[footsteps]
- I guess you're asking yourselves
why I came down those stairs,
walked across these boards,
ambled past these props,
these theater trunks
cluttered with memories of a thousand opening nights.
I guess you're asking yourself,
"What does that have to do
with tonight's show?"
Well, I'll tell you.
Nothing.
[country music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Baby girl ♪
♪ Got my eye on you ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Baby girl ♪
♪ Got my eye on you ♪
- My name's Hal Needham.
My face you will not recognize.
But I bet you've seen a lot of my work.
For 20 years, I've been a Hollywood stuntman.
♪ ♪
- ♪ It's not something ♪
- Not too bad, huh?
When a stuntman does that kind of driving,
he better have his act together,
because there's no room for error.
♪ ♪
But recently, I graduated.
I directed a movie.
And that movie starred a dear friend of mine,
my old roommate,
a good ol' boy that probably
you people are gonna recognize...
[snaps fingers] like that.
♪ ♪
- ♪ Baby girl ♪
♪ Got my eye on you ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
[tires squealing]
- Ladies and gentlemen, Burt Reynolds.
[dramatic music]
- Burt Reynolds.
The most exciting star on the screen today.
♪ ♪
- Burt Reynolds is Gator McKlusky.
Whether he's racing the law
or chasing the ladies.
[banjo music]
[dramatic music sting]
- Ah!
- Burt Reynolds, the quarterback
who will tackle anything.
- You saw Charlie Bronson. [laughter]
[sirens]
- Now you're Burt Reynolds' stuntman.
Where does Burt like to draw the line
as far as doing his own stunts are concerned?
- Well, actually, uh,
I've never seen Burt draw the line.
He'll do just damn near anything you want done.
The insurance companies draw a line sometimes,
and, um, but really and truly, he doesn't draw the line.
I've seen him do some things that, uh,
were just flat scary--I mean, there's no other way to put it.
[dramatic music]
- [heavy breathing]
[desolate music]
- What is the job of a stuntman?
- [laughs] The object of the stunt guy
is to come in and look as much as you can like the actor.
They'll dress you like him and fix your hair, whatever,
and whatever they want to do, whether it be a horse fall,
high fall, or who knows, a fight,
be able to do it as many times
as you can do it without getting hurt.
- In the old days, they would go out,
and they would shoot four or five days with all stuntmen.
No actors.
The wide shots were for stunt people.
[motor roaring]
And then they'd bring the actors out,
and they'd do the-- the tight shots,
and the medium shots.
- If you're the biggest actor in the world,
you want to have the best stuntman in the world
next to you-- why not?
[bullets ricocheting]
[country music]
- God damn, Pops, didn't tell me they were gonna shoot back!
♪ ♪
[geese honking]
- Burt trusted Hal and knew that Hal
was gonna do the stunts
that would really make him look good.
♪ ♪
[tires squealing]
♪ ♪
- Hall and Burt were guys who appeared
at a time in the '70s when anything could happen.
Burt was an actor with all
the accoutrements that an actor has.
And Hal Needham was a man of action.
- Ready. [cymbal crashes]
- I've seen a lot of actors
have good relationships with stuntmen,
but never like Hal and Burt did.
- That was the closest relationship I ever saw
in the picture business.
- But you don't want to get too close to an actor,
I don't believe.
And--just--you know,
you just--it's not gonna work out very good.
- Okay, Hal, how'd you meet Burt,
like on Smokey and, uh, and the Bear?
- "Smokey and the Bandit." - And the Bandit.
Was that something that he found as a property
and then looked for you
to complete the movie, or did you come first?
- No, I--I wrote "Smokey and the Bandit."
- Oh. I understand you directed this movie?
- Yeah. - This is kind of, uh,
an unusual case, isn't it, Hal?
I mean, I've heard of actors turning director.
I've heard of writers turning director,
but never a stuntman.
[dramatic music]
- I was doing a film with Burt
down in Georgia called "Gator."
That's the thread that put "Smokey" together.
- We spent a lot of time in the swamp, you know,
and I--I remember, everyone said,
"Weren't you scared in the swamp?"
Only, you know, Needham was from down there.
The rest of us were from other places.
He was, like, at home.
We had a lot of Coors beer
we'd brought down from Los Angeles,
because in those days, at the end of the work day,
everyone got a beer.
Needham and I were talking about how
the Coors kept disappearing from our mini-bars.
So we finally realized that our housekeepers
were helping themselves to our beer.
So we asked them, I said, "It's Coors beer, man.
You know? What are you doing?"
She said, "Well, I get like $20 a six-pack
for this beer down here 'cause you can't get it."
Hal and I looked at each other, and we said, "Well,
"maybe we should-- maybe we should make a movie
"about getting Coors beer, you know,
on the East Coast."
- At the time, I really had some doubts
whether this was even true or not.
In other words, I don't know how you
prohibit a beer company from shipping beer
from one geographical location to the other.
- Said, "Hey, let's just do a trucking movie
"with Coors and fast cars,
and let's see what we can come up with."
And at that time, the trucking industry was very romantic.
♪ ♪
Modern truckers, the last American cowboys.
♪ ♪
- He told me he was writing a screenplay.
Everybody said, "Nice pipe dream, Hal."
- In between shots, he'd be over in his room,
and he's scribbling down, and I said,
"What are you doing?" He said, "I'm writing a story!"
You know, and he told me a little about it,
and I thought, "Eh, okay, whatever," you know?
- He handed me this mash of, you know,
legal pad notes, and scenes, and characters,
and all this stuff.
- In fact, I think my mother
typed up the script for "Smokey and the Bandit."
♪ ♪
- We played with different names for the movie.
Probably called it "The Bandit"
at one point, or "Bandit."
- I want to do, hopefully, action-comedy.
I just want to throw something on the screen
that people can be entertained with,
and I think laughter's contagious,
and I think people enjoy action.
Not violence, action.
♪ ♪
- We were gonna sell it to a company called AIP,
which made small, exploitive genre movies.
That was its first incarnation.
We wanted to do something on our own.
♪ ♪
- Look out!
[gunfire]
[dramatic music]
- Hal Needham had made a living, you know, sort of
falling on his head for 20 or 30 years.
And, you know, he's a nice guy-- not a Rhodes scholar.
[trumpet music]
- Hal said to me, "I'm getting too old
to bury my head in the dirt anymore."
In the back of his mind, he always wanted to be
either a star or a director.
- Every stuntman, every second unit guy,
every cameraman, everybody-- you know the old joke,
everyone wants to be a director.
- He had the script that he had written,
and he took it to Universal Studios,
and said, "I want to direct this movie."
- People that ran the studios, he--you know, he--
"He's a stuntman. He can't direct a movie.
What are they talking about?" You know?
[sweeping orchestral music]
Unless you have that movie star,
that bankable movie star, that says,
"I want to be the Bandit,"
you're not gonna get it made.
♪ ♪
- They said, "It's a nice script.
Do you think you can get your roommate to star in this?"
- Hiya. How are you?
Big star. Big star. Me.
♪ ♪
[tires screeching] [laughing]
- Burt and I were on a show together, and, uh,
I came in one night, and I said, "You know, Burt,"
I said, "I got to find me an igloo, a teepee,
"or something to live in,
'cause I just got thrown out of the house."
