Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Happy Birthday Smokey and The Bandit!

This is topic Happy Birthday Smokey and The Bandit! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 05-28-2007, 03:10 PM:

For those who are interested in car chases and hot babes and not bloated sci fi epics, let's pay respect to the #2 grossing film of 1977, Smokey and Bandit. [Smile]

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-28-2007, 03:17 PM:

Saw it at the Southland 68 Drive-in, now gone, in the summer of 1977. One of my favorite movies. It played at that drive-in practically all summer with the second feature changing frequently. I think it may have set attendance records to at the Drive in but not sure about that.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-28-2007, 04:13 PM:

The metallic font in the title on that DVD cover is really hard to read. No wonder the movie was only #2.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-28-2007, 04:40 PM:

Time flies! You now frequently see Sally Field advertising "Boniva" on television, for osteoporosis.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 05-28-2007, 08:37 PM:

John, you're right. Sometimes when I see some actor or actress on tv I think to myself, "Damn he looks old". Next time I pass a mirror and look in, I realize maybe he wasn't so old after all.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-28-2007, 09:46 PM:

The original movie one-sheet was much cooler looking than that dumb DVD cover which emphasizes the love story over the action packed car chases. Who thought that up?

Jackie Gleason's "Buford T. Justice" is one of my favorite movie characters of all time.

"Well, thank you Mr. Bandit. And let me say that you are the god-damndest pursuee that I have ever pursued! And now that the mutual bullshit is over....WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SUMBITCH?!"

Probably the best foul-mouthed character to ever hit the screen, with the possible exception of the drill sergeant in "Full Metal Jacket."

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 05-28-2007, 10:27 PM:

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 05-29-2007, 09:30 AM:

I have the original one-sheet on the wall in the booth. One of my all-time favorites.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-29-2007, 11:39 AM:

John; Sally once was young and almost HOT. The Boniva thing is only just another reminder of how OLD I am! Isn't she about 64 now? Louis

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-29-2007, 01:12 PM:

She's still hot though.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-29-2007, 03:58 PM:

She's 61 this year. Would've been 31 when this came out.

She was mightily cute as Frog though...

One of my favorites...we used to get our schedules a month in advance as to what was coming to the Drive-In...there was hardly ever a list we got without Smokey And The Bandit on it. [thumbsup]

There are many scenes of it on you tube for those interested.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-29-2007, 05:33 PM:

quote:
Saw it at the Southland 68 Drive-in,

Darryl! Remember how Bob Perkins had a drawing every night at intermission, for a free bottle of Coors beer?

I worked a lot of different theatres during the time this movie was released (I even worked one night at the Southland 68 and ran it)- trying to get as much experience as I could, on as many different machines as I could. Every time I'd start at a new theatre, "Smokey and the Bandit" would end up there. I lost count at over 120 times showing this movie -- making changeovers all the way.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-29-2007, 09:58 PM:

quote: Tim Reed
Darryl! Remember how Bob Perkins had a drawing every night at intermission, for a free bottle of Coors beer?

Tim, I can vaguely remember that......The thing I remember most is sitting on the hood of the car with my dad eating a Parkett Chicken Box.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-29-2007, 10:10 PM:

..Ran "Smokey and the Bandit" at a drive-in that late summer...Yard was always full on wknds...and thx to this movie,...began the craze of CB radio (actually, "Convoy" began the CB craze, but "SB" enhanced it many times over...) and the airwaves were full of: "C'mon, what's your '20" .. Didn't take long for the FCC to drop requiring licenses to operate CB radios..

(We oughta begin a subtopic dedicated to this movie on how many of us have CB handles we can share ... in 1977, since I drove a 1963 Rambler American 440H, I was known as "the Kelvinator Kid")

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-29-2007, 10:56 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
CB handles we can share

Well, I was "Fleetwood Mike" in tribute to my favorite musical group at the time.

CB radios were way cooler than cell phones. They didn't bother people in restaurants, airplanes and movie theatres, and you didn't have to remember any numbers, and there was no limit on how much you could talk. ('Course there was that 3 mile range problem.)

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-03-2007, 09:07 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Well, I was "Fleetwood Mike" in tribute to my favorite musical group at the time.

(a small side topic on this comment of what Mike mentioned above)

- At a 21 complex that I used to work at, there was a conc girl by the name of Rhiannon ... and I would call her by a nickname that I blessed her with being that of "Fleetwood".

She loved that nick for no one else could figure out why I would call her "Fleetwood", but she knew right off where I got it from....

...for "Rhiannon" was her favorite song from the self titled 1975 MAC album - Stevie Nicks first written solo venture with the MAC ...and that song began her music career...

But, since Universal goofed up and lost Lucas to FOX, they did manage to come almost back with the "Bandit" .. but we'll forget about the two sequels that had to come afterwards..

-Monte

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-04-2007, 07:58 AM:

What 3 mile range problem? You must have been legal!!!! (You need POWER!!!) Louis

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 06-04-2007, 08:04 AM:

Or park next to a repeater

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-04-2007, 10:25 AM:

Yeah, but it worked fine in those days because this town is only 1 mile in diameter, so my friends were usually within reach!

Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 06-30-2007, 01:06 PM:

Smokey and the Bandit is showing in Somerville, MA this weekend if anyone is interested. [Smile]

Somerville Theatre

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 06-30-2007, 01:37 PM:

Don't remember watching it in a theatre since I was about 2 1/2, but my dad says he took me. My first recalection of watching it was on HBO at my grandmothers house along with the part 2. I used to listen to my dad's album of the movie soundtrack over and over and over. My favorite songs were "East Bound and Down" and "West Bound and Down". I had dubbed those songs on to cassette and insisted (the way a young kid can) that my dad play them when we'd go on family road trips.

As for the CB radio craze, yep my dad errected a 50ft antenna next to the house with a tansmitter/receiver (don't know the power) and instsalled receiver/transmitters in both his and my mom's car. My handle was "The Logan County Kid".

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 06-30-2007, 08:57 PM:

quote: Darryl Spicer
The thing I remember most is sitting on the hood of the car with my dad eating a Parkett Chicken Box.

OOooh! The Parkette! I loved that place! (We used to call it the "parakeet," because that's what it looked like the sign said, at first glance, driving by on the highway.)

And, one of the world's greatest neon signs, restored and in operation!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-01-2007, 07:08 AM:

quote: Tim Reed
because that's what it looked like the sign said

Donnno... Sure looks like Parkette to me... you guys musta had too many beers by the time you drove by..... [Confused]