Editor’s Note: this essay was originally written for a class assignment while I was completing my History degree back in 2005.
In 1977, the most popular film of the year was Star Wars, George Lucas’ epic battle of good versus evil “in a galaxy far, far away” . It was spectacular, in scale and special effects, and was unlike any science fiction film seen before. But it was just an escapist fantasy film, timelessly relevant, and shares little about the time in which it was made. The second-highest grossing film of the year, Smokey and The Bandit, offers an excellent portrait of American culture of the late 1970’s.
Smokey and the Bandit is the story of two truck drivers who, on a dare, attempt to smuggle 400 cases of Coors beer from Texas to Georgia, using a Pontiac Trans Am to decoy police as they speed across the southern half of the United States. Along the way, they pick up a runaway bride from New York City determined to join them and a crude, stubborn Texan sheriff determined to catch them. It’s 1800 miles of wild car chases, crashes, and southern “good old boy” fun. There are several elements of the movie that represent the 1970’s well. Each is discussed separately below.
According to the Coors Brewing Company’s official website, 1975 was the height of popularity of their beer, and even President Gerald Ford often brought cases of Coors back to Washington on Air Force One . What was the appeal of Coors? It didn’t get nationwide distribution until 1991; prior to that, the beer was available only in states west of the Rocky Mountains. An article on Wikipedia.com attributes this regional distribution to a lack of refrigerated transportation options, because Coors beer is not pasteurized. In addition, availability of the beer was reduced by a nationwide boycott organized by the labor union AFL-CIO, which began in 1977 and continued into the 1980’s. Possibly exotic because of its limited availability, Coors is strongly sought after by those in Eastern states, and, according to the Coors Brewing Company, “many of them go to great lengths to experience what is known as the Coors mystique.”
While Americans seem to have a particular taste for things that are hard to get, they also have a fondness for all things western. In 1977, there were three hit television shows on the air with themes addressing the American West: “McCloud” (which ran from 1970-1977), “Little House On The Prairie” (1974-1982), and “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” (1977-1982). Between 1970 and 1976, nearly twenty western-themed films had hit U.S. theatres, including Jeremiah Johnson, High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Shootist.
BOOTLEGGING
The first scene in Smokey and the Bandit, following the opening credits montage, shows a trucker getting busted for hauling Coors east of Texas, which the police officer refers to as “bootlegging”, and tells the trucker that “Big and Little Enos Burdette will make that deal with any gearjammer they can.” In the following scene, Big and Little Enos Burdette (played by Pat McCormick and Paul Williams, respectively) offer truck driver Bo “Bandit” Darville (played by Burt Reynolds) $80,000 to bring 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas back to Georgia in less than 28 hours. This time restraint would require him to drive faster than the national speed limit.
Three years earlier, in 1974, President Richard Nixon established a nationwide maximum speed limit of 55 mph, requiring all 50 states to comply in order to maintain their eligibility for federal highway money. It was Nixon’s attempt to conserve energy during a national energy crisis, and his administration estimated that the 55mph mandate would save “nearly 200,000 barrels of fuel a day.” The energy crisis had begun with an oil embargo in 1973, but prices remained high throughout the 1970’s.
The 55 MPH speed limit, according to New York Times author Ben Franklin, “inspired a type of Prohibition-era conspiracy to flout the law.” A few months before Smokey and the Bandit was released, truckers across the country participated in a “National Slowdown”, intending to drive at 40 mph in protest of the law.
In the movie, Bandit recruits a trucker friend named “Snowman” (played by country singer Jerry Reed) to drive the truck full of beer. Knowing that they would be breaking both the national speed limit and anti-bootlegging laws in every state along the way, Bandit decides to drive separately in a “blocker” car.
The purpose of the blocker car is to decoy law enforcement attention away from the tractor trailer. He needs something fast, faster than any police car, and sharp and sexy enough to guarantee everyone’s undivided attention.
Director Hal Needham chose a brand new 1977 Pontiac Special Edition Trans Am, in black and gold, as Bandit’s blocker car. The car was immensely popular with American audiences, and Pontiac was making three times the number of Trans Am’s by 1978, following the film’s release, than they had been in 1975. This particular car is still known as the “Bandit” edition by many car enthusiasts.