And he said, "Hell, come on over--stay at my place
for a couple of days, I don't care."
- My father moved into Burt Reynolds' house.
He was gonna stay there for a week or two,
and I think he was there for like 11 years.
[laughing]
I mean, if you could-- if you can imagine
putting together a bachelor pad back then--it was--
it was...I think, of all the homes that Burt has had,
I--I think I liked that one the best.
- The first thing, I think that people
would see when they go in the bedroom
is, uh, the mirrors on the ceiling.
- They were both single, and, uh,
had a lot of girlfriends, and
a lot of fun.
- Bathroom is big,
and it too has mirrors, and tile.
And I happen to--tile is my second-favorite thing in life.
It just gives me joy, tile.
If I could spend the rest of my life
in a room, it would be tiled and mirrored.
The dining room is, uh, early Indian.
I mean, Indian kind of design.
Uh, I think it's kind of classy.
Third-favorite thing in my life is Indians.
If I could find an Indian with a mirror who did tile work,
I would probably be happy for the rest of my life.
- [laughing]
- I took the script home and gave it to Burt.
Burt looked at it and he said, "Hal," he said,
"that's the worst dialogue I've ever read in my life."
But he said the, uh, the overall concept was pretty good.
He said, "If you can take my name power,
"and go get the money and somebody that's fool enough
to let you direct it," says, "you can direct it."
[upbeat music]
- And Burt said, "You know, there's only one man in America
who can direct this movie, that's Hal Needham."
- ♪ Shake it, shake it ♪
all: We want Burt!
- Had Burt said, you know,
Adolf Hitler, I would have agreed.
Burt was a big movie star.
all: We want Burt: - Are you here to see Burt?
- Who else? Who else?
- What happened was there was so much goodness
in Burt Reynolds that he made people happy.
And that's a natural gift that he had.
- Burt Reynolds.
Tough. Sexy. Superstar.
- Is that a lot of pressure, Burt?
Being this kind of a sex symbol?
- He struck such a chord with the American public.
- We're so glad-- - I work alone.
[laughter]
- The humor, and the joy, and the honesty.
It was real, so he became
the number-one star in the world.
- ♪ Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, ♪
♪ Show 'em how we do it now ♪
♪ Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Show 'em how we do it now ♪
- Put one on the cheek. - Huh?
[crowd cheering]
♪ ♪
I just think I'm the best Burt Reynolds there is.
[laughter]
[serene music]
♪ ♪
- In a nutshell, can you tell me
what the story of "Smokey and the Bandit" is?
- [laughs] I couldn't tell you
what story is of "Smokey and the Bandit"
if you put a gun to my head.
- ♪ Thunder, thunder ♪
♪ Over Thunder Road ♪
♪ Thunder was his engine ♪
♪ And White Lightning was his load ♪
♪ Moonshine, moonshine ♪
♪ To quench the devil's thirst ♪
♪ The law, they never got him ♪
♪ 'Cause the devil got him first ♪
♪ ♪
- We had done two Burt Reynolds movies at United Artists:
picture called "Gator," and a picture called
"White Lightning," and, you know, it was,
you know, the same movie over and over again.
He was the good ol' boy,
slightly on the other side of the line
regarding law and order.
- Gator? Gator McKlusky?
- Uh... - Shirley.
- Shirley? How are you, darling? - Well, hi, there.
- I didn't want to play good ol' boys
for the rest of my life.
At the same time, I was offered a film
that had "Get the tuxedo out"
written all over it.
It was a career-changing part.
I said "No," and nobody could believe I said "no."
My agent couldn't believe it, and, uh...
It wasn't a question of money.
They were asking-- they were offering me
more money than Hal was,
but I promised Hal
that I'd do this film.
- I'm gonna give credit to my roommate.
I mean, he put his career, his--
everything on the line so that I could have
a shot a directing this.
- Candidly, I could not determine
whether Hal had the ability to direct a movie or not.
Universal reluctantly agreed to make the picture.
[funky music]
- If you're gonna do a bootlegging movie,
you need a blocker.
You got a truck driver and you got a--
a blocking car guy, you got two.
- I don't remember whether Burt, or Hal,
or both of them suggested Jerry Reed.
- Hello.
[grunts]
♪ ♪
[screaming]
- Jerry was a character.
- Hello, ladies.
- You know, and then you got to have a girl.
- Hi.
- Who are you?
- I wanted Sally Field, and they had a lot of, uh--
had a lot of people that were against that.
They kept saying, "She's not sexy."
And I said, "This nun
is dangerously sexy."
♪ ♪
- And then we had to have someone chasing 'em.
- My wish was, with the sheriff,
"Let's put somebody in this movie that doesn't belong."
- And I meant it just as incongruous as it could be.
First of all, I got a pencil moustache for a sheriff.
A Southern sheriff with a pencil moustache?
- When Hal left to do "Smokey and the Bandit,"
Hilton Green at Universal told Needham, he said,
"I hope you got your roller skates on,
'cause you can't do it."
They had no faith in Hal as a director.
- All the politics created
a tremendous amount of pressure on Hal.
He put his reputation on the line
to get "Smokey and the Bandit" done.
- My father, he didn't play the game.
He wasn't a Hollywood guy.
He was who he was.
He said, "If I didn't do 'Smokey and the Bandit,'
"I'd probably be picking up cans
on the side of the road for a living."
- We have some childhood photos of you,
and I thought maybe, Arnold,
see if you can recognize them.
all: Aww!
- I was a farm kid.
All I remember about that part of my life
was using a mule's backside as a compass
up and down some cotton rows in Arkansas.
[laid-back country music]
♪ ♪
- Was there any time at all for--for hobbies,
or anything that would-- - Hobbies?
- Kind of gives you pleasure or give you fun?
- Hobbies?
I can tell you've never seen a sharecropper.
Hey, listen: just getting food on the table,
staying warm in the winter time,
was a major accomplishment.
My childhood, man, you got to know,
being a sharecropper's son is the bottom of the totem pole.
There's nothing lower than that.
- I think he told me they had dirt for floors,
but he was just very smart for somebody
with a very limited education.
He told me one of his friends once said,
"I've never seen anybody do so much with so few tools."
[plane engine humming]
- I was in the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
But after about 2 1/2 years, I could see
that I got no credit
for my creativity or being a great soldier,
and I was a good soldier.
I said, "Got to be a better way.
I'm going west till my hat floats."
And next morning, I was in my car heading for California.
I never worked in a movie.
But I had all that experience.
I decided I was gonna be a stuntman.
When I got my first chance, I was ready.
I did a thing where I-- I'm in an airplane,
a guy's riding along on horseback,
and I dive out of the airplane--
or jumped out the airplane--
and knocked him off the horse-- it's called a "Bulldog."
♪ ♪
[gunshots]
They paid me a lot of money.
People said I couldn't do it 'cause I was too small,
too dumb.
I always had to prove otherwise.
- Hal Needham. [applause]
- We had 30 days to make a great movie.
[country music]
- The film commission has been very aggressive
in terms of luring not only us,
but a lot of film companies here.
It's--it's very helpful.
They've closed highways for us, they've, um--
tearing out part of an old bridge for us
that we're gonna throw a car across.
It's just terrific.
- Mark. - Hold all the noise.
