The Screengrab : jerry reed

Getting Darrined: When the Sequel Doesn’t Need You

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Out on the promotion trail for Fighting, Terrence Howard is still miffed about being replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. “‘It was a very, very bad choice,’ fumed Howard, who played Iron Man's Army buddy Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes in the first film, to Parade magazine about Marvel Studios' decision to reboot the part with Don Cheadle in the role. ‘You don't make $800 million and then try and shake everyone down. That's not nice,’ he said to MTV News, exaggerating the film's worldwide box-office gross by a mere $200 million.”

As the L.A. Times reports, however, Howard is hardly the first actor to get the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” treatment when sequel time rolls around. Rachel Abramowitz has even come up with a name for it – getting Darrined, as in Dick Sargent replacing Dick York as Samantha’s husband on Bewitched. “Or perhaps being ‘Baldwinized’ is a better term, for Alec Baldwin, who starred as Jack Ryan in the movie of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October but was replaced by the far more popular Harrison Ford for the next two installments.” (OK, but then what do we call it when Ben Affleck replaces Harrison Ford in the same series? Besides a terrible, terrible idea?)

One explanation for Darrenization is simple penny-pinching; in Howard’s case, he was actually the highest-paid actor in the original Iron Man and was asked to take a significant pay cut for the follow-up. Howard wasn’t having it, and “it didn't help that, as some critics pointed out, Howard struggled to hold his own against the razor-sharp comedic stylings of Robert Downey Jr., who played Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man.” Nobody seemed to miss Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight, in which she was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, but then again, Batman himself has been recast so many times, there’s probably not much reason to expect a consistent love interest.

The all-time greatest bit of sequel recasting isn’t even mentioned in the Times article. Of course I’m referring to the third Smokey and the Bandit movie, which was originally titled Smokey IS the Bandit and was allegedly shot with Jackie Gleason playing both roles – his traditional part as Sheriff Buford T. Justice as well as the one vacated by Burt Reynolds when he declined to play the Bandit a third time. I say “allegedly” because no footage or stills of Gleason in Bandit drag have ever surfaced, but the story is oft repeated that this version was screened for test audiences (including by Leonard Maltin in his movie guide). In any case, the finished Smokey and the Bandit 3 sees Jerry Reed taking over the driver’s seat for Reynolds, who does provide a brief cameo as the Bandit. Either way, the movie was a flop. Some roles simply weren’t meant to be recast.

Related:
Marvel Comics is Ready for its Close-Up
Yesterday's Hits: Smokey and the Bandit

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 31-Sept. 5, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

My friends, it has come to my attention that the liberal media elitists at the Screengrab are at it again, spreading their un-American brand of smutty snark – or is it snarky smut? – about movies all over my computer. Don’t get me wrong. I’m always up for a good Tarzan picture or inspirational sports story like The Express. And nobody mourns Don LaFontaine and Jerry Reed more than myself.

But it’s time for us to draw a line in the sand. A line between good, hard-working Americans and Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising. A line between the God-fearing patriot and the Surfer, Dude. A line between your bank account and any theater showing Babylon A.D.

The elite liberal Screengrabbers would have you watch anti-Iraq War propaganda like No End in Sight online. They would tell you that The Top 18+ High School Movies, full of drug references, pre-marital sex and anti-authoritarian notions, are worthy of your time. They would decry made-in-America products like Gigli and Epic Movie as unwatchable. And unlike any of us in this room tonight, they would get away with saying Towelhead.

I say, enough! Enough with the Blue Velvet soundtrack, enough with George Romero’s Knightriders and enough with Robert Altman’s A Wedding! Let’s all go elk hunting with Lee Marvin, and may God bless America!

