit and Snowman discover they have an entire network of ‘good buddies’ manning their CBs along the interstate – all of them and taking bets on the Bandit’s success against an increasingly insurmountable army of police officers who haven’t the collective brain trust between them to power a siren. Bandit, Snowman and Carrie arrive at the Southern Classic with ten minutes to spare. Big Enos tells Bandit he can have his payoff now, or double it by accepting a new challenge – to bring back some clam chowder from Boston in eighteen hours. Bandit accepts the wager and the trio hop into one of Big Enos’ Cadillacs. Justice, who has never met Bandit face to face, contacts him via CB, unaware the two are parked only a few feet apart from each other. At first Bandit describes himself as Big Enos, then reasons Justice has been ‘too good a man’ for this feeble lie and instead tells him to look over his shoulder. Bandit, Snowman and Carrie take off on their next challenge together with Justice in hot pursuit, leaving Jr. to chase after his daddy’s car on foot. 

Smokey and the Bandit is lowbrow to ‘no brow’ entertainment at best, made by and for dummies dependent on a couple of hours of forgettable fluff. In retrospect, Burt Reynolds once described Smokey and the Bandit as an ice cream sundae of a movie. Maybe, although only if the milk’s already turned and the chocolate sprinkles have sunk to the veritable bottom of the cone. Frankly, Reynold’s is a glowing assessment. Despite some impressive stunt work and a few minor chuckles along the way, Smokey and the Bandit has dated rather insincerely. Its Southern caricatures are more insulting than quaint. Forget political correctness. The picture’s laissez faire attitude toward just about everything feels as foreign as of another planet. Originally, Needham aimed to make Smokey and the Bandit as a B-movie starring Jerry Reed. Regrettably, it still has the stank of a B-movie about it, just on a bigger budget and with bigger stars. Jackie Gleason is obviously having fun, adlibbing lines even less politically correct and more hilarious than the ones written for him. Reportedly, Universal was unenthused by Needham’s request to cast Sally Fields as the ‘love interest’, believing she lacked sex appeal. However, Fields, a brilliant actress, manages to internalize ‘sexiness’ and bring it forth without more obvious effects. She and Burt Reynolds have palpable on-screen chemistry. In fact, they dated briefly during the making of this film. And Fields, far from being the gal on the side, is, in fact, the true spirit of this movie - funny without trying, frank, when pushed to defend herself, and uncomplicated in her approach to life.

The greater challenge herein is to accurately assess Burt Reynolds’ sex appeal as both a matinee idol and Playgirl centerfold. As, if retrospectively, Smokey and the Bandit seems very second rate, it is an absolute masterpiece until Reynolds phones in his third-rate performance as ‘Bandit’. Most any star of Reynolds’ generation could have done as much, if not better, with this king-making profile. It’s not entirely Reynold’s blunder. The screenplay does not afford him a lot of playtime after the initial set up. Instead, the magnetic sway of his name on a marquee gets exploited as pure camouflage, with only a few well-placed lines – interplay/foreplay between Bandit and Carrie – are shoe-horned between the stunt work and car chases. A word here about these action sequences, carried off with all the panache Needham can muster, plus the added bonus of his having been a stuntman in his prime, and therefore, intuitively to understand what makes a good car chase click. Summer blockbusters, and by extension, summer comedies that spring in their competitive midst, are designed to take advantage of our leisure at a particularly low point when it just makes the good sense God gave a lemon to get out of the sweltering heat and into a darkened, air-cooled theater, watching other people slogging it in the uber-humid wilds, while we become blissfully anesthetized by these finite images in the big, bloated comedy/actioner gone bad. The makers of Smokey and the Bandit have virtually no incentive to provide us with something better beyond these goofy and very one-dimensional characters. They know – it will sell. And did. Smokey and the Bandit was so big it spawned several sequels. Viewed today, Smokey and the Bandit is a race/chase popcorn plugger. Mindless, silly, occasionally watchable, but otherwise, well having passed its prime, the picture no longer satisfies the fundamentals for a playful diversion. Instead, it quickly unravels into cheap seat theater of the mundane.