All the talk, everything. Quiet.
- The entire picture was shot 16, 17 miles
away from the center of downtown Atlanta.
In the motion picture business, you put up a sign
that says "Entering Mississippi,"
and you're entering Mississippi.
But with respect and affection for Hal,
this was as new to him, really, as it was to me.
When we went to work the first morning,
you know, I got up, sort of stood around,
waiting for things to happen.
You know, the production manager asked me
what we should do, and I didn't have a--
you know, a clue.
- And I remember, the first day,
Hal and I pull up to the location.
Sitting under a tree in a director's chair,
with his Fleetwood stretch
gold limo next to him
was Jackie Gleason.
And Jackie was sitting in this director's chair,
wearing a black Gucci leisure suit
with a red carnation.
And no one was there.
Was the first person on the set.
Nobody else!
- Was directing anything at all
like you thought it was going to be?
- Well, I had no fear going in.
I mean, we're not doing "Gone with the Wind"
or "Fiddler on the Roof."
It's action comedy.
Just light it for the color, and let's shoot it.
Speed, speed, speed.
- In a big movie, you may do three pages a day.
Hal would shoot 16 pages a day.
We did things that were insane,
right on the edge of insanity.
- Hal Needham directing Burt, uh,
this was a brand-new process, you know, for them.
- I think he just wanted Burt to be Burt.
- I--I had no qualms about going in there
and saying "Action."
- Yeah.
- Oh, my God.
- And, well, and...
- You walk on a set, and there's the Panavision camera,
and all the lights, and there's Burt Reynolds.
- Old legends never die,
they just lose weight.
- A legend and an out-of-work bum look a lot alike, Daddy.
You go, "Oh, my God, how did I--
how did I wind up here?"
- [laughing]
Now, getting to Texarkana and back,
in 28 hours, that's no problem.
- It ain't never been done before--[horn honks].
- Watch your language, little lady.
The problem is that Coors beer,
you take that east of Texas, and that's, uh,
that's bootlegging.
There was a lot of things about the South
that I was embarrassed about,
but there were also things about the South
that were wonderful.
I had hoped to make
something out of that
in a way that nobody'd seen.
Nobody thinks of Florida as being South,
but if we had enough time on this show,
I could take you places where you'd realize
that this is the South.
I wanted to make it so bad when I was growing up here.
I mean, I really wanted to make it bad.
But great, great memories.
Really great memories.
My dad is a cowboy.
He's tough, and leathery,
and the most honest man
I've ever known in my life.
- We had our little off and ons,
but he was a-- a normal kid.
He got in just as much trouble as anyone else.
- He put me in jail one night for getting in a fight.
I remember he came in, and he says, uh,
"You kids, uh, your father's here.
"You can go home now.
Your father's here, you can go home now,"
and he looked at me, he says,
"Your father ain't here."
So I stayed there all night.
There's a saying in the South, that
"No man is a man
until his father tells him he is."
- I think his dad expected a lot out of him.
He was kind of the golden boy in football,
and it looked like he was gonna have a great
pro career and college career.
[crowd cheering]
- He got tore up in his senior year in high school,
tore the cartilage out of both sides of both knees.
- Well, he was sort of lost.
He--all he'd ever done is play football.
I was getting ready to cast and direct the play,
"Outward Bound."
And Burt sat in the front row in my English literature class,
and he looked like the guy that I wanted
for the role of the alcoholic.
- And I said, "You're out of your bird."
You know, and I said,
"I've never been in a play in my life."
I somehow went to that room,
and walked in there, and he looked at me,
and he said, "Read."
And I opened the book and went "The--"
and he said, "That's it. You've got the part."
- I saw something in Burt.
I--I saw the spark.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[fanciful music]
- I hated "Riverboat." I hated doing it.
I had this character I called "Dum-Dum the Whistleblower."
You know...[imitating horn].
Connie, cut it to half-speed.
- Aye, sir. Half speed!
- They would bring in the stuntmen.
They were the men. We were the boys.
- [screaming]
- The stars always migrated
to the stunt guys.
They saw some realness.
There was no acting.
- They were the jocks, and, uh--
and that's what I'd been.
[upbeat music]
- Burt was very capable.
He could do it all.
But you can't do it all.
You got to have a--you got to-- you need a double.
- Over at Universal, they just hired me
to come in and double somebody.
They say, "Yeah, here's your outfit."
I said, "Who am I doubling?" They said, "Go down
"to the set and find somebody dressed like you,
and that's who you're doubling."
And I got down there, and it was Burt.
♪ ♪
- Hal came in to do a stunt,
and he was gonna be doubling me,
and I thought, "Hell, I can do that."
♪ ♪
[horse whinnies]
♪ ♪
[shouting]
♪ ♪
He said, "You could be really handy."
"Handy" is a super compliment for a stuntman.
He always said, "Actors are candy-asses.
I don't want to be an actor."
[glass shattering]
- I always felt that Burt
kind of wanted to be doing what Hal was doing.
- You come out to my place on Saturday and Sunday,
and there'd be 18, 20 stuntmen out there practicing.
- Most people are in less than top physical condition.
The first and foremost for every stuntman
is a good warm-up, as it should be for you.
- Medic! Medic! Medic!
- Yeah, they were the pirates.
Running around, having a good time.
[groove music]
When I first saw that group, it reminded me
of Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall gang.
And we were kind of all the Hole in the Wall gang.
♪ ♪
There's a great line in that movie.
Butch says, you know, "Listen, I got vision.
Everyone else is wearing bifocals."
Hal Needham was the-- the Butch Cassidy character.
♪ ♪
- Hal was--he was an innovator. You know?
I never seen him back off from nothing.
- They'd say, "We want you to get in this car,
"go down and turn it over at 90 miles an hour,
"blow it up, come out on fire,
run across the street, and die."
I'd say, "Okay."
- He more or less got a group of guys together
that could do anything.
- We just started our own organization
called Stunts Unlimited.
- Right when we started Stunts Unlimited,
and we had an office on the lot at Paramount.
Paramount didn't even know we had an office there.
- Three or four years, we were the biggest,
best-known organization in the world.
♪ ♪
- Got up in the-- early in the morning,
and went to the set,
went through wardrobe, makeup, hair,
got a burrito, jumped on your horse,
went to work-- it was just the best.
And then at night, you get back to the hotel,
you stop in the bar, you have a couple of belts,
have a couple more and say, "Let's go, men."
Off to the 17 Bar and Grill.
Close it down.
We would come in, the wranglers would be
going to work to get the horses ready for us.
We'd grab a shower and go to work.
It was--it was mad.
And Hal really had a rule
that you didn't bring your wives on location
because of that.
It would cause problems, you know?
Well, we went through a lot of wives.
♪ ♪
- What do you two do in the movie?
- Well, we're sitting-- we drink a lot
of champagne in the movie.
We're sitting at a table, and
just, uh, more or less
talking with Pat McCormick and Paul Williams.
And then Burt Reynolds walks up to the scene.
- Has Burt tried to put the make on you?
- No. We wish, but not. [laughter]
- No, we're more-- we're more or less hoping
that he'll let us put the make on him.
♪ ♪
- Watch out! Everybody clear.
