Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

It’s been 30 years since The Bandit (Burt Reynolds) and his good buddy Cledus (Jerry Reed) made their first high speed run from Georgia to Texas to deliver 400 cases of Coors to "Big Enos" Burdette, and while there have been dozens of car chase movies made since then, few have come close to being as much fun as Smokey and the Bandit.

Made at the height of Reynolds’ box office fame – long before he started doing direct-to-video crap like Cloud 9 – Smokey and the Bandit is little more than an excuse for good ol’ boys to go chasing each other around in fast cars while the law -- in the bombastic form of Sheriff Buford T Justice (Jackie Gleason) -- chases after them. It’s silly, but its charm lies in the fact that it knows it and just wallows in it with glee.

The film is anything but a stretch for Reynolds, who had been playing pretty much the same character for the past 10 years before he even got behind the wheel of the iconic Trans Am he drives in the film. Smokey and the Bandit did, however, give two of its cast members a chance to stretch far beyond their audiences’ expectations.

The film was released only a year after Sally Field won her Emmy for her deeply disturbing work in Sybil, and it was a relief to everyone to watch her lighten up and have some fun (and be darned sexy, too) as The Bandit’s sidekick.

And what can be said of Gleason’s work as Sheriff Justice, beyond the fact that it is among the best comedic work he ever did, and given the fact that the man is a comedy legend that’s saying a lot.

Starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field and jackie Gleason.

IMDB Site.