Smokey and the Bandit

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

I’d forgotten how attractive Sally Fields was. Legend has it Reynolds was not very tall so they wanted a really petite female to make him look bigger. She made a great performance.

Should never have been a sequel. As mentioned Gleason stole the show but just an all around fun movie.

We enjoyed watching the first S&B years ago with our two teen sons on Tv years after it was in theaters. Wife and I had never seen it so we had a blast just seeing it and the boys reactions to it. Gleason just about killed all of us we laughed so hard at his character. Especially when he makes what may be his first or second words in the movie as he catches the car strippers on side of the road. Gleason: "hold up on that car wash gentleman!" LoL Then he kicks one in the bottom all serious and says "that is an attention getter!" So funny the way he cooly pulls it off.

 

[Hillbilly Deluxe]

For the fans (myself included - I probably turn it on anytime I'm flipping through channels and it's on), go on YouTube and search for filming locations. People find a lot of them and because many of the areas were so rural, they're still undeveloped to a large degree and a lot of the places are still there. Remember the store-type place where the group was sitting on the "porch" watching when the police had the road block set up ? Still there and recognizable.... The "bridge out" where they end up driving into the pee-wee football field ? Still there and not rebuilt ! Even the final scene at the fairgrounds/race track is partially still there.

A lot of the locations are NOT rural anymore. A lot of it was filmed in the south Atlanta metro area, which was not the metro area when it was filmed. Now it is with metro creep and development has changed the 'scenes'.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

There was a S&B special that aired on CMT a while back that I taped to watch later. I wasn't sure what it was when I set up to tape. Turned out to be a special that was named The Bandit and it is the story of the making of the movie. It is as much about the writer/director and Burt's life long stunt man/side kick and at times room mate, Hal Needham as it is about Burt or the movie. It is a pretty funny and entertaining peek into what went on behind the cameras and how it all came to be. What shocked me is for a really silly / foolish movie , how much money it generated and how rich it made them and others. Supposedly when S&B was released in theaters there was only one movie that made more money at the time. Another one that I did not see until many years later when I took the sons to see it on the tenth anniversary. The Star Wars movies. According to The Bandit special , the movie made so much more money than anyone could dream of since they really expected it to be a bomb.

 

[billt460]

Replica cars are being sold to stupid Boomers with too much money.

Kinda curious. How did "stupid boomers" manage to end up with "too much money"?