- What you just saw was a scene from the new Burt Reynolds movie
"Smokey and the Bandit," being filmed here at
Lakewood Fairgrounds in Atlanta.
- Pontiac division at General Motors gave us
four sedans that we used as police cars,
and they gave us two Trans Ams, and that was it.
[engine roaring]
- O-o-kay!
- By the second week of the picture,
both the Trans Ams had been destroyed
and we had to go back and beg to get a couple more.
- Beautiful, huh? - Honey, hush.
[laughter]
- Jerry Reed went, "Honey, hush."
['70s rock music]
♪ ♪
The way that he said it, it was
the greatest-looking gal you'd ever seen.
♪ ♪
- I love it, I love it!
I mean, I really get a kick
out of driving a Firebird.
♪ ♪
- There seems to be a thing about that bloody Trans Am.
As a symbol of your getaway steed.
The male animal, it is the wannabe warrior
who's now working at a factory somewhere
connected with that character, that car.
Maybe it's the element of escape.
I mean, it's an escapist movie,
but it's a movie about escape.
That was a great answer.
- What about all the nutty stunts in cars?
Have you ever had a-- a really far-out car run?
- Oh, yeah. I mean...
First of all, see, I love cars.
I mean, I can make a car talk.
Slide it sideways, spin it completely around,
360 degrees, do all those things with it,
and know exactly where that car is at.
- Why do you drive like that, Hal?
- Why do I drive like that?
Well, there's a couple reasons.
Number one's money, and the second one is, uh,
we're making a movie.
- Fast cars, that was dangerous stuff.
Whether we were jumping a boat,
or jumping a car, or jumping a horse, it was all the--
it all stemmed from
the basics of stunt work, it was all started
with the horse and the fight.
[country rock music]
- Whoo!
♪ ♪
- I believe personally that, uh,
when you work with animals, you stand a better chance
of, uh, of getting somebody hurt
than you do with automobiles, 'cause the automobile
doesn't care about the explosions or the bullet hits
or the whatever it is--
it'll go wherever you steer it,
and it'll only go as fast
as you mash the accelerator.
♪ ♪
- It's like the Westerns just slowly faded out,
and here come all the car pictures.
- Okay, fearless, let me ask you this:
has there ever been a stunt that somebody wanted to do
in a movie that you said, flat-out, "No."
- [chuckles] I've never turned down a stunt.
I said, "If--if you can put a man on the moon,
you can damn sure figure out a way to do a stunt."
- Couple of times, Hal did get in over his head.
There was a stunt where I should have said something,
but I thought, "Well, wait a minute.
He's Hal Needham. Keep your mouth shut."
- When you're doubling a leading man,
you want to make him look like a hero.
[engines roaring]
- "White Lightning," there's a scene where
Burt Reynolds' character, being doubled by Hal Needham,
is trying to escape police officers,
where he sees a big old sand barge pulling out
into the middle of the river.
So he turns the car sideways, and then goes
down the dock and jumps the car.
Think it was probably 70, 80 feet across to the barge.
Even though he was banged up pretty good,
he got out of the car and continued to play the part.
And after we cut, and he fell down--
[laughing]
But he always finished the shot.
- Well, I'll be damned.
- Busted his spleen.
Damn near died.
- You know, stuntmen, you know, [laughing],
you can get hurt right there, and they just
haul you off and keep shooting.
But the actor goes down, you're done.
- We were shooting "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing."
He had a hernia down in the bottom of this canyon.
It was 200 feet up.
They couldn't even get a chopper in there.
So I turned to Burt and I said, "Tell you what, son,"
I said, "If you can hold on to my back,
"they throw that rope down here,
I can carry you out of here."
So I carried him up the hillside on my back.
We got to the top, they had a chopper,
which they threw him in, and they forgot to get me out,
laying on the ground all out of breath.
You know...[laughing].
That's just a shot of Burt and I
down at his ranch in Florida.
It says, "To the best roomie
"a guy could ask for, and a helluva man.
Love, Burt."
- We had this kind of crazy schedule,
that I used to wake up in the morning,
and would be stumbling down the hall,
and there'd be a note on the bathroom door that said,
"The place is yours,
"but I need it for the next three days.
Hope you don't mind. Love, Roomie."
And that meant I got out, and I did.
- I don't know that I fell in love instantly,
but I sure did like the guy.
My first date with Hal was at his house
with Burt and Dinah Shore.
[laughing]
It was an interesting time.
- Burt and Dinah were lovers.
She was a cougar at the time, I guess.
- I'd like to make it eminently clear
that there are many areas in which
Hal does not double Burt.
Okay?
[laughter and applause]
- I want to know something:
he and I started almost simultaneous.
What happened?
I mean, I'm better looking than he is.
I'm more talented. What? What?
- It--I'll explain it to you. - Okay.
I wish somebody would. - Yeah.
It--it's very simple.
You don't have any problems. - Okay.
- Because you're a real choreographer.
I mean, those fights are staged...
- I tell you what, I don't care who it is.
I always say the biggest thing about a man is his ego.
And I'm no different than anybody else.
- All right. - Ready?
- Hal wanted to be a star.
I think, secretly, he would have
liked to be Burt Reynolds.
- Ah! - On the other hand, I think
Burt wanted to be Hal Needham,
but knew that his bread was gonna be buttered
on the movie star side.
[applause]
[laughter]
[country music]
♪ ♪
[cheering]
- For a little PR, we put an ad in the paper that,
"Burt Reynolds is gonna be the judge
"of a dog show to pick a dog
to be in the movie" and everything.
[dog barking]
The next day, there was not
a dog in the dog pound.
We was in a park, and it was just a sea of dogs out there.
Burt said, "That's your dog,"
and that's how it got in the movie.
- Now Bo, I'm telling you,
Fred ain't gonna be a problem.
- I can see he's gonna be a major asset.
- [laughing]
[laughter]
- Jerry Reed hit it off with everybody.
And on the set, he had his band there.
Hal and I were invited up to his suite,
and they played this little song called "Eastbound and Down,"
and asking Hal, "Do you like it? What do you think of it?"
Ha ha, it was fabulous!
And it's the-- it's the song in the movie.
- A-one, two, three, go.
Breaker, breaker, one-nine?
How bout that Bandit? You got them ears on, son?
♪ ♪
♪ Eastbound and down ♪
♪ Load it up and truck it ♪
Break for that Bandit one, break for that Bandit one.
- Yeah, Snowman. Come on back.
- ♪ Long way to go and a short time to get there ♪
♪ I'm eastbound, just watch ol' Bandit run ♪
- This is Sheriff Buford T. Justice again.
I lost that Trans Am! Set up a road block!
- Good idea.
- ♪ The boys are thirsty in Atlanta ♪
- Bandit, this here's the Grave Robber.
Put the pedal to the metal, good buddy.
And we'll hold this county mountie as long as we can.
Come on.
- Bandit, honey, this is
the Good Witch of the North speaking.
You'd better not come this way.
- ♪ Eastbound, just watch ol' Bandit run ♪
♪ ♪
[horn blaring]
- This is the Bandit, darling.
- And how can I help? Bring it back.
♪ ♪
- I knew the music before I knew the man,
and the music got to me.
I got that all worked out.
This Bandit character loved Jerry Reed.
We have a relationship that's very similar,
in some ways, to me and Hal.
