burt reynolds smokey and the bandit legendary

As the economic and political prospects of the South were revived by the Republican Party's ' Southern Strategy' and renewed investment in cities like Atlanta, the region wanted to put some distance between itself and images like Klan rallies and civil rights protests. In the 1970s, the South was beginning to emerge from more than a century as a racially oppressive, violent place perceived as backwards and dangerous. According to Film School Rejects, it is actually possible to do the round-trip within the time limit at about 65 miles per hour.īut, as the Los Angeles Times explains, even if the film isn't consciously deep, it represented a shifting perception of the South in the United States and is arguably an important representation of a re-branding effort. Snowman and Bandit can only win the bet if they exceed the speed limit the whole way, so they agree that Bandit will drive the flashy sports car to distract the cops (aka the 'Smokies' in CB trucker lingo), while Snowman slips past unnoticed. The time limit is what gives the plot of the movie its tension. The New York Times notes that the lack of availability helped make Coors a legendary beer and that people actually did smuggle it. Rather than deal with the headaches of spoiled beer, Coors simply didn't extend its distribution eastward beyond the Mississippi River. Coors was a regional product of Colorado, and it wasn't pasteurized and contained no preservatives, which made shipping it beyond certain geographical limitations without a decline in quality impossible. In fact, this remained the case until 1986. Except it wasn't silly in 1977, because, as Vinepair reports, you really couldn't get Coors beer east of the Mississippi.

Burt reynolds smokey and the bandit legendary