First things first; a bit of Film Criticism 101. Any film critic worth their salt loves to attribute the success of both Star Wars and Smokey and The Bandit to the fact that 1977's post-Vietnam/Watergate America was sick and tired of depressing and morally ambiguous films like Taxi Driver or The French Connection or The Godfather* reminding them about the last 10 years. Americans wanted to see good triumph over evil in no uncertain terms. And I can buy that. I see the sense in it. I was an infant in 1977 so I wasn't there for first-hand experience of this phenomenon but I know I definitely watched them both religiously as a kid and am a fan of both. But I will say that Smokey has aged better than Star Wars and just might even be the better film.
There are plenty of similarities. Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon are Bandit in his Trans-Am and Cledus in his semi. Princess Leia is Frog. Darth Vader is Sheriff Buford T. Justice. They're all chasing through action-packed set-pieces while the plot points tick along at a pace anyone can follow.
But Smokey has one thing going for it. There is no Luke Skywalker ("But I was going to the Tochi Station to pick up some power converters!" blah blah) to be found and no damned "mythical hero's journey" to contend with. Instead we have the smuggler in the fast car making buffoons of the authority figures while becoming a folk hero to all the common townspeople. The Bandit is a hero in the sense that he's sticking it to The Man for all the shit kickers, moonshiners, rum runners, lot lizards and trailer park madames of Dixie. The end. They never needed to make another one except as a license to print money and eventually let Jerry Reed drive the Trans-Am.
So yes, Star Wars certainly did ring in a new era of blockbusters and "hero's journey" spectacles as did Smokey and The Bandit, in its way, and they both had plenty of exploitation versions of themselves made by the usual suspects (Roger Corman, Samuel Z. Arkoff, etc.) but I would argue that Smokey still had a foot in the anti-hero tradition of the early 70's. It's based more in reality (cars jumping ravines and not smashing to bits aside) than Star Wars and at times Burt Reynolds can be a real grade-A bastard in ways that Harrison Ford as Han Solo just can't be. So it's all a bit more subversive than the familiar elements of Star Wars (we'll just not even go near the strange Star Wars/Muppets/Saturday Night Live/Cocaine connections that further defined the 80's, and trust me, I love talking about that shit).
But this subversive streak had to have come from somewhere, right? Hal Needham could NOT have thought this up all on his lonesome but then again the subversiveness of Smokey and The Bandit doesn't run too deep. It's nothing too kinky. It's still a very amusing car picture with Burt Reynolds and his mustache taking the piss out of Jackie Gleason and his mustache. And that's where W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings comes in.
Predating Smokey by three years, watching W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings is like seeing a proto-Smokey and The Bandit. Some things are very familiar while others are very different. We have Burt Reynolds in a fast car getting into adventures, Jerry Reed, and a former cast member of The Honeymooners (this time Art Carney) as the authority figure dead set on catching them, but this time it's all played straight and set in the 1950's instead of the 70's. There's also a love interest but this time she's Dixie, a small-town country singer played by real-life country singer Conny Van Dyke, and not Sally Fields as some hussy from New York City who's been "poontanging" around. And Burt and Jerry aren't even buddies at all for the first hour!
The story breaks down like this; W.W. Bright (Burt without mustache so you know he's trying) has a grudge against the SOS Oil Company. To exact his revenge on them he robs every SOS gas station he comes across. When he does this he always gives the poor attendant on duty some cash and tells him to lie about who robbed the station.
While on the run from a cop one night W.W. hides out in a dance hall and befriends the band, Dixie and The Dancekings (all while making them bust into an impromptu version of "Johnny B. Goode" hmm). He becomes attracted to sweet innocent Dixie but her band mate Wayne (Jerry Reed) doesn't trust W.W. Soon, W.W. becomes their de facto manager and tries to get them a shows in Nashville and eventually The Grand Ole Opry so they can hit the big time and get a record deal (such a quaint idea but then again this is supposed to be the 50's).
They then try to get hit-maker and Opry emcee Country Bull (Ned Beatty) to write them a hit song. This scene is great. In the film, W.W. and the band sneak backstage at The Opry to find Country Bull and his boys drinking and whooping it up. They bullshit their way through to meet him and it works for a while until Bull sets his lecherous eye on Dixie. For a minute you think W.W. is going to let Bull have her, but after Dixie sits in Bull's lap for a minute W.W. is disgusted and gets down to it to ask point blank how much it'd take for Country Bull to write them a hit song. Bull realizes that they're small-timers and that he's been ungentlemanly to Dixie and says for $1000 he'll write them a song. Great scene and it really undermines the wide-eyed idea of "going to the big city to be discovered".
