The Cannonball Run

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A lot of people might look down on the works of Hal Needham as a series of ridiculous, one-note stunt shows with jokes. And those people would, for the most part, be correct. But that's okay, because not everybody wants to sit through 180 minutes of two people discussing their feelings, even if it stars Meryl Streep and Sidney Poitier. Sometimes, a moviegoer wants to sit down and watch a 90-minute laugh-fest featuring Burt Reynolds slapping Dom DeLuise while Jack Elam mugs in the background.

Derek and Larry are two such people.

Straight-up raw sex appeal...and Burt Reynolds.

That's why they are finishing up their Hal Needham troika with a commentary of 1981's Cannonball Run, a film that pays tribute to the actual coast-to-coast race that ran for a number of years until 1979. (Needham himself took part in the final race, driving in the exact ambulance used in the movie.)

Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise are J.J. McClure and Victor Prinzim, respectively, and want to race in the Cannonball Run. However, they need a plan so they can make the trip without police interference. After throwing around a few ideas, they decide that driving an ambulance is the way to go. All they need is a doctor and a patient to make it look legitimate.

Meanwhile, we also meet Jamie Blake (Dean Martin) and Fenderbaum (Sammy Davis, Jr.), a couple of hard-drinking gamblers who are looking for a way in. They lay down a big bet with Jimmy the Greek (as himself), and head out to the starting line.

The line is hard to find when you are tanked to the gills, but they manage.

On the way, the two decide that dressing as priests is the way to go, although it is never quite explained how two priests driving a Ferrari will somehow avoid scrutiny, but that's for future scholars to discuss.

Over in Japan, we meet the Team Subaru, which consists of two drivers, Jackie Chan and Michael Hui. Their car is fully computerized, with a powerful rocket mounted in the trunk. They yell at each other a lot, and none of it is subtitled.

It's probably a safe guess that they are yelling about being cast as Japanese,
even though they are Chinese.

Other racers include Seymour (Roger Moore), who believes he is Roger Moore; Marcie and Jill (Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman), a couple of Spandex-clad women who use their cleavage to get out of tickets; a sheik (Jamie Farr) who wants to buy his way into the race to show the superiority of Arabs; Mel and Terry (Mel Tillis and Terry Bradshaw), a couple of beer-swilling racers; Brad (Burt Convey) and his pal Shakey Finch (Warren Berlinger), who dress up as a married couple on a motorcycle; as well as a load of other people who don't get nearly as much screen time.

The "and the rest" of this movie.

The entire race, however, is in danger, as a naturalist named Arthur Foyt (George Furth), in an attempt to impress a beautiful photographer named Pamela (Farrah Fawcett), tries to get the whole thing shut down. Pamela, meanwhile is erotically fascinated with trees, it seems.

J.J. sends Victor on a mission to find a doctor to ride with them, and he himself decides that Pamela is the perfect candidate to be their patent, mostly because she is hot and bra-less.

Yeah, we're good with that.

Victor finds a doctor in the lumpy form of Nikolas Van Helsing (Jack Elam), who is really into sedatives, and the race gets underway.

There are too many storylines to keep track of, and most of the plot is a series of funny vignettes involving booze, sex, and Victor turning into his alter ego, the superhero named Captain Chaos. Chaos has a tendency to show up when he is not wanted, and never when he is needed, much to the chagrin of J.J. He does have his moments, though, such as when the entire race (at least the ones we recognize) gets into a fight with a biker gang led by Peter Fonda, because why the heck not?

Because once you've got this, Peter Fonda is almost a step back.

But who is going to win the race? Will it be J.J. and Victor? Will Pamela give up the goods to J.J.? Where does Foyt disappear to? How did Dean Martin manage to drive when he was so obviously hammered? How did Burt Convey get cast? What about Jamie Farr's character? (Not why anything in particular...Just why?) You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek enjoys this film for the plain goofiness of it all, but he doesn't feel like it has the rewatchability of the first two Smokey and the Bandit movies. He wants to know more about the racers, as there wasn't really a lot of time spent on their stories. He would also like to see a Captain Chaos standalone movie. Maybe Marvel can get on that.

Larry disagrees with Derek, in that he is happy to watch it over and over again. He gets a real kick out of the pairing of Reynolds and DeLuise, and considers the addition of Jack Elam a huge plus. He, too, is worried about Dean Martin's liver, and is fascinated with the pairing of Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis. Who wouldn't want to see a movie with just those two?!

So fire up the radar detector, fuel up the race car, and tune in to this week's episode!

Smokey and the Bandit II

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Waaaay back in the late 70s, there was a kind of renaissance taking place. CB radios were becoming all the rage, country music was gaining popularity due to likes of people like Ray Stevens and Kenny Rogers, and Burt Reynolds' mustache roamed the Plains in all its glory. It was a wonderful time to be alive.

