13 Fast Facts About “Smokey and the Bandit”

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 13 Fast Facts About Smokey and the Bandit.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT WAS BASED ON A REAL COORS BANQUET BEER PROBLEM.
While Needham was in Georgia working as Reynolds’ stunt double in Gator (1976), the driver captain on the set brought some Coors beer from California and brought a couple of cases to Needham’s hotel room. After he noticed that the maid kept stealing the beers from the fridge, he remembered a TIME magazine article from 1974 about how Coors was unavailable east of the Mississippi River, because the beer was not pasteurized and needed constant refrigeration, and couldn’t legally be sold outside of 11 western and southwestern U.S. states. Which made him realize that, “bootlegging Coors would make a good plotline for a movie.”

10. GLEASON ENJOYED “HAMBURGERS” ON SET.
Gleason would often ask his assistant Mal for a “hamburger,” which was code for a glass of bourbon.|

13. ALFRED HITCHCOCK WAS A BIG FAN OF THE FILM.
His daughter Patricia revealed that every Wednesday her father would screen films on the lot in his office. The last one he ever screened was Smokey and the Bandit, his favorite film of his last few years.