It's primarily interested in just being a fun ride, which it pretty obviously succeeds at and audiences agreed, making it the second biggest box office winner of 1977 behind a little, independent film called Star Wars.Īnd both did seem to connect with audiences. However, Smokey and the Bandit isn't interested in being a metaphor for life in America for a lost soul, at least not primarily. As I've stated earlier, Convoy is dour and serious for long stretches, treating the whole thing like a drama that got edited down to nothing because producers took the film from Peckinpah in editing and tried to make something marketable out of it (I guess it worked, it sort of made money, more than Peckinpah's Junior Bonner did). The differences are really in just how they are presented. They both become heroes to the little guy, getting help along the way from random citizens in different ways. So, both major plots revolve around our central men leading a chase against a local, corrupt lawman through large sections of the country, each picking up a pretty girl along the way (Sally Field's Carrie in Smokey and Ali MacGraw's Melissa in Convoy), and the celebrity that they develop over the days of that chase. So when both Smokey and the Bandit and Convoy essentially have the same overarching plot, I see that as coincidence rather than mimicry. It's interesting how similar the two stories are, mostly because I don't really think that Peckinpah was the kind of guy to just swipe story elements whole hog from another, recent film. What did belief in the Man do for men like Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald or Bo "The Bandit" Darville? It created a Man who would sooner go after a guy just trying to make a living over anyone else. Whether that's a pair of local lawmen with axes to grind or a southwestern governor out looking for a way to turn an out of control situation to his own political advantage, it feels like the world against the individual. After a decade of what seemed like societal collapse to some while the late seventies started its process into malaise, there's a tangible desire to break off from the busyness of the world and be on one's own. Having worked with Duke on ten movies, I found him down-to-earth when one-on-one, interesting always and knowledgeable." These seem to be two film directors edging towards a more conventional view of America in the middle of vast social changes, and both Smokey and Convoy feel like men trying to find their ways in the world. Movies, politics, horses, and all kinds of adventures. Hal Needham, who directed Smokey, equated his own politics to John Wayne's saying, "We spoke the same language. Peckinpah described himself as a "1939 American" which implies a man dedicated to how America was structured and run before the vast expansion of powers that was World War II. However, being released in the late seventies, after Watergate, the race riots of the sixties, and in the middle of the malaise of the Carter administration, I find it hard not to read some level of politics into the film, and that largely has to do with a more conservative view of corrupt authority. Convoy's release usually marks the endpoint of it, not because it was a financial bomb (it was surprisingly well received at the time) but because it just ended up being so expensive because of Peckinpah's haphazard shooting methods that it helped turn the industry off of the effort. Smokey preceded Convoy by just over a year, and they were both part of this small subgenre of films dealing with truckers that came and went in the blink of an eye. One is serious, borderline unwatchable, and ungainly while the other is feather-light, fun, and carefree, and yet I still can't separate the two in my mind.īoth of these films came out during the seventies. It's the tale of a young man who picks up a pretty lady on the country's greatest beer run from Texarkana to Atlanta while a silly representation of corrupt law enforcement gives dogged but unsuccessful chase. Convoy is Sam Peckinpah, the man who made movies about the transformative power of violence, looking at contemporary America and seeing a country he no longer recognized, grinding down the little guy until there was nothing left. It's hard to imagine two more different films in terms of tone, though. There are obvious, on the surface, comparisons to be made about going cross-country in an eighteen-wheeler, but there's something thematic that connects the two. Watching the Burt Reynolds' starring vehicle Smokey and the Bandit again, I was struck by similarities between it and the Sam Peckinpah film Convoy. Smokey and the Bandit: American Statement on Authority Saturday Evening Movie Thread -Open Blogger
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