Burt Reynolds is one of my all time favorite movie stars.  It doesn’t matter if the movie he’s in is bad (and often times, believe me it is), just as long as he drives a car real fast and does that funny little laugh of his, the flick is still worth watching by my standards.  Well, Burt doesn’t drive any cars real fast in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (well he does, but he isn’t being chased or anything) but he does laugh about five or six times.

Burt plays this sheriff (Oh no, The Bandit is starring as a Smokey!  Say it ain’t so!) who is in love with the madam (Dolly Parton) of the titular house of ill repute.  Some jerk-off “Watchdog” (Dom DeLuise) tries to close the place down for no good reason and Burt’s got to stop him.  So far so good.  The problem is, is this flick is a musical so that means there’s a lot of singing and dancing.  Drats.

I will say this for the musical number where Burt duets with Dolly:  It’s not that bad.  Burt’s singing voice ain’t too shabby and it’s a shame he didn’t cut an LP or something.  While the song ain’t up to snuff with Dolly’s material in Rhinestone, it didn’t make my eardrums bleed or anything.  The rest of the songs pretty much suck (the scene with the football players prancing around the locker room was a bit much) but at least Dolly got to sing “I Will Always Love You” a full decade before Whitney “Crackhead” Houston did.

As Burt movies go, it’s no Stroker Ace but if you wanna see him acting alongside Dolly, you’ll probably dig it.  At least the filmmakers were smart enough to give Burt the best line in the movie.  It comes when Dolly forces him to wear a Speedo.  He refuses and says, “That’s like putting two bowling balls in a marble bag!”

AKA:  The Best Little Cathouse in Texas.

When I was a kid, I used to spend summers with my aunt who fed me a steady diet of Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson and Burt Reynolds movies on VHS.  Out of all of the movies I was exposed to at her house, The Cannonball Run was probably our most watched flick of Burt’s oeuvre and remains one of my favorite Burt movies of all time.  While it’s no Smokey and the Bandit (and let’s face it, what could be?), Cannonball features enough famous faces, cool cars, and double entendres to put a smile on just about anybody’s face.

Basically Burt and Dom DeLuise want to win the titular race that will take them coast to coast.  To keep the cops off their tail, they drive an ambulance complete with a drunken doctor (Jack Elam) and foxy patient (Farrah Fawcett.)  Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Roger Moore, Jackie Chan, Jamie Farr, Adrienne Barbeau, Tara Buckman, and Mel Tillis also want to win too, so Burt’s got to keep the pedal to the metal to be the first one across the finish line.

The Cannonball Run works because of Burt’s star power and the sheer number of guest stars and cameos.  Sure, the stunts are pretty good too, but for me this flick was all about Burt slapping the shit out of DeLuise, Barbeau’s massive cleavage, and a clearly drunk as a skunk Dino struggling to get through his scenes without cracking up (or passing out).  This flick also served as my introduction to Jackie Chan and while he only gets one scene to show off his Kung Fu prowess, it’s a good one.  Seriously folks, how can you not like a movie in which Jackie Chan fights Peter Fonda?  You don’t see that everyday. 

Another thing you gotta love about The Cannonball Run is the outtakes at the end.  Seeing Burt, Dom, and Dean cracking up at their own jokes is hysterical.  Director Hal Needham (who also directed Smokey) would soon make a tradition out of including the outtakes at the end, but it was Chan who made the most of them in his later films.

The film isn’t quite in the same league as Smokey and the Bandit, mostly because all the focus is on the racers.  Smokey had the benefit of a wonderful performance by Jackie Gleason as the vengeful “County Mountie”.  All the cops in Cannonball are pretty much all faceless and pose zero threat to the racers.  (All they do is hand out tickets.)  Also, the flick is pretty uneven laugh wise and it takes a good half an hour for the film to really get itself in gear.  Luckily, once director Needham literally gets things on the road, its damn good times.

