It is perhaps worth noting that by the time Reagan rescued the country from Jimmy Carter’s economic death spiral, the screenwriters of 1980’s Smokey and the Bandit II had taken Carter’s massive inflation into account by raising the Bandit’s prize money from $80,000 to $400,000. “Taking the wheel” can be interpreted in both a literal and figurative sense. Smokey and the Bandit seems both an authentic and exuberant expression of how much taking the wheel means to Americans. It might not be a bad idea if the Carter administration also took a look, because the film is in touch with certain deep-felt national preferences. It will probably turn out to be one of the year’s most popular and profitable films, and the potential appeal should have been obvious, even from New York.
But what’s interesting about Arnold’s essay is how he goes beyond mere cinematic merit and expands his analysis into the realms of culture and politics:Īlthough it opened to indifferent reviews and business in New York two months ago, Smokey and the Bandit has already grossed close to $25 million in the South and Southwest. Given the movie’s success and the CB phenomenon, an article about the picture was a no-brainer. Along with Star Wars, Hal Needham’s film was dominating the domestic box office, especially at the drive-in theaters that were still fairly common in rural America.
Let’s return for a moment to the film critic Gary Arnold, who in the summer of 1977 penned a lengthy appreciation of Smokey for The Washington Post. And so it happens that light-footed entertainments like Smokey sometimes have lessons to teach, if only we can muster the wisdom to listen. Father Time has a sneaky way of giving even erstwhile pop-culture artifacts a rich patina of nostalgia and meaning. The passage of years highlights a film’s vintage regardless of pedigree or awards. A movie’s effect on the culture is often independent of intellectual considerations.