Reynolds, who had starred in serious films like Deliverance and The Longest Yard, was catapulted into stratosphere of fame when he took the lead role opposite Jackie Gleason in 1977's comedy classic, Smokey and the Bandit. It was a huge hit, so plans were made a short time later for a sequel, which brings us to this week's movie, Smokey and the Bandit II, which brings back the original cast, including Reynolds and Gleason, as well as Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams, Pat McCormick, and Mike Henry, as well as drawing in the hilariously funny Dom DeLuise.

Reynolds and DeLuise: The pairing that America was waiting for.

Big Enos Burdette (McCormick) and Little Enos Burdette (Williams) are running for governor of Texas. Unfortunately, a battle is escalating between them and their rival, John Coen (David Huddleston). After Coen drops cow manure on the Burdettes with World War II-era planes during a campaign stop, they retaliate by dropping paint on him at a party he is throwing. This leads to all of them being summoned to the current governor's (John Anderson) office for a dressing down. As they are leaving, big Enos overhears the governor on a the phone, arguing with someone about getting something delivered from Miami to the Republican National Convention in Dallas. Big Enos decides that he can get back in the governor's good graces by having the delivery made himself, and hatches a plan.

The Burdettes track down Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Reed) at a truck race and offer him $200,000 to make the delivery with his partner, Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds).  Cledus agrees, and he approaches Bandit with the offer. Unfortunately, Bandit is in no shape for the job; he is a drunk, and no longer has a car. Cledus enlists the help of Bandit's ex-girlfriend, Carrie (aka "Frog", played by Sally Field) after he and Bandit convince Big Enos to double the payment for the delivery.

Frog, however, is kind of busy at the moment, finally getting married to Junior Justice (Henry), whom she ran away from on their wedding day in the first movie. When Cledus tracks her down at the church, he calls and offers her $50,000 to come help, and she agrees, but not before having to deal with Junior's father, Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason), who draws his gun to keep her from leaving a second time. Frog tells him she has to help Bandit, which sets off Buford's heart monitor, allowing for her to get by him.

And hilarity, as they say, ensues.

Frog arrives in time to get Bandit back into shape, after which she and Cledus present Bandit with a brand new Trans-Am, and they head out to pick up the crate in Miami.

When they arrive, they find out that the crate has been quarantined for three weeks, so they break into the warehouse and search for it so they can get it on the truck and get going. When they find the crate, it is way too big, so Bandit suggests they just open the crate, remove what is in there, and put that in the trailer. When they do, they discover that there is a full-grown elephant inside. It flips Bandit onto its back and takes off running. Stopping only after it gets a splinter in its foot. Bandit pulls it out, and the elephant, which they name Charlotte, immediately falls in love, saving Frog the horror of being pawed by Bandit.

But it doesn't stop him from administering the occasional "shocker" when
she gets in the car.

As they leave the dock where the crate was, they are confronted by Sheriff Justice and Junior, who intend to arrest them. Bandit challenges Justice to show his marksmanship abilities, thereby using up all of his bullets. As Bandit and Cledus drive away, Justice tries to shoot at them with Junior's gun, but it is empty because, according to Juniorm, the bullets make the gun too heavy. (Junior is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.)

After a little while, Cledus suggests stopping for gas and checking up on Charlotte. When they get her out of the trailer, they decide she looks unhealthy, and they try to figure out what to do about it. At the same time, an ambulance also arrives at the gas station, and they go speak to the doctor riding in the back, Dr. Carlucci (DeLuise). At first, he is reluctant to take a look because he is with a patient at the moment (and also having his lunch), but giving him a lot of money clears his schedule pretty quickly. However, when he discovers they want him to look at an elephant, he tries to run away, only to discover that his ambulance is leaving without him. He agrees to go along with them, provided they take him to Miami so he can treat his patient's swamp fever.

When they make a stop to check on the elephant again, Dr. Carlucci tells them he has discovered that Charlotte is pregnant, and he thinks they need to let her rest a little bit. Bandit reluctantly agrees, and while Charlotte rests, Bandit and Frog start talking, and he tries to get things going with her again. Charlotte is having none of that, and she essentially takes bandit as her prisoner, keeping him from hooking up with Frog.

Pregnant elephants be crazy!

After another bit of driving, Dr. Carlucci insists that they have to stop because all the bouncing around in the trailer is causing problems for Charlotte. They park the truck and head to a local club to see Don Williams perform. As they sit watching, Frog notices Bandit doodling on a piece of paper. he lies and tells her it's a poem, but she takes it and sees that it's a sketch of a harness that he thinks will take the pressure off Charlotte's legs, allowing them to finish their trip. Frog gets angry and insists Bandit is thinking of nobody but himself, and she leaves. Bandit, now drunk and angry, goes ahead and makes the harness, and it does its job, allowing them to get back on the road.