Jerry Reed, 1937--2008

Phil Nugent — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Jerry Reed has died of complications from emphysema at the age of 71. Reed, who was born in Atlanta in 1937, spent two years in the military before moving to Nashville in the early 1960s to pursue a career in the country music industry. A guitar picker with a unique style, he quickly earned a place in the fraternity of working, sought-after studio musicians while honing his songwriting on the side. His rise to solo stardom was abetted by two legendary figures: Chet Atkins, who produced one of Reed's early singles in the mid-'60s and later teamed up with him for a pair of award-winning albums in the early 1970s, and Elvis Presley, who recorded a couple of Reed compositions, "Guitar Man" and "U.S. Male", while plotting his own late-'60s comeback. (Legend has it that Elvis, who decided to do "Guitar Man" after hearing Reed's own recorded version, decreed that Reed was to be brought in to play on the sessions after finding that nobody else could recreate the self-taught guitarist's "weird tunings.") Reed's own biggest hit, the 1971 Grammy-winning "When You're Hot, You're Hot", established him as an unexpected master of the demented redneck comedy routine set to music, a field that he also plowed in the Elvis tribute "Tupelo Mississippi Flash" and the great, rabid Cajun epic "Amos Moses." During this period, he was becoming a familiar face on TV, thanks to recurring appearances on musical-variety programs hosted by Glen Campbell and Dean Martin. (Reed had his own short-lived series--The Jerry Reed When You're Hot You're Hot Hour--in 1972.) He also slipped into animated (as in cartoon) form to appear on an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, calling in Shaggy, Scooby, and the other personnel of the Mystery Machine to help him find his lost guitar.

In 1975, Reed made his movie acting debut in the redneck classic W. W. and the Dixie Dancekings, starring Burt Reynolds. His movie career, which would displace his music career for several years, became inextricably tied to that of Reynolds's, with whom he co-starred in Gator (which Reynolds directed), Smokey and the Bandit and its first sequel, and Stroker Ace, where his brief appearance was uncredited, a hint that Reynolds probably wishes he'd picked up on. Reed also turned up on Reynolds's TV series B. L. Stryker and Evening Shade; acted in the comedy Hot Stuff, which was directed by its star, fellow Reynolds sidekick Dom DeLuise; and displaced ol' Burt in the 1983 Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, which Reynolds couldn't be bothered with. He also co-starred with Peter Fonda in High-Ballin', part of the trucker-as-modern-American-hero drive-in movie cycle that the Smokey and the Bandit movies (and Reed's own contribution to its soundtrack, "East Bound and Down") helped midwife, went head to head with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau in the 1983 comedy The Survivors, and played an officer in the Gene Hackman-Danny Glover Vietnam drama Bat 21 (1988), on which he was also the executive producer. After contributing redneck authenticity to the Adam Sandler vehicle The Waterboy in 1998, Reed officially abandoned movies to spend the rest of his life concentrating on his music. At that time, he expressed something close to disdain for his acting ability ("When people ask me what my motivation is, I have a simple answer: Money."), but in fact he was an easy, natural presence on-screen, and brought energy and likability to many roles that might have defeated a better-trained but stiffer performer. If the secret to his success in movies was partly that he recognized his own limitations and never strayed to far outside his comfortable range, that at least makes him smarter than say, Kris Kristofferson. Reed is survived by his wife Priscilla, with whom he would have celebrated a fiftieth wedding anniversary next year.

Summer of '78: "Hooper"

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Each Thursday this summer we’ll hop in the Screengrab time machine and jump back thirty years to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse this week in…The Summer of ’78! I’ve been on vacation, so this week we’re catching up on the past few Thursdays.

Hooper

Release Date: July 28, 1978

Cast: Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field, Brian Keith, Robert Klein, Adam West

The Buzz: “It just ain’t summer without Burt!” (That is, assuming Jimmy Carter is still the president.)