Out of the enormous cast, it’s probably Jack Elam who gets the most laughs as the perpetually drunk proctologist.  I dare you not to laugh when he says, “I gave her a little prick… with this!” and then holds up a syringe.  Priceless.  It’s Burt though who gets the best line of the movie when he says, “We could get a black Trans Am… naw, it’s already been done.”

Burt Reynolds, Jack Weston, Tom Skerritt and Raquel Welch star as a ragtag group of Boston cops in this meandering action comedy based on Ed McBain’s 87^th Precinct novels.  Reynolds goes undercover as a bum to catch a duo of juvenile delinquents who get their kicks by setting homeless people on fire.  Meanwhile Skerritt is trying to figure out a way to stop a mad bomber known only as “The Deaf Man” (Yul Brynner) from blowing up several elected officials.  These plot threads inexplicably merge during the highly unlikely and poorly edited finale that relies heavily on not only incredible coincidence, but sheer stupidity as well. 

I really like Burt, Tom and Raquel, but since Fuzz is one of those ensemble MASH-style deals where characters come in and out of the story and the plot comes and goes as it pleases, none of them get a whole heck of a lot to do.  On top of that, none of the performers have any chemistry together during the ever-so-brief scenes they do spend with each other.  The ending is as sloppy as it is stupid and reeks of either sheer laziness or total incompetence, I’m not sure which.

Director Richard A. Colla’s credits are mostly limited to made-for-TV crap (he’s the man who directed the Brady Bunch expose, Growing Up Brady) so it’s understandable why so much of Fuzz is an unfocused mess.  I will say this for Colla, he does create an authentic blue collar atmosphere in the scenes that take place in the precinct house.  While these scenes work up to a point, it’s the parts where Burt and Tom are running around the city making an ass out of themselves that are totally pathetic.  The scene where Tom and Raquel got stuck in a sleeping bag together was good for a laugh though.

Speaking of Raquel, we do get to see her wearing a bra, but sadly we do not get to see Raquel au natural.

Sharky (Burt Reynolds) is a decorated narcotics detective who gets demoted down to the vice squad after a citizen accidentally gets shot during a botched bust.  Sharky quickly finds his way onto a case involving a $1,000 a night hooker named Dominoe (Rachel Ward) whose client is a shady senator (Earl Holliman).  He sets up a stakeout where he watches her apartment around the clock and while spying on her, Sharky inevitably falls in love with her.  Sharky then aims to protect Dominoe from both her slimy pimp AND a psychotic killer. 

Reynolds was also behind the camera for this hard-boiled crime drama based on the novel by William Diehl.  The film is overlong and moves at a deliberate pace but Reynolds is excellent.  Around this time he was doing all those Cannonball Run movies where he basically played himself, so this must have been a nice change of pace for him to have such a meaty role.  He’s great in the scenes where he’s watching Ward from afar and you can genuinely see him aching for her, especially when she’s bedding down other men. 

Ward is pretty good at the object of Sharky’s affection and Henry Silva is awesome as the heroin snorting killer with a serious grudge against prostitutes.  The supporting cast including Charles Durning, Brian Keith and Bernie Casey all hit their marks effectively and provide fine back-up for Burt.

After a promising start, things get deadly dull as soon as Burt starts romancing Rachel.  The scenes where Burt and Rachel watch kids playing are about as saccharine as you can get in a motion picture.  These scenes are at odds with the rest of the flick and stick out like a sore thumb. 

Speaking of painful appendages, there is one harrowing scene where a dirty cop cuts Sharky’s fingers off one by one that will have you squirming in your seats.  Burt even CRIES during it, which again just shows his acting chops even more.  Had the flick had a couple more scenes like this, one or two more shootouts and an extra random ass ninja attack, it might have been one of Burt’s best.  As it is, it’s close but no cigar.

Diehl also has a cameo as a pimp.

Burt Reynolds stars as Sonny Hooper, the best damn stuntman alive.  Hooper’s working on an Adam West spy movie and gets to do a bunch of insane stunts (like doing a freefall while holding a dog in his arms).  He also has to contend with an up and coming stuntman named Ski (Jan-Michael Vincent) who idolizes Hooper.  Eventually they become friends and together they concoct lots of crazier and crazier stunts, culminating in a rocket car jump over a blown up bridge. 