He was crazy, but crazy good.
- ♪ Well, ol' Smokey's got them ears on ♪
♪ He's hot on your trail ♪
♪ And he ain't going to rest ♪
♪ Till you're in jail ♪
♪ So you got to dodge him, you got to duck him ♪
♪ You got to keep that diesel truckin' ♪
♪ Just put that hammer down and give it hell ♪
- What is a good ol' boy?
Someone that you really like hanging out with,
and you can trust.
Doesn't take life too seriously,
but always gets the job done.
Not a lot of angst in the good ol' boy,
put it that way.
- I suppose a lot of people say that
people become actors because they're unhappy with themselves,
and they get to hide in somebody else's skin.
But that's not true-- people become actors, I think,
because we're people pleasers.
And, uh, the only thrill for us, really,
is your getting some enjoyment from what we do.
Oh, my God!
[laughter]
I'd like to be considered somebody
who paid their dues and is a good actor.
I think that there's a school of acting, which,
I'm a great believer in this particular school of acting,
which is called "Effortless."
And it--and I worked 20 years
to learn how to make it look easy.
Quite honestly, it's very easy
to do what I call "The Constipated School of Acting."
Which is where you let every vein show in the neck,
and you just, you know, go for it with every take.
And everybody says, "What a brilliant actor he is."
Well, he gets an Oscar and Preparation H,
and I get a smile.
[laughter]
- That's an actor?
- Well, he was brilliant in "Streetcar Named Desire."
- "Streetcar Named Desire?"
What was he, a conductor?
- That was the time when
everybody wanted to be Marlon Brando.
- And who were you?
- I didn't know who the hell I was.
- Question, Rocky? - Yeah, I mean, what is my, uh,
tertiary motivation here?
I mean, like, I walk through the door,
and, uh, I see her.
Why?
- Why what, Rocky? What's the question?
- Exactly. What is the question?
I wanted to play the rebel.
The kind of label they'd given me at the studio.
- Said, "Jesus Christ, he looks like Brando."
- When I first went to Hollywood,
everybody wanted me to meet Marlon,
and I'd heard so many Marlon Brando stories.
There's a coffee house on the strip called Cyrano's,
and at the time, it was the in place,
where all--everybody went
to see or be seen.
We walked in--immediately, there was a director
named Hubert Cornfield who ran over to me
and grabbed me and said, "He's here!"
And I--you know, I, uh-- I said, "He is?"
And he said, "Come on!"
And he was pulling me by the shirt, and we came around,
and we stopped in front of a table.
And I suddenly realized it was Marlon.
And Marlon--everybody was looking at me except Marlon.
Marlon was looking...
right about there.
And, uh, Hubert Cornfield said,
"Marlon, isn't this fantastic?"
And, like a dummy, I was going...
like this.
'Cause I thought, you know,
I've been brought over to be introduced.
But he never looked up, he just went,
"Mm."
And I still had my hand out.
And there was deathly silence in the place.
And I suddenly-- I had the urge to kill.
I mean, to reach across and kill.
And I want to be me--who the hell does he think he is?
- Burt had that thing that you have to have
to become a leading man.
He could go after you.
If he lost it, and I've seen him lose it with some people,
so, you know, he'd-- you couldn't [...] around
with Burt too much.
- I want to go on killing white men.
- [speaking native language]
- He says you will have to prove yourself.
- I'll prove myself. Just give me a chance.
- Burt wanted to be a star.
And I think he'd have done most anything.
[speaking native language]
- Sometimes you learn more from a bad film
than you do from a good film.
In that case, I should be a very good actor.
[laughing]
- ♪ Navajo Joe, Navajo Joe ♪
♪ ♪
- ♪ Navajo Joe, Navajo Joe ♪
- ♪ Navajo Joe ♪
♪ Navajo Joe ♪
[horse whinnies]
- ♪ Navajo Joe, Navajo Joe ♪
[grunting]
- I got a lot of parts
because they didn't have to hire a stuntman, you know?
They'd say, "Get that guy, he falls down the stairs
and he talks okay," you know?
So I--I fell down the stairs and talked.
As the years went by, I-- I fell less and talked more.
Thought you were an authority
on architecture.
I didn't know your hobby was boating!
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Ah!
♪ ♪
[snake hissing]
- I think I've probably chosen worse
than any actor in the history of films.
[speaking native language]
- Some films, I said "What's the location?"
And they said, "Tahiti."
And I said, "I'll take that picture."
[mellow music]
♪ ♪
I did, uh, "Deliverance,"
which was my deliverance out of bad films, I thought.
[heavy breathing]
Sometimes you have to lose yourself
before you can find anything.
- Any snakes around here?
- I think Georgia is kind of a good-luck charm for you.
Do you look on it as a real good place to make films?
- I'd like to shoot 4 out of 5 pictures here,
which really wouldn't-- wouldn't sit too well
with a lot of people who want to do desert movies.
"Deliverance" was kind of like coming home, you know?
Changed everything for me.
I had never done a part that good.
Because I understand this guy.
Yee-hoo! Whoo!
And I--I could play him.
We got to get rid of that guy!
- How you gonna do that, Lewis?
Where?
- Anywhere.
Everywhere.
I asked the director, John Boorman,
what parts he'd seen me play
that would make me right for this picture,
and he said, "I didn't see you in a part.
But I saw you on 'The Tonight Show.'"
[applause]
- Heyo!
- Hello. - So nice.
You look so sharp. - Thank you.
- You're dressy. - I was just pressed.
The just pressed me. - The whole thing?
Do you get into your clothes? - Pressed my entire body.
- Burt Reynolds was the catch on a talk show.
Everybody liked to be around Burt.
- It's nice to see you. You--you haven't changed a bit.
- Oh, yeah. [laughter]
- Listen, "Deliverance" is a really--
it's from a novel, it's quite serious.
It's all-- got rape and murder in it,
and all those things.
You know, and here you are,
cavorting like a jackass.
[laughter]
Not being a jackass, just cavorting like one.
- Hmm.
I gambled. I really gambled.
I mean, "Deliverance" was B.C.--
"Before 'Cosmo.'"
[funky music]
♪ ♪
The gamble was, would I ever be considered
a serious actor after that?
Would--when I died, on my tombstone,
would they say, "His contribution to the world
was he was the first male nude centerfold"?
- ♪ Ooh, get it ♪
♪ Get it from the front now ♪
♪ Get it ♪
♪ Get it from the back now ♪
♪ Get it, get it from the side ♪
♪ Get it, get it all around ♪
- What's it like to be pastor of a man
who posed nude in "Cosmopolitan"?
This is what we Baptists call "A problem."
I don't know--I didn't tell him to take his clothes off.
And I-- I wish he hadn't done it.
But, uh, at the same time, he did it.
He's free, and I'm free.
I feel free to wear my clothes,
and he feels free to take his off.
♪ ♪
- Posing catapulted Burt Reynolds to household name.
He became, then, the guy.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- That's literally true.
[applause]
♪ ♪
[crowd shouting]
- How many people like him with the moustache...
[cheering]
And then without the moustache, like so?
[cheering]
- This is a hell of a time to tell me.
- Yeah, I think you should stick with the moustache, Burt.
Definitely stick with it.