Keywords: Stuntman, Driving Backwards, Rocket Car, Bar Fight, Person on Fire

The Plot: Sonny Hooper (Burt Reynolds) is the greatest stuntman alive, but some fear he’s getting a little long in the tooth. His latest gig is doubling for Adam West, star of The Spy Who Laughed at Danger. (The notion that West would be headlining a big action movie as late as 1978 is one of Hooper’s more implausible elements.) During a barroom brawl at the Palomino, Hooper bonds with up-and-coming golden boy Ski (Jan-Michael Vincent), who is also working on the film. They develop a friendly rivalry on the set, with each trying to top the other with ever more outrageous stunts. This does nothing to help Hooper with his escalating dependence on painkillers, nor his deteriorating relationship with long-suffering girlfriend Gwen (Sally Field). Hooper’s doctor informs him that one more big jolt could paralyze him for life, but that doesn’t stop Hooper from taking on a risky rocket-car gag that could end his career. Take a wild guess if it does.

The Test of Time: Who knew what a cornucopia of embarrassing admissions this Summer of ’78 feature would turn out to be for me? I’ve already copped to owning novelizations of all the Omen movies as well as the Heaven Can Wait Fotonovel, but I can probably top all of that with the admission that I also had the Hooper soundtrack album. At least Smokey and the Bandit featured songs by Jerry Reed; the title track from Hooper is performed by someone named Bent Myggen and is perhaps the only song in recorded history to feature the line “Set him on fire, it will amuse him.” Of course, this latest revelation of mine comes as no surprise to the bazillions of you who keep copies of my book Hick Flicks within reach of your toilet seats. (And if you aren’t one of them, why not buy a copy today? Come on, people, I’m currently ranked # 1,090,823 on Amazon. Help me out here.) As far as the Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham southern fried ouvre goes, Hooper falls short of Smokey but finishes far ahead of Stroker Ace and the Cannonball Run collection. Allow me to quote myself from my magnum opus: “What sets Hooper apart is its insider’s view of a working class subculture within the motion picture industry. The stuntmen are a tight-knight group, clowning around on the set and playing bumper cars on the freeway en route to their favorite watering hole. They know they’re the workhorses of the picture, but even though they’re basically blue collar guys, they’ve got show biz hearts. They do impressions of stars like Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck to crack each other up, and get together to drink beer and watch their stunt reels for the thousandth time. There’s an improvisational spontaneity to such scenes; a “morning after” sequence in which Reynolds and Brian Keith slowly roust themselves from hangover oblivion is particularly well-observed.”

Quotable Quote: “I'm gonna find the guy who invented Zylocaine and kiss his ass on Hollywood and Vine!”

2008 Equivalent: This is a tough one, but I’ll give it to Hancock. Like Burt in the '70s, Will Smith is our current Mr. Summer, with a similar “It’s me, your buddy!” persona winking through every role. Plus Hancock is a two-syllable character name title starting with H – just like Hooper!

Previously on Summer of '78: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Yesterday's Hits: Smokey and the Bandit (1977, Hal Needham)

Paul Clark — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

It may be hard to remember now, but there was a time when Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in Hollywood. Throughout the seventies and early eighties, Reynolds sold millions of tickets using mostly his easy grin and patented good ol’boy charm. And no Reynolds movie made more money than 1977’s bootlegging comedy Smokey and the Bandit. Yet, as Reynolds aficionado Larry Aydlette said in his recent Burt Reynolds blogathon, Smokey has lost a lot of its luster today. Many critics look upon it with scorn, and more importantly the film has taken on the air of a movie that’s more often remembered than revisited. So where did the love go?

What made Smokey a hit? The easy answer is Reynolds, but there was more to the film’s popularity than Burt. The seventies saw a rise in movies marketed to Southern audiences- a rise that helped to contribute to Reynolds’ box-office success- and Smokey and the Bandit came along at just the right time to benefit from this movement. But Smokey was a big hit all over the country, not just down South. Audiences loved the character of Bandit, the legendary outlaw truck driver who was smooth and confident but also life-sized. The movie also benefited from the era’s CB radio craze, and contributed more than a few colorful expressions to the vernacular. Smokey and the Bandit had something for everyone to enjoy- comedy, vehicular mayhem, anti-authority sentiments, a little romance, Bandit’s iconic Pontiac Trans Am- and as such it reached a broad base of moviegoers who made Smokey the second-biggest hit of 1977 (after Star Wars) and kept the film in some theatres for years on end.

