Smokey and the Bandit (1977) on Netflix
Bo Darville, known as Bandit, takes a bet to haul a load of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in twenty-eight hours. His friend Cledus drives the truck while he runs interference.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.0/1063,738 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Big Enos Burdette, a wealthy Texan, bets truckers that they cannot bring a load of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta inside twenty-eight hours, and the men who try keep getting arrested. With his son Little Enos, he offers Bo Darville, a bootlegger known as Bandit, eighty thousand dollars to take the bet. Coors cannot legally cross the Mississippi, and the beer spoils quickly without refrigeration, so the run leaves no room for delay. Bandit recruits his friend Cledus Snow, who drives the truck with his basset hound Fred, while Bandit drives a black Pontiac Trans Am to pull the police away from the load. On the road back, Carrie, a runaway bride, jumps into Bandit's car, and Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Montague County, Texas, gives chase.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Future President Gerald Ford hid Coors in his luggage to take it back to Washington, D.C. after a trip to Colorado, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a steady supply airlifted by the Air Force, and Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox brought home several cases stashed in the team's equipment trunks.
- Just two days before production was to begin, Universal sent a "hatchet man" to Atlanta to tell Needham the budget was being trimmed by $1 million; with Reynolds' salary at $1 million, Needham was left with only $3.3 million and spent 30 hours revising the shooting schedule with assistant director David Hamburger.
- The theme song "East Bound and Down" was written virtually overnight by Reed, who offered to rewrite it when Needham gave no reaction; Needham said he liked it so much that if Reed changed even a word or a note he would "choke him". It became Reed's signature song.
- Sally Field only accepted the part after her agent advised her she needed a big movie role on her résumé, and Universal executives initially resisted casting her, claiming she was not attractive enough, until Reynolds insisted on her involvement.
- Buford T. Justice was the name of a real Florida Highway Patrolman known to Reynolds's father Burt Sr., once police chief of Riviera Beach, Florida; his father was also the inspiration for the word "sumbitch" used in the film, which Reynolds said he uttered quite often.
- Due to his financial difficulties in 2014, Reynolds put his vast collection of artwork and memorabilia up for auction, including the Trans Am; high estimates for the car were up to $80,000, but the actual sale price was $450,000.
- All four of the cars were badly damaged during production, one of them all but destroyed during the jump over the dismantled Mulberry bridge; Needham served as the driver for that stunt in place of Reynolds, with Lada St. Edmund in the car in place of Field.