- The "Cosmopolitan" came out
30 days before "Deliverance."
It was very difficult for
98% of the film critics
to disassociate this character who, you know,
laid down on a bear rug like an idiot,
you know, and did this strange thing,
with an actor who took his craft seriously
and took the film business seriously.
And a lot of people who
I trust their instincts felt that
it might have cost me a nomination that year.
- It was a bad choice 'cause it trivialized him.
And I know he was sorry, but-- and I was unhappy
to see it myself.
He didn't need it.
Most serious actors don't do that.
A clown would do it.
- In fact, a lot of people never forgave me for that.
I'm one of them, actually.
[country music]
♪ ♪
- What now do you look for? What does a role have to have
for you to-- to really consider it?
- Well, I'm looking now for humor,
because I happen to think that,
of my contemporaries, I have to look around and say,
"Who--what's the competition?"
I can't stand in a doorway better than Paul Newman.
And I can't have blonder hair than Robert Redford.
But I can do comedy better than either one of them.
I can eat 'em up.
- You know--hold it!
Just--the beer! Watch the beer!
[crashing]
[screaming]
- You all right? - Very funny! Very funny!
- I thought it was funny.
- To move people to laugh
is extremely difficult,
crossing a lot of different cultures.
And there's no question-- you ask anyone,
anyone who's in the creative end of this business,
and they will always tell you:
you take a guy like Jackie Gleason...
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- There wasn't any script for me, believe me.
I never had a line of dialogue written.
The director would stick his head in the window of the car
and say, "Now, we have to go up to the thing,
and you'll see him there-- what do you want to say?"
And I'd think for a second and I'd say,
"How about something?" He says, "Great.
Okay, let's go."
Good [...]! [horn blaring]
[crashing]
I got the evidence!
Put the evidence in the car.
- But--but Daddy-- - You--
- But-- - Put the evidence in the car!
I'm gonna barbecue
your ass in molasses!
- I am not going to attempt to give any messages
to the people out there. - Yes.
- I can do two things and I think I do 'em extremely well.
Action, I know I do well,
and my comedy isn't too bad, all right?
- So, you do three things. - What's that?
- You just sit there and look good, that's the third.
- Oh, you sweet thing, from now on,
you can say anything you want to.
- Let's play tag. Tag, you're it! [laughing]
[mercurial music]
- Tag?
- I was 11 years old when I saw my first movie.
- What was it? - It was called, uh,
"Pop Goes the Weasel," and I mean,
this is way back, okay?
To me, I was amazed.
[dinging]
Now, I relate today to what I thought then, all right?
And I said, "Hell, that's what I wanted to see,"
and I believe that's what people want to see today.
[playful music]
[deep breaths]
♪ ♪
- Oh!
- I will never win an Academy Award,
but I'm going to be very rich, so--
and I think I put out, uh, entertaining films,
and I think that's what it's all about.
- What happened, Daddy?
- Both Hal and I realized that this was gold,
and neither of us wanted to touch it.
- I had never had a scene with Burt Reynolds.
I had to sit down and write one.
That was the scene in the lunch room.
Just keep your eye out
for that Mr. Bandit!
[country music playing]
Let me have a diablo sandwich,
a Dr. Pepper, and make it fast.
I'm in a [...] damn hurry.
- In the original screenplay, there were maybe
six or seven scenes where the two of them
were together.
We shot that scene in the restaurant
where Burt knows who Jackie is,
Jackie doesn't know who Burt is.
- You must be in a hell of a hurry, huh, Sheriff?
- Bet your ass on that, boy.
- Oh, you got a little mess there.
- Hmm? - Let me--
let me help you out here.
Get that off of there. That's--
- Yeah. Much obliged.
- When we finished that scene,
Burt came to Hal and me,
said "I'm not gonna work with Jackie anymore."
- Somebody chasing you? - Nobody chasing me, boy.
I been chasing a [...] damn maniac!
♪ ♪
- And, of course, I had no idea what this was about,
but we started rewriting.
♪ ♪
Did Burt feel that Jackie was
upstaging him? Stealing from him?
I--you know, I really don't know.
- Do you feel that you're in competition to Burt Reynolds?
- Oh, no, no, no. He plays comedy.
I'm in the lead in this. - Let me pay for it.
Let me pay for it. - Oh, no.
- No, no, you're an officer of the law.
I'd--I'd be honored. - Well, much obliged.
Where's the can? I got to take a squirt.
- Oh, right back there. I just went, so--
- I think that Burt could be
a very great comedian.
He'll look at you and say something,
and then he gives you the attitude
that he's saying, "Who, me?"
And that's a great, uh, quality
for someone who wants to do comedy.
I believe he could be a great comedian.
♪ ♪
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- Every time you make a film, it's a battle.
Hal, he always had a plan.
He was always willing to take that chance
to do something special and different.
- Oh.
- Well, I--
- Alan was doubling Burt.
Looks like Burt when he's riding in the car.
And Janet Brady looked exactly like Sally,
and has continued to double her.
She could do the fights, she could do the falls,
but her specialty was cars, no question about it.
[tires squealing]
She and Alan Gibbs met.
They decide to get married.
[laughing]
And they get married during the filming
of "Smokey and the Bandit."
And Hal gives Janet away
as--as the "Father" of the bride.
- Is it true that there was nearly an accident
shooting the scene where the car
crashes onto the football field?
- Oh, boy. There sure was.
[engine roaring]
- Ah!
[somber music]
♪ ♪
We got shots that didn't go in the film
because they were so scary.
♪ ♪
- When the car jumped, and I saw everybody
start running out of the dugout,
I saw one guy just stand straight up
and the car just hit the dugout.
♪ ♪
- Couple of kids got hit.
Fortunately, no one got hurt badly,
but, you know, there were
one or two kids in the hospital.
♪ ♪
- When the car hit, two things happened: number one was,
I was not aware that we had watered this last night,
or that they had watered it.
And even though we put on Pirelli tires
to try to compensate for it,
um, we just couldn't get stopped.
That's all there is to it.
And I just thank God that one of my stuntmen
had enough sense in her to--
and the stunt girl both--
to turn that car and, uh,
get it outside of these people.
- I said, "We're gonna hurt somebody bad.
I--I want this stopped now."
You know, you can do anything in the world
on a movie, but you can't stop.
- The absolute decision is mine,
because, I mean, I am the boss in that case,
because it's my tuchus that's on the line,
and nobody can tell me how I want to risk it.
- Did you do the actual driving in "Smokey and the Bandit"?
- I did all the driving except the jump over the bridge.
Uh, I was under a tree then, hiding my face.
[laughter]
- When people go to a movie,
they get--they get engrossed with the character,
the lead character and everything.
They don't think about a stuntman,
and I don't think they should.
But when an actor's confronted
on national television or something,
seems to me like he should have enough huevos
to say, "No, I didn't do that."
- Most actors can't do their own stuff.
Actor went on Johnny Carson-- "Oh, yeah.
I did all of my own stunts," and we--we didn't care.
We didn't want any recognition.
It was all about working, and making money,
and going to the next show and the next deal.
- The stunt community was kind of a cloak and dagger thing.
I mean, there was no publicity. There was nothing.
The public didn't know what a stunt guy was.
- Ironically, it was Hal
that let the cat out of the bag.
