Tag: Smokey and the Bandit

Grand Theft Auto (1977)

GRAND THEFT AUTO

GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977) Three stars

I just love the poster for GRAND THEFT AUTO, Ron Howard’s feature debut as director.

It advertises “See the greatest cars in the world destroyed: Rolls Royce, Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercedes, Porsche and 43 Screaming Street Machines.”

Sounds like my kind of picture.

RON HOWARD’S FUNNIER AND FASTER

HE’S A HIGH SPEED DISASTER!

A drawing of Nancy Morgan aghast and Howard with that All-American smile on his face and his left hand on the steering wheel. Below the young lovebirds are flames and crashes. Sure does resemble a drive-in movie from 1977.

Howard directed, starred in, and co-wrote this picture for New World, produced by Jon Davison and executive produced by Roger Corman. Howard kept some of GRAND THEFT AUTO in the family with father Rance a co-star and co-writer and brother Clint a co-star. It’s no small wonder that Howard earned a reputation for being one of the nicest guys in Hollywood.

Howard did not sell his soul to the Devil to get the picture made. No, instead, he made a deal with Mr. Corman. Howard agreed to star in EAT MY DUST! from 1976 if he could have a crack at directing. The rest is history and Howard’s directorial credits number 32, including Academy Award for Best Picture winner A BEAUTIFUL MIND. His other credits include NIGHT SHIFT, SPLASH, PARENTHOOD, FAR AND AWAY, THE PAPER, APOLLO 13, and FROST/NIXON.

Made for a reported $600,000 on down time for Howard from “Happy Days” (No. 1 show on TV in 1976-77 and No. 2 in 1977-78), GRAND THEFT AUTO tells a simple story.

Paula Powers (Morgan) loves her boyfriend Sam Freeman (Howard) and they want to get married, but her wealthy parents, especially her gubernatorial candidate father, oppose this pairing, taking Mr. Freeman for a gold digger. Paula’s parents want her to marry the wealthy Collins Hedgeworth (Paul Linke), who’s such a blasted tool he spends the movie in his jockey outfit. Paula steals her father’s Rolls Royce and Sam, and they plan to get married in Vegas. There ends up being a $25,000 reward for Paula and then a $25,000 price tag for Collins.

Seemingly all of California (and Nevada) pursues Paula and Sam, as well as Collins.

Collins alone goes through at least three cars in his first few minutes of screen time. What a schmuck! His overprotective mother, played by America’s Sweetheart and Howard’s TV mother Marion Ross, is the one responsible for the reward for Collins and it is one of the undeniable highlights of the movie to hear Marion Ross say “Piss off!” Even a preacher (Hoke Howell) goes after the money. Sleazy DJ Curly Q. Brown (Don Steele) eventually takes to the air in a whirlybird and he tells Mr. Freeman on the air, “Well, if you have it, I’m going to report it. Because every time you turn around and fart, it’s news.” The film especially picks up once Curly Q. Brown starts his play-by-play of the chase across California and Nevada.

The plot also includes a Helicopter vs. Rolls Royce showdown, a bridge blown up real good, and a Demolition Derby. The 1970s were the glory days for the car chase and GRAND THEFT AUTO belongs alongside DUEL, MAD MAX, CONVOY (both movie and song), SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, THE FRENCH CONNECTION (chase scene), and several other pics.

Do Paula and Sam get married (and live happily ever after)? Well, I would never dream of revealing such an ending, although I told my wife after she asked me if they got married. I will compromise, though, and duly note GRAND THEFT AUTO saves its best demolition for last.

The Cannonball Run (1981)

CANNONBALL RUN

THE CANNONBALL RUN (1981) Two stars

THE CANNONBALL RUN is not a very good movie, but nonetheless it contains a certain undeniable value in the time capsule department.

That’s right, THE CANNONBALL RUN shows us a society that once highly valued Burt Reynolds, James Bond, crude foreign stereotypes, cameos, cleavage, NFL, TV, and stuntman turned director Hal Needham, not in that exact order. THE CANNONBALL RUN finished sixth in the 1981 box office sweepstakes.

