Over at Welcome To LA they’re having a Burt-A-Thon, which I recommend you check out immediately. Especially since today’s entry is devoted to giving the classic Smokey and the Bandit its full measure of respect. I’ve long felt that Smokey is among the finest of Reynold’s movies, far superior to say, Cannonball Run, in large part due to the presence of the Great One - a factor Welcome To LA emphasizes:

Reynolds gets his finest foil in Jackie Gleason’s Sheriff Buford T. Justice, the Coyote to Bandit’s Road Runner. According to Reynolds, Gleason wrote a lot of his part. He’s impossible to resist as he does his Jackie strut and stroll, with that lightfooted dancer’s touch and those delicate, hilarious movements of fingers and arms (watch the way he holds the CB speaker; it’s like he’s balancing a very dry martini.) He’s just as good when he boils over with indignation and screams “Sumbitch!” Needham comes up with great physical bits to surround Gleason, especially the police car that keeps losing pieces as he chases the Bandit for taking off with the would-be bride of Justice’s dimwitted son (played with a sweet, quiet befuddlement by Mike Henry.)”

Go on and read the rest.