'WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SUMBITCH?!'........BQ CRASHES INTO 'SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT'

Smokey And The Bandit (1977)   Only Luke Skywalker and Han Solo went faster than Burt Reynold's black Pontiac TransAm in the summer of '77.........

                Movies like 'Smokey' 'Star Wars'  and 'Jaws' might have signaled the eventual end to the reign of Drive-In movie Trashmeisters like Roger Corman........

                 Cause once the major studios began to devote all their energy (and big budgets) to Pulp Entertainment (as in: Monsters, Spaceships and car crashes)......how could the nickel-' n-dime shlockers ever compete with them?

                  In no way will you hear us rail against all the supposed flaws of this movie......the fact that it's brainless, plotless, shapeless.......as if the whole thing was made up on the spot while they filmed it.....(turns out, that wasn't far from the truth).......

                   Those things constitute its very charms.......it's why we had the best time watching it......it's why Hitchcock secretly loved it....(along with Russ Meyer nudie movies)

                   Consider it the cinematic equivalent of one of those 8 dollar tubs of popcorn, liberally slathered with that unknowable, artery-clogging yellowish substance....

                   Of course it's junk. Of course it's terrible for you.....

                    That's the whole point.

                  So much stuff to smile at........Burt Reynolds, barely breaking a sweat as he plays his 'Burt Reynolds Late Night Talk Show' persona.........cute-as-the-proverbial-button Sally Field, at this point slumming through this movie, since she'd already stunned the world in 'Sybil'........Jackie Gleason, pouring a lifetime of comedy-vaudeville showbiz experience into his quintessential redneck sheriff. so apoplectic, he can barely spew all the rage out of his throat........

                  (Though you may wince at some of Gleason's antics..........at the sight of a black sheriff, he shakes his head sadly...."what's the world comin' to?".........you know he'd be right at home among the Trumpanzees at a MAGA redhat rally.....)

                 When the black officer informs Gleason that he's out of his jurisdiction and that his authority is not germane to the situation at hand, Gleason, as Sheriff Buford T. Justice screams, "...the Goddamn germans got nothin' to do with it!"

                And that, folks, is "Smokey And The Bandit"s idea of witty repartee........

                 We can picture Hitchcock quietly erupting in guilty chuckles......

                 Okay, we confess.......so did we.  And happily ogled the almost illegally adorable Sally Field, even while she spent the entire movie sitting in a car, looking bewildered as to what emotion to convey.......

                 3 stars (***) for providing a nice reminder of what a fun movie summer we enjoyed in 1977........and normal critical standards?   Not germane to the situation.