Universal Home Video bows Smokey and the Bandit on 4K Blu-ray in a rejuvenated master to completely blow its own 100th Anniversary standard Blu-ray edition from 2012 (and all the endlessly repackaged offerings of that same flawed 1080p transfer) to smithereens. It ought to be pointed out, while the studio’s commitment to standard hi-def has often been laughably, egregiously bad, their re-doubled efforts in native 4K have yet to yield a lemon. And so, it is with Smokey and the Bandit, sporting a miraculously nuanced and gorgeous UHD image. Color fidelity is excellent – fully saturated and with, at last, accurately rendered flesh tones that neither lean toward piggy pink nor the occasionally dull orangey beige caste that previously afflicted them on Blu-ray. Fine detail is superbly rendered. The image is crisp without appearing to have had any untoward digital tinkering to artificially boost what was on the original camera negative. Contrast is pitch perfect, with deep and enveloping blacks, topped off by an exquisite amount of film grain looking very indigenous to its source. So, no complaints. Uni has not seen fit to upgrade the audio, so we still have 2 English tracks, one in 5.1, the other in 2.0 DTS. The 2.0 sports a solid reproduction of the original vintage track, while the 5.1, ported over from the 2012 release, contains re-imagined SFX. While more prominent, it doesn’t sound anything like Smokey and the Bandit did in 1977. Good thing? Bad thing? You decide. The 2.0 is a minor revelation, limited in its dynamic range, but nevertheless delivering a sonic ambiance better suited to the images on the screen. Extras have all been ported over from the previous 100th Anniversary release and include Loaded Up and Truckin’: Making Smokey and the Bandit featurette, the Snowman, What’s Your 20?: The Smokey and the Bandit CB Tutorial featurette and two promotional featurettes: 100 Years of Universal: The 70's and 100 Years of Universal: The Lot.

The best reason to repurchase Smokey and the Bandit aside from the newly minted UHD transfer, is The Bandit, at 87 min. a thoroughly comprehensive documentary that covers the movie’s ‘cultural context’ as well as the career-spanning friendship between Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds. Like all intelligently made biopics, this one layers the obvious discussion on the making of the movie with a truck-load of back stories; the lives of professional stuntmen, the popularization of truckin’ and CB culture, the fantastic trajectory of Burt Reynolds’ acting career and possible explanations as to why it so quickly derailed. The Bandit is a heartfelt endeavor that perfectly captures the camaraderie, insanity, highs and lows of such commando-styled ‘on location’ picture-making, the usual ‘talking head’ interviews taking a welcomed backseat to a ton of archival backstage footage. It’s actually more than a bit of a shock to contrast the Burt Reynolds featured in these vintage outtakes, gum-chewing, winking and with that flash of sexy slyness about his grin, ego run amuck, intercut with the Burt Reynolds who left us in 2018 looking deathly fragile and contritely soft-spoken, his recollections cleaved from that cock of the walk, strutting in behind-the-scenes footage and bragging about his mirrored bedrooms.

Refreshing too to see Needham frankly amused and musing about the endurance of a picture he regarded as no better than a Looney Tunes caper. I have to admit, The Bandit gave me a newfound respect for Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham, if not for their most enduring creation made together. Bottom line: while I still do not care for this movie, I can certainly recommend this UHD offering. Now, if we could just get Universal to give us UHD incarnations of Cry Freedom, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Secret of My Success, House Sitter, Flower Drum Song, Sweet Charity, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Who Done It?, The Time of Their Lives, Hold That Ghost, The Lost Weekend, My Little Chickadee, Destry Rides Again, Winchester 73, Shenandoah, Tammy and the Bachelor, Six Weeks... You get my point. Good solid work here. Lots more to be done. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

5+