Reynolds and director Hal Needham both got their starts as stuntmen and Hooper is their love letter to them.  Needham paints a colorful picture of the stuntman’s hard-drinking, risk-taking, rough-and-tumble lifestyle and films the stunts themselves with panache.  There are car stunts, fire gags, and parachuting stunts galore, all of which are top notch.  The highlight comes during an awesome barroom brawl, which has to be one of the greatest ever filmed. 

Reynolds’ Good Ol’ Boy charisma keeps you entertained, even when things get all schmaltzy during the third act.  Hooper is a Reynolds vehicle through and through and it features him doing what he does best:  Driving fast cars and making smart ass wisecracks, so I could easily forgive the film for its lapses into melodrama.  Reynolds’ Smokey and the Bandit co-star, Sally Field gets the thankless role of Hooper’s concerned girlfriend.  The excellent supporting cast (which includes John Marley, James Best, Robert Klein, Terry Bradshaw and Robert Tessier) adds to the fun.

Needham, Reynolds and Field re-teamed two years later for Smokey and the Bandit 2.

Ah yes, Smokey and the Bandit.  One of the greatest films ever made.  One of those films that whenever it’s on TV, you just HAVE to watch it until the very end when Burt Reynolds puts the pedal to the metal and delivers four hundred cases of Coors to Big Enos.  This movie has everything you could possibly want.  Comedy, drama, exciting chase scenes, terrific stunts and some of the greatest performances you’ll ever see. 

The plot has The Bandit (Reynolds) and Snowman (the late, great Jerry Reed) taking a bet to transport a whole lot of beer across state lines in a ridiculously small amount of time.  Snowman hauls the beer in his 18 wheel rig while Bandit runs “blocker” in his badass black Trans Am.  Along the way, they pick up Frog (Sally Field) who happens to be running away from the persistent Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) and his dim-witted son Junior (Mike Henry), and end up being chased by every “County Mountie” in the state. 

I have an unabashed love for this movie.  When I was a kid, I used to spend summers with my aunt who fed me a steady diet of Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and Burt Reynolds movies.  Smokey and the Bandit was one of the earliest Burt films I was weaned on.  It’s far and away Burt’s best from his Golden Era and features some of the best acting he ever did.  Equally great is Reed as Snowman.  While Bandit is the flashier of the duo, Snowman is the soul and the scene where he gets revenge on a bunch of bikers who insulted his dog is a classic.  Reed also co-wrote and sings the theme song, “East Bound and Down”, which is not only one of the greatest country songs ever written, but one of the greatest SONGS ever written; period. 

As awesome as both Reynolds and Reed are, the movie really belongs to Gleason.  There was a reason why Orson Welles called him “The Great One”.  Damn, I can’t think of a single time he’s on screen in which he doesn’t say or do something that makes you laugh out loud.  Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello all had their great films, but none of them ever batted .1000, getting a laugh in every single scene they were in.  Gleason does it here and as a result, gets all of the movie’s best lines like “Bank robbing is baby shit compared to what this dude’s doing!”, “I’m going to barbecue your ass in molasses!”, “No one makes me look like a possum’s pecker!”, and “You pile of monkey nuts!”   But my favorite is when he scolds Junior and tells him:  “There is no way that you come from my loins.  When I get home, the first thing I’m going to punch your mama in the mouth!”

Two sequels followed but neither came close to matching this classic.  Director Hal Needham also teamed up with Reynolds for the Cannonball Run movies.

Burt Reynolds is back as good ol’ boy Gator McKlusky, a former moonshiner who is released from jail (again) to get the goods on a skeevy Southern fried racketeer (Jerry Reed) with a penchant for underage girls. 

Unlike its predecessor White Lightning, Gator actually features Reynolds sporting his trademark moustache.  I have a theory about Reynolds’ acting technique.  In the old days, whenever Burt didn’t have a moustache, he was “acting” (like in Deliverance); when he did, he let the moustache do all the work.  Gator is no exception. 