[clattering]
- Hi there, David. How are you? - Nice of you to drop in, Hal.
- Thank you very much. - You okay?
- Oh, I'm fine.
- Nobody had a bigger shadow
than Burt Reynolds.
And my father was really
more than ready to step out from behind it.
- When Hal first met me, he said,
"This is the guy that's gonna make me a star?
Let's get this thing rolling."
My assignment was to make Hal a household name.
And wow, how do you do that?
- Next, you'll see Hal Needham.
Hal is wearing an awning-striped kaftan.
- I'm not crazy about that.
- Oh, I think it looks great on him, though.
It's got a hood so he can cover all up in it.
- I think he realized that
acting wasn't his forte,
but certainly, stunts were.
- It's good weather for flying.
But Hal Needham doesn't have a plane.
What he does have is a truck.
The distance between the ramps
comparable to a 12-story building
laid on its side.
How are you gonna do that, Hal?
- Well, I'm gonna stick a rocket in the back end,
and jump the river.
- I spent all day, every day, looking for ways
to get Hal in front of anybody you could, any time.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- To me, I remember it 'cause I broke my back.
For the second time.
- I can remember him breaking his back
and ribs and getting out of the hospital
and getting on an airplane and going down
to do another movie.
- He was the first human to test the airbag.
You know, when nobody knew anything
about the airbag, there was Hal.
- When I first started to go out to pitch Hal,
it was not an easy task.
I realized where I had to go was
tell people, "Well, Hal Needham is
Burt Reynolds' stuntman."
Now, we have their attention.
- He used to like to do his own stunts anyway.
- Well, he started as a stuntman, you know.
Originally, he was a stuntman.
- Unfortunately, when we started some of the interviews,
they always still went back to Burt.
- There's a lot of little things that--that he took--
you know, that I--I know he took from me.
Uh, and for instance, um, he took my wardrobe, okay?
He had 'em copy my wardrobe
that I wear normally, all the time,
and, uh, and that's what he wore in the movie.
One day, he came out, he and I was dressed
exactly alike.
- We worked a lot on that,
because we knew that was
coming every time.
And then, he was off talking about stunts.
- Presenting... [drum roll]
The Stuntman.
- And he's not just your basic,
everyday stuntman, either.
He was modeled after Hal Needham,
the guy that I consider to be
the best stuntman in the business.
- He had met the guy that owned a toy company.
They said, "You know, Evel Knievel's doll
made a ton of money."
It was sitting on his desk one day when I went in.
I said, "Oh, my God, Hal, you've got a doll!
A little stunt doll! Give me a break!"
There's a little ram, and you could fly the--
the doll, and it'll turn.
You could, uh, make the hat fly off with a string.
- The had designed the prototype,
but they didn't have the market for it yet.
We recognized that we were gonna need a big event.
Hal and Bill Fredricks came up with the idea
of the rocket car.
- Three...two...one...
ignition!
[engine roaring]
- Wow, looks like he's off on a good one this time, Ken.
- Thunderous sendoff to Hal Needham!
Climbing to 400...to 500...
almost 550 miles per hour and still climbing.
- That's faster than programmed, Ken.
- His chute just came out-- his chute deployed,
but it has not opened. - Ken, it has not opened.
He might be in very serious trouble down there.
- He's missed the red flag that he has
crashed at the end of the course.
- I want to tell you something.
The last couple hundred yards is a son of a gun!
- Hal said, "I'm not going to put my life
behind a 700 mile-an-hour car any longer."
It was sometime after the rocket car event
that the toy finally emerged.
It never really made a place in the market.
He knew he never was gonna be a movie star.
So Hal was under tremendous pressure
to make "Smokey and the Bandit" a success.
['70s rock music]
♪ ♪
- There's a scene in the picture where
it's a small dirt road-- bridge.
The car leaps the bridge, flies through the air,
and lands on the other side.
- That was really dangerous.
There's no--that's a problem, you know?
You know, you come up short, you got issues here.
[tires squealing]
- Sorry, I don't want to get married.
- Terrific. That makes two of us.
- Sally and Burt became an item by that--
that day of shooting.
- Rolling--oh, wait. One minute. Here we go.
- We watched the dailies, and you could kind of see it.
It was there.
When two people are hitting it off
and you can tell they're liking each other.
Sometimes, they call "Action," and there's
things that happen first.
- ♪ Call you the Bandit ♪
♪ ♪
♪ They call you the Bandit ♪
- I think the Bandit covers up his vulnerability
and his sensitivity
with a lot of braggadocio,
and fancy shirts,
because I think, basically, he's rather shy.
He's only good at one thing,
and that's showing off.
But he's great at that.
I don't wear these kind of shirts.
I do wear cowboy hats.
I think--I'm not real positive about this,
because there's a big debate going about--
on about this in America.
I think I'm a real good actor.
[struggling]
- Burt Reynolds has been top box office
for six years, mostly in redneck tough-guy films.
Now, he wants to try serious drama.
If you wanted to get away from the good ol' boy image,
will the audience let you?
- If I'm good. If I'm really good.
♪ And there's no concealing ♪
♪ The fact I'm feeling ♪
♪ Bored, bored, bored ♪
- I find Burt Reynolds a most puzzling actor.
He has the power and physical attributes
of the perfect screen tough guy, yet he insists
on playing light comedies, as if he saw himself
as a kind of Cary Grant with muscles.
The point that seems to escape him, however,
is that you can't be Cary Grant and have muscles.
You've got to settle for one or the other.
- He can act, but he doesn't take very good parts.
He doesn't take the parts which stretch him and test him.
He could possibly be as great as Sean Connery
if he had more ease about the way he looked.
You can always feel that he wants to look good,
and this is fatal in a male actor.
- Maybe he's getting bad advice, Pauline.
- Or maybe there's fear in him.
- Burt, when you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Who do you see?
- You're looking at a very well-paid movie star.
And a starving actor.
Actor.
To be a personality is painful.
To be in the public eye is--is painful.
Because you can never, ever give them enough.
They always want a little bit more.
[laughter]
- Is it true that you are back together with Dinah Shore?
- Do you plan on making any movies on location in Chicago?
- Would you like to go for coffee after the show?
- You said that your favorite sport was football.
Is that what influenced you doing "The Longest Yard"?
- Is it true that you've been trying to adopt a child
and you plan on marrying again?
- Burt, do you really enjoy all this?
- Burt got sick down there,
and he was struggling to come to the set.
You're talking about changing schedules.
I mean, Sally couldn't work without Burt
'cause it was in the car.
- He did disappear for a couple of days, yes.
But I don't want to get into the, uh,
the reasonings.
- Hal understood Burt was an actor.
Being an actor, he was high-strung and neurotic.
Now, all actors are crazy, right?
I mean, Marlon Brando walked out of acting
'cause he couldn't take it anymore.
You must understand,
their face is on this 100-foot screen.
- You know who that is?
- If they're embarrassed with what they see,
they want to kill themselves.
So, the pressure on an actor,
on his ego, it's so overwhelming.
[sirens]
- We ain't gonna make it, son! We're gonna hang it up.
- Whoa, negatory, negatory, what are you,
crazy or something?
We come this far, ain't we?
Look, when we say we gonna do a job,
we do a job!
- And Hal came up and said, "I give up.