What happened? Reynolds may have been the era’s biggest draw, but his biggest downfall has always been an unfortunate inability to discern quality from junk. While Reynolds occasionally leveraged his Smokey popularity to take on more adventurous projects (1979’s Starting Over, 1981’s Reynolds-directed Sharky’s Machine), more typical were the rash of Smokey sequels and ripoffs designed to piggyback on the original film’s success. So began a string of Bandit-like cocky showoff roles for Burt, most of which are indistinguishable today. By the mid-eighties after Burt had made three Smokeys, two Cannonball Runs, and many other movies in this vein, audiences decided they’d been to this well too often, and Reynolds’ popularity went into free-fall.

Does Smokey and the Bandit still work? That’s a big 10-4 there, good buddy. The plot is simplicity itself- Bandit (Reynolds) and best pal Snowman (regular Reynolds costar Jerry Reed) take a bet that they can make a round trip from Atlanta to Texarkana, Texas and back in 28 hours, bringing back 400 cases of (then-illegal in Georgia) Coors beer for Big Enos and Little Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick and Paul Williams). But after they’ve picked up the beer and started heading eastbound and down towards home, Bandit picks up a runaway bride who he christens Frog (Sally Field), and in doing so runs afoul of Texas Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), the father of Frog’s betrothed.

OK, so Smokey and the Bandit will never be mistaken for great art- as far as onscreen cross-country drives go, it’s no Two Lane Blacktop. But in the intervening three decades, the movie has lost almost none of its charm. Much of the film feels like a live-action Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon, with Bandit smooth-talking his way out of scrapes while the rootin’ tootin’ Sheriff Justice fulminates about his ever-slippery quarry. However, the film is made with real style and wit, and even if the film hits every note we expect it to- there’s even a short romantic interlude where Bandit and Frog take time out from the drive to do a little offscreen he-in’ and she-in’- it’s pretty darn irresistible.

The key to the film rests in the performances, which for the genre are first-rate. At the center of the film is Reynolds, who gives the best star turn of his career. It’s tempting to say that Reynolds was only playing himself, but to do so would be to underestimate the comic verve and star presence he brought to the film. Whether he’s trying quips over the squawk box with Snowman or pissing off Justice, Reynolds makes it all look easy.

For her part, Field makes a funny and surprisingly romantic counterpart for Reynolds- a talky, insecure, very seventies leading lady who’s a far cry from the damsels in distress and one-dimensional sex symbols that populate most movies of this sort. In addition, she and Reynolds have a palpable chemistry (which later translated into an offscreen romance between the two), and it’s this comfort level between the two that really sells their scenes together, most of which consist primarily of two people talking in a car. And Jackie Gleason remains, as ever, a treasure, giving a blustery performance that’s as agreeably salty as a bag of pretzels. Sheriff Justice may be a sumbitch with a badge, but darn if Gleason doesn’t make the guy lovable.

Like its star, Smokey and the Bandit is an unassuming movie with no ambitions except to show audiences a good time. It’s what you might call cinematic comfort food- there’s nothing new or bold about it, but it’s highly satisfying all the same. Thirty years down the line, Smokey also evokes a bygone era in movies, both in terms of its pre-CGI car chases (courtesy of stunt driver turned director Needham) and its pre-irony iconography. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a big-screen hero sporting a cowboy hat without so much as a wink to the audience, but it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of the film, and of Burt Reynolds’ performance, that Bandit can still pull it off with ease. And of course, that Trans Am is as awesome today as it ever was.