In Smokey and the Bandit, Bandit and Snowman use CB (citizen’s band) radios to coordinate their efforts to thwart various law enforcement efforts to rein them in. Since the national speed limit had gone into effect, truckers across America had been using this very method to evade speed traps, and had created their own language full of codes and slang, which was designed to make communication incomprehensible to the general public. Whether despite this or because of it, the American public found a fascination with CB radios, and in 1976 alone, more than 12 million units were sold in the United States.
The CB language, which is well represented in the film, was quickly absorbed into the popular culture of the time. Parker Brothers released a children’s board game in 1976 called “10-4 Good Buddy”, in which children play a truck driver and collect cards with various CB phrases. By 1977, The “Official” CB Slanguage Dictionary was on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
CB radios were so popular with the public at the time that the FCC could not keep up with the nearly 400,000 license applications they received each month , and finally dropped the license requirement altogether. The same week that Smokey and the Bandit was released into theatres, New York State’s Governor Carey announced an initiative to provide free CB radios to 10,000 elderly New Yorkers “as a pilot project to help them protect themselves against crime”.
Smokey and the Bandit is basically a celebration of southern culture. All of the action takes place in the Deep South, between Georgia and eastern Texas. The primary characters are all “good old boys”, born and raised in the South. Although technically criminals, the Bandit and Snowman are seen as heroes, because they are proud Southerners fighting against federal, rather than state or local, laws.
This mindset is present throughout the history of the southern states, from their colonial days through their battle with the federal government in the American Civil War. Civil Rights legislation a decade earlier had prompted a re-examination of southern culture, forcing many in the South to find for themselves a new identity in a changing world.
Writer/Director Hal Needham adds the character of “Frog”, a young girl from New York City, along for the adventure to show Northerners that the South is still strong, proud, and unique. At one point, Frog and Bandit are comparing pop culture knowledge, and neither understands the references the other makes. “When you tell someone something,” Bandit explains to her, “It depends on where you’re standing as to exactly how dumb you are.” The moment serves as a reminder to Northern audiences that the South is still very much in possession of a unique culture.
Frog’s enthusiasm to take the “double or nothing” bet at the end of the movie indicates that perhaps, if they would let themselves experience it, Northerners would find much to enjoy in southern culture. And their decision to race from Georgia to Boston, Massachusetts may be indicative of the desire to spread southern culture through the North (whether the North is ready for it or not).
The 1970’s celebrated the freedom of the highway. Unlike the previous generation, which had looked down upon those who used the nation’s rail system to explore America, popular culture of the 1970’s seemed to embrace and idolize that vagabond spirit. The 1971 film Vanishing Point featured a similar story, as did Easy Rider (1969), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), The Sugarland Express (1974), Truck Stop Women (1974), The Great Smokey Roadblock (1976), The Gumball Rally (1976), Cannonball (1976), The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1977), Convoy (1978), and High-Ballin’ (1978). All of these films share a thematic element: the ability to find a measure of freedom by going fast on an open road.
Bandit and Snowman begin their adventure with little trouble, making it to Texarkana, Texas easily. But the closer they get to home, the more sophisticated the highway law enforcement becomes. Rather than one hapless Texas sheriff, they are soon confronted with several roadblocks, inter-jurisdictional cooperation between police departments, motorcycle pursuit, and finally even a helicopter. As the black Trans Am races beneath the police chopper, Frog asks Bandit if he counted on “all of this”, gesturing toward the police in the air, and toward the dozens of police cars chasing behind them. “No, honey, I surely didn’t” is his response to her, and for a moment, Bandit decides to surrender, that it simply isn’t possible to finish the run. The idea would have never occurred to him at the beginning of the film, but the police response gets more sophisticated as the film progresses.
In a parallel, the police in the real world were also getting more sophisticated. A month after the release of Smokey and the Bandit, New York announced that all of its highway patrol cars would be outfitted with radar guns , something that is now universal among highway law enforcement. The movie never really worries about radar – cops in the movie seem to be able to spot that sexy black Trans Am without the need for hi-tech electronics – but the mood near the end of the chase can be viewed as a metaphor for the increasingly sophisticated surveillance of America’s highways, and possibly the end of that sense of freedom the open road can bring.
Smokey and the Bandit certainly is not going to make anyone’s list of the best films ever made. It probably will never even be considered one of the best films from the 1970’s. But it is one of the better films about the 1970’s. The film taps into many popular cultural elements and current events of the era, and preserves for future audiences a small peek at a bygone era.