Are you doing this?"
- There's one thing about good ol' Southern boys,
all the way through.
They have a sense of loyalty to their friends.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I felt like, if anything, I owed it to Hal.
♪ ♪
You got to be dangerous
as part of being sexy.
♪ ♪
Too late now.
"Let's jump this bridge."
♪ ♪
- We jumped over that bridge! We did that!
Did you see what we did? - Yes, I did.
- I want to jump something else! I want to jump a house!
I want to jump something!
- We'd just done the car jump.
Assistant director yelled, "That's it.
That's a wrap."
It was the last-- end of the movie.
Needham, he and I looked over the top of the Trans Am
at each other.
He just gave me a wry smile and looked at me,
you know, and we just nodded at each other and that was it.
- You're crazy!
- Kind of our moment.
You realize that it exists,
and it's gonna be around a lot longer than you are.
- Universal presents...
This is "Smokey and the Bandit."
- The general sales manager at Universal,
having seen the movie, by the way,
um, I don't think had much faith in the picture.
He asked that we not sneak preview.
I think he actually suspected
that he was going to lose bookings
because the picture was so bad.
[banjo music]
- Hell...
You know?
They said...
[grandiose orchestral music]
♪ ♪
And I said, "Take it out!"
♪ ♪
- You're doing comedy, it doesn't work.
[gagging]
Dead.
And only a fool does it
thinking it's a sure thing.
- I thought it was a very funny movie.
And then--you know, we thought-- we had great expectations,
they opened the movie in Radio City Music Hall,
and then we-- and it died.
- I said, "Wait a minute.
"You're opening it in-- in New York?
That's ridiculous."
- It was a disastrous screening, I mean...
The cards were, you know,
"This is boring. Seen this before."
I thought, you know, what do I do
to get these guys to get it.
[screaming]
- And I said, "Put the damn thing out
down in the South."
That's who it was made for.
- [shouting]
- ♪ Well, hello there, neighbor ♪
♪ Now, how do you do ♪
♪ There's something I'd like to say to you ♪
♪ You from my homeland ♪ [dog barking]
♪ My sunny homeland, tell me friend ♪
♪ Now could it be ♪
- How many of you have seen Hal's picture,
"Smokey and the Bandit"?
[applause]
- I love it. I love it.
- I bet I've seen that movie 200 times.
And that's probably plus or minus five.
- ♪ Yeah, it's the view from Louisiana, Mississippi ♪
♪ Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, Carolina ♪
♪ Just any little place below that Mason-Dixon line ♪
♪ Then you're in Dixie ♪
♪ Hooray, hooray for Dixie ♪
♪ 'Cause this old boy, he's from Dixie too ♪
♪ Stand back, son ♪
- That little number is the second-highest grossing
motion picture in the history of the motion picture business.
- I'm glad it was, because it was a picture
that wasn't made for the critics.
It was made for the people.
- How did you like the movie?
- Oh, I just loved it. - Oh, it was so exciting.
- Who was your favorite in the film?
- Burt. [laughing]
Naturally. The dog was good too.
- All of us that live in that part of the country
go, "Yup, that's about how it works," or
"he reminds me of my uncle,"
or "he reminds me of my dad," or "he reminds me
of my neighbor down the road."
- You know, in the South, they think of
"Smokey and the Bandit" as a documentary.
It had a cultural impact
that I don't think any of us could have imagined.
I mean, to this very day,
it's a friendlier South
than maybe a lot of people had seen before.
And maybe, in that, there's an elegance.
- The buzz was huge. I mean, it was huge!
♪ ♪
- You know, in the days of silent movies,
the chase was often a highlight of the story.
So, Hollywood figured, if audiences like a little,
they'll love a lot, and pretty soon,
there's no meal at all, it's all dessert.
- It's not a B movie. It's A-plus-plus.
Burt brought us through the disco era.
He kept us all alive and gave us a reason
to say, "Hey, we still got a hero out there."
- When I say "Burt Reynolds," right now.
Black cowboy hat? Mustache?
Is that what you see? It's what I see.
I also see him in a Trans Am.
If he drove up in a Lexus, it would just destroy me.
- The "Washington Post" critic,
in that person's opinion,
greatest road movie ever made.
I mean, the picture elevated Hal,
and Hal was no longer a stuntman.
♪ ♪
- So, my father decided it was time
to move out of Burt Reynolds' house.
You get married, you settle down, and then, uh,
you have to move out--you got to get your own place.
[soft music]
- I've always wanted to have a theater,
all my life, uh, ever since I started being an actor.
- How are you tonight?
If you'll follow Bruce, he'll take you to your seats.
- Good evening. How y'all doing tonight?
[singing]
[applause]
- And I think, secretly,
most actors, back in the back of their minds,
think about going back to their hometown
and building a theater.
We have an apprentice program, and they're learning
that it isn't just stardust and moonbeams.
It's a lot of hard work and pain.
Get out of here! Punctuate it.
- Burt Reynolds is a hungry man.
I think he's hungry to--to show everybody in the world
that he's more than the illusion
that he--that he presents.
- Do you want o be taken more seriously?
Or would you go on doing these stunting performances?
- Well, I--I think that probably,
20 years from now, these "Stunting performances,"
as you called them, will be considered
minor works of art.
And they'll say, "Those were damn good films.
"For what they were. They weren't trying
"to be anything other than what they were.
But for what they were, they were terrific."
- But you're still shooting for a "Casablanca" in your career?
- Yeah, I'm shooting for a "Casablanca."
And you know what I'll do when I get my "Casablanca"?
I'll go right back and make a "Smokey and the Bandit."
[applause]
- Burt, the co-writer and director
of "Smokey and the Bandit," your pal Hal Needham.
[elegant music]
- First of all, let me say that I'm sure nobody expects me
to play guitar or sing 'cause y'all know better than that.
I only have one God-given talent,
and that was to fall on my head.
And I'm thankful for that, because it allowed me
to meet Burt Reynolds some 20-some-odd years ago.
- I always told him, "If you'd have been a woman,
we'd have had a great marriage."
He was an amazing man.
They don't come along like that but once in your lifetime.
- You're a doll, I love you,
and I owe everything to you, Burt.
Thank you.
[laid-back country music]
♪ ♪
- I just want to make a wish.
[screaming]
♪ ♪
- Certain people show up in your life,
and the magic happens, and it doesn't always happen,
but when the magic happens...[claps].
♪ ♪
- You know something?
You're looking at the luckiest man alive.
- So we're talking, and I said, "Hal,
"can you believe your success?
"From the sharecropper's kid in Arkansas,
you do 'Smokey and the Bandit'?"
"Yeah," he said. "It's been a good run, man."
- Folks didn't think too much of me
or what I was gonna amount to.
But for sure--
for sure--
my mom...
is looking down on tonight...
with a big smile on her face.
[clears throat]
[applause]
I want to thank the entire Hollywood community
for allowing me to be part of it.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
♪ ♪
- When I heard that he passed,
I thought, "What in God's name
"could kill him?
What could kill him?"
- He's the only guy that I thought might live forever.
[tires squealing]
- He liked speed.
He liked to bend the rules a little bit.
He liked to live life on his own terms.
Hal Needham was, and will always be,
the Bandit.
[engine roaring]