Burt does his usual shtick here except not as well since he was probably too busy with his directorial duties.  (This was his directing debut.)  He maybe slightly off his game in front of the camera but that still doesn’t stop him from making half-baked wisecracks like “You’re going to stick out like a bagel in a bucket of grits” and doing that little high pitched laugh of his every chance he gets.  Directing wise, well… Burt isn’t much of a director.  He doesn’t have any real cinematic style and lets scenes play out way too long without much consequence.  The pacing is also woefully bloated and the film is drawn out to a whopping 116 minutes. 

Gator has all the normal stuff you’d find in a Burt flick, just not as much of it.  There are motor boat chases through the swamps, people being thrown through plate glass windows, and lots of hot women (including Lauren Hutton).  The problem is that there is way too much slow paced plot stuff stuck in between.  At least there’s a great theme song by Jerry Reed that contains the awesome lyric “Everything’s okey dokey in the Okefenokee”.  It should be said that Reed gives an energetic performance as the thoroughly despicable villain and easily steals the movie from the sleepy-eyed Burt.

Talk show legend Mike Douglas also has a small role as the Governor who in the opening scene says, “Incompetent crap!” which should give you an idea of what to expect from the rest of the film.    

Reynolds and Reed teamed up the next year in the immortal Smokey and the Bandit.   

Burt Reynolds stars as Gator McKlusky, a good ol’ boy who is released early from prison to nail a bunch of moonshiners for Uncle Sam.  His real intention though is to get revenge on the crooked sheriff (Ned Beatty) who murdered his brother. 

Burt Reynolds’ patented good ol’ boy charm helps to carry this flick a long way.  Any Burt fan would be remiss not to catch him in a flick that features moonshine, fast cars, and a handful of decent stunts (like Burt jumping his car onto a garbage barge).  Reynolds’ personality is mostly in his moustache, which is unfortunate since he isn’t sporting his trademark flavor saver in this flick.  Luckily, he still has his original head of hair in this one (it’s stuck in comb-over mode) and gets a lot of chances to flash his pearly white smile and infectious laugh. 

Reynolds is aided by a colorful cast that includes Bo (Time Served) Hopkins, Diane (Wild at Heart) Ladd, and R.G. (Predator) Armstrong, all of whom lend fine support.  Director Joseph (Jaws the Revenge) Sergeant films the action scenes with panache but his pacing is far too lackadaisical to make White Lightning really cook. 

The short of it:  It’s no Stroker Ace, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Three years later, Reynolds returned in the sequel, Gator (which he also directed).    

Naturally Burt gets all the best lines like:  “You’re more fun than going to an all night dentist!”

AKA:  McClusky.

Burt Reynolds stars in this pokey paced oater as a half breed Indian who robs a bank to get enough cash to buy a cache of guns to fund an Indian uprising.  Jim Brown plays a black sheriff (years before Blazing Saddles made it fashionable) who heads down to Mexico to arrest him.  They end up being marked for death by the villainous railroad men played by Victor from Guiding Light, Fernando (“You look marvelous!”) Lamas and Dan (Robocop) O’Herlihy who want to wipe out the Indians and run the railroad through their land.  Reynolds eventually convinces Brown to join the revolution, much to the delight of the sexy mama Raquel Welch.

This has all the ingredients for a good western, but director Tom Gries stages the gun battles awkwardly, and drains them of any excitement they possibly may have had.  It doesn’t help when the capable cast isn’t given anything memorable to do either. 

Separately all three stars are great, but the problem is that they don’t have much chemistry with each other.  The much touted interracial love scene between Welch and Brown is kind of a fizzle as there are no sparks between the two.  Soledad (Vampiros Lesbos) Miranda has a brief, but saucy role as one of Reynolds’ conquests.  She seems more awake in this movie than anybody else in the movie and it’s a kind of shame she didn't have Raquel’s role.    

Gries later directed Helter Skelter.