Smokey & The Bandit (HD-DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
Before
destroying his career, stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham delivered Burt
Reynolds biggest hit with the first 1977 Smokey
& The Bandit that was only behind Star
Wars and maybe Close Encounters
as the biggest film of the year. Thanks
to Easy Rider, revisionist Westerns
and Bullitt, a cycle of southern
bandit/chase films (and eventually TV shows) surfaced and would even bring the
CB Radio craze along with them. The first
A-movie expression of this was the classic chase sequence in Louisiana in the
Guy Hamilton James bond film Live &
Let Die (reviewed elsewhere on this site) back in 1973, but Smokey made a whole feature film of it
and it is still a very popular back catalog title enough to be issued this soon
on HD-DVD.
Simply
put, Reynolds is Bo Darville, the smilin’ devilish “bandit” who is out to drive
everyone crazy from Carrie (Sally Field), to the strict local Sheriff Buford T.
Justice (Jackie Gleason) to any town he plows his Trans-Am through. Can he get 400 cases of beer from Texarkana
to Atlanta in just over a day’s time for big money? Even if it means wrecking ever car and
building in his way, he is going to give it his best and Justice is going to do
everything to stop him.
Looking
at the film today, it is not much, but the fact that it is full of energy and a
well-rounded chase film that is more consistent than most commercial slop we
get now is a plus for the film. It is
not the best such film and it celebrates its mindlessness, but we have seen
worse (like its sequels, especially the infamous third Smokey film) and fans will be happy to see it looking better here
than on regular DVDs of the past. Jerry
Reed, Paul Williams and Pat McCormick also star.
The 1080p
VC-1 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image has its moments, but the print here
suggests that the film’s original camera negative needs to be checked. This is Bobby Byrne’s first Director of
Photography feature film job and besides lensing more Reynolds hits, lensed
Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar, Sixteen Candles and Bull Durham. That the film was good looking and a cut
above the many B-movies that preceded it is a big reason for its blockbuster
status. The film was originally
monophonic, but that sound is stretched to Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, tough it
might as well be simple stereo. Like the
HD-DVD of Bullitt, this deserves a
better sound upgrade. Extras include a
making of featurette and featurette on the CB craze, which are the only extras
on the Special Edition DVD.
- Nicholas Sheffo