Now W.W. hits every SOS station he can and he's even doing it with the band in his car. Meanwhile the owner of SOS has hired Deacon Gore (Art Carney) a Baptist preacher and bounty hunter to find this mysterious bandit who has been robbing him blind. Art Carney is really great in this. He's actually got a cold deadly menace to him that I did not expect at all. Deacon Gore hits up all the local Baptist Radio Revival shows and asks all the good christians out there to help him find this devil who has been robbing the kind & benevolent SOS Oil Company.
W.W. tries to rob one more SOS station but the attendant is a stubborn old coot and won't take the cash W.W. offers him. Instead comes out of the station with a rifle. A big shoot-out ensues and now W.W. and the band are on the run, their description has been made; the band were all dressed in their matching stage outfits. They have to burn W.W.'s 1955 gold & black Oldsmobile Super Coupe (one of only fifty made) and hide-out in an old farmhouse. Here we really get parallels to Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. That bunker mentality of hunted people trying to hide out from the law trying to make time pass when most of them are pretty far from being real criminals. As it happens, W.W. and Dixie have a spat one night and Wayne writes a sure fire hit song about it.
The someone spots W.W. & gang and Deacon Gore comes snooping around. He pieces together that the burnt car in the yard and the five people with instruments are the who he has been looking for. He comes to the farmhouse and nearly gets the drop on W.W. but has a gun pulled on him by Leroy (Don Williams) the bass player. The Deacon leaves, vowing he'll catch them again.
With their hit song written, Dixie and The Dancekings return to Nashville to play it for Country Bull. All is forgotten about their first encounter and Bull decides to feature them that night at The Opry. As Dixie and The Dancekings rehearse for the show, W.W. goes out for a smoke and sees a gold & black 1955 Oldsmobile Super Coupe parked outside. But unfortunately this one has been bought and paid for by Deacon Gore. The Deacon comes from out of the shadows and apprehends W.W. at gunpoint.
He makes W.W. drive the car to the Nashville jailhouse. While en route the Deacon has W.W. turn on the radio to the local baptist station, much to W.W.'s frustration since he wants to listen to the broadcast from The Grand Ole Opry so he can hear Dixie and The Dancekings play. As they arrive at the station the preacher on the radio announces that the time is midnight and it is now Sunday morning. Hearing this The Deacon decides to have mercy on W.W. and lets him go free. A very weird ambiguous ending and not what I expected from this film. I almost expected the usual early 70's bummer ending but instead W.W. goes free to possibly hook back up with Dixie and The Dancekings.
So quite a good little film this was. The performances are all great. Pre-mustache Burt is a damn good actor. He's no thespian but given the right role he's always been watchable. And yes, he gets to drive a cool car and do his own stunts, but it doesn't seem like the usual cliche here. Maybe the 1950's setting helps in this regard.
And this is essentially Jerry Reed's first dramatic role and he's great. Playing a guitar player is no stretch for him but he definitely interjects some reality to it. There's a great scene where the band realizes their van has been towed for being illegally parked and you can tell that from his reaction Jerry has dealt with things like that in real life.
Conny Van Dyke is great as Dixie and after checking out www.imdb.com I couldn't believe that she hasn't been in many more films. She's sassy and innocent at the same time and yeah, that scene with Ned Beatty where he's coming on to her, she kind of goes for it and sits in his lap and starts being sweet to him, all in hopes of getting a chance at stardom...she plays the conflicting motives well. On one hand she looks up to Country Bull and must think he's a decent man and then also knows that playing along will get her something she wants.
It was great to see Art Carney playing against his usual comedic type and go for something more menacing. The only criticism is that he may have gone too far. He's almost too serious but then again he is supposed to be a stern Southern Baptist preacher. The only other criticism is of course, Art Carney is from New York so the accent is a little off. But I can forgive these things since hey, it's Art Carney as a villain. Don't see that everyday.
I was really surprised that John G. Avildsen (director of Rocky amongst others) was the director since we have the requisite Burt car chasing going on, but that doesn't take away from the drama at all. Scenes are played well if they're dramatic or comedic. The tone doesn't switch wildly between the two and that's always a good thing. It feels like a "whole" film.
So yeah, if you happen to see this on your cable listings, by all means give it a shot, especially if you'd like to see the more serious older brother of Smokey and The Bandit.
*In its way The Godfather is another hero's journey except that the hero is a revenge fueled murderer and crime lord. Maybe it's just more of a Classic Revenge Story but we do go through the motions of Micheal Corleone denying and then accepting his princely powers and duties. And there are plenty of Nixonian political corollaries to be had that were more in fashion in 1974 than 1977.
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