However, it came a few years late in the cinematic car chase-and-crash department, not so hot on the wheels of such illustrious precursors as GONE IN 60 SECONDS, DEATH RACE 2000, CANNONBALL,THE GUMBALL RALLY, EAT MY DUST, GRAND THEFT AUTO, and SMOKEY THE BANDIT, by far the best of the six Needham and Reynolds productions that saw the light of multiplex from 1977 through 1984. Never mind John Landis’ THE BLUES BROTHERS, which should have been the final word on car chases and crashes.

Needham (1931-2013) made his directorial debut with SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT and that film contains just about everything you need to know about the director and his films: chases, races, curves, stunts, pile-ups, punch-ups, slapstick, Southern humor, and Reynolds. The great success of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, only behind STAR WARS at the box office in 1977, paved the road for the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” (1979-85).

On the Needham scale, THE CANNONBALL RUN finds itself halfway between the high point of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT and the dual low points of STROKER ACE and CANNONBALL RUN II.

SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT had the benefit of the great performance of Jackie Gleason, a performance not matched in any of the other Needham and Reynolds productions, including Gleason again in SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II. Gleason walked (or drove) away with the first movie.

Reynolds (1936-2018) more or less squandered his career on Needham films.

For example, he chose STROKER ACE over TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Jack Nicholson won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing former astronaut Garrett Breedlove, the role turned down by Reynolds. The $16.5 million STROKER ACE bombed at the box office as it earned $5 million less than its budget. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT won Best Picture and took in over $100 million, succeeding both commercially and critically.

Reynolds’ career was never quite the same after STROKER ACE.

It would not be until BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) the name “Burt Reynolds” was spoken with respect again. Reynolds earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination (part of a tally of 12 awards and three more nominations) for his performance as porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling epic. BOOGIE NIGHTS showed us a glimpse of what could have been for Reynolds had the actor not chosen his friend Needham in cynical productions.

They are cynical because they believed that Reynolds’ trademark grin and laugh could get us through a series of tossed off stunts, gags, and in-jokes.

This cynicism hit its absolute worst in CANNONBALL RUN II, which ironically found Reynolds playing alongside TERMS OF ENDEARMENT star Shirley MacLaine.

Frank Sinatra phoned in his cameo appearance and animator-for-hire Ralph Bakshi worked harder on the race than any of the big-name performers.

Roger Ebert called THE CANNONBALL RUN “Hollywood Squares on Wheels.”

“I’ll take James Bond for the block, please.”

“I’ll take Adrienne Barbeau’s cleavage for the win, please.”

When Roger Moore passed on the sequel, they brought in Bond villain Richard Kiel. The 7-foot-2 actor played Jaws in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER.

Barbeau and her busty blonde counterpart Tara Buckman were replaced by Catherine Bach and Susan Anton for the sequel.

The best thing to come from the CANNONBALL RUN films was that Jackie Chan borrowed the closing credit gag reel for his productions. Chan showcased not only bloopers and cast members cracking up like the CANNONBALL RUN films, but also stunts like the one in ARMOUR OF GOD that nearly killed him.

“I try to grab every tree,” Chan said in a 2017 interview. “They just keep breaking. Breaking, breaking, breaking, breaking. Then, boom, I just hit on the rock. I get up, I thought, ‘It’s nothing.’ I just feel my back’s hurt. Then I get up, but everybody pushes me down because my whole body was numb. By the time the numb passed, then I feel my air and I see the blood. We go to the hospital … I almost died.”

Even in his worst films, Chan gives it everything he got, certainly more than what the vast majority of the cast members did in CANNONBALL RUN, CANNONBALL RUN II, and SPEED ZONE. Chan’s presence helped CANNONBALL RUN II make a killing in Japan.

All we need to know about the CANNONBALL RUN series is that Jamie Farr’s Sheik Abdul ben Falafel is the only character to appear in all three films.