Sheriff Justice, having been eluded all this time, decides it's time to call for back-up in his pursuit, so he contacts his brothers: Reginald (also Gleason), a Canadian Mountie, and Gaylord (Gleason, as well), a Texas sheriff with a weird little deputy who looks like Fred Armisen with dreadlocks and a banjo.

Seriously, what is that creepy little dude's deal?

They bring their officers with them, setting up an ambush to get Bandit once and for all. Of course, Bandit goes for it, leading them on a chase in the desert, where they look like they are going to catch him!

Will he get away? Will they deliver Charlotte on time? Or will Charlotte deliver her baby instead? Will Frog come back? Will Derek and Larry ever stop pronouncing "Enos" as "anus"? You'll have to tune in to find out!

Larry had never seen this before. He was impressed with Jackie Gleason stepping up to play three different roles, even if one of them had that creepy little banjo guy following him. He also got a kick out of the cameos, of which there are many. In particular, he got a kick out of Mel Tillis showing up again.

Derek has seen this movie more times than he cares to remember, but he still enjoys it. And although he, too, is freaked out by the banjo guy, he enjoys seeing Dom DeLuise actually try to do some kind of serious acting, albeit in a funny context. Overall, he's pretty happy with this one, although he is adamant that the follow-up is absolutely awful.

So gas up your Trans-Am, put on your good mustache, and tune in to this week's episode!

The Villain

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Thousands of years from now, archeologists will be trying to figure out what we were like in the early days of our supposed "civilized" period. They will attempt to piece together the truth of our existence by looking at books we wrote, art we created, buildings we put up, and the ways we documented life.

One can only hope that they will not watch the movie Derek and Larry watched this time around and assume that it was a documentary, because it would cause all kinds of uproar and new, unanswerable questions.

F'rinstance, what is going on behind that cactus?

This week, the guys sat down to watch former stuntman Hal Needham's underappreciated 1979 classic Loony Tunes/Western hybrid, The Villain (also know as Cactus Jack in the UK and Australia), starring Kirk Douglas, Ann-Margret, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Strother Martin, Foster Brooks, Mel Tillis, Jack Elam, Ruth Buzzi, Paul Lynde, and Robert Tessier.

Douglas is Cactus Jack, a not-especially-talented outlaw whose horse, Whiskey, is smarter than he is. When Jack tries to rob a train and misses, he rides into the nearby town to rob the bank, which is run by a drunken clerk (Foster Brooks). When the clerk tells Jack that he doesn't have the combination to the bank's safe, Jack decides to blow it open with dynamite. Unfortunately, all he manages to accomplish is blowing up the bank, but not the safe. And when he tries to escape, he is caught by the local law and put in jail, where he is visited by the owner of the bank, Avery Simpson (Elam).

Finding Jack proves difficult, as Simpson's vision is based on movement,
like the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Simpson offers Jack a deal: He will get Jack out of jail if Jack agrees to find Charming Jones (Ann-Margret) and steal the money her father (Martin) sent with her before she gets to town, or be hanged for trying to rob the bank.

Jack agrees, and sets off with Whiskey to find Charming, who has met up with the powder blue-encased Handsome Stranger (Schwarzenegger), a not-so-bright pile of Austrian muscles that Charming's father saved from being beaten up by a group of firemen, for reasons that are too ridiculous to go into, some time ago. Handsome was sent to protect Charming as she made her way to town with the money.

Put those things away, ma'am, before I prematurely discharge my...firearm.

In his attempts to stop Charming and Handsome from reaching their destination, Jack begins setting traps; starting with a rope across the road meant to trip up the horses pulling the cart in which the two are riding. It doesn't get the horses, but it does get caught on the back of the wagon, dragging Jack and destroying his pants.

After a few more failures, including having a boulder dropped on him, running head-first into a rock wall he painted to look like a tunnel, having yet another boulder roll over him, and falling down a mountain while trying to see Charming stripping down to bathe in a river, Jack approaches the local Indian chief, Nervous Elk (Lynde), for help.

Yes. You read that right.

Nervous Elk agrees, completely failing to mention that he and his tribe have already been contacted by Simpson to keep an eye on Jack, making sure he doesn't steal the money for himself.

A plan is hatched for Nervous Elk and his men to join Jack in a raid of Charming and Handsome's camp at dawn. Unfortunately, this completely fails to happen, as it turns out that most of Nervous Elk's tribe do not know how to ride horses. They all fall off as soon as they start the raid, and all but two of the braves are injured and unable to continue riding. So Jack, Nervous Elk, Mashing Finger (Tessier), and the two braves who were not injured, ride after Charming and Handsome.

The entire time this is going on, Charming is doing everything within her power to get Handsome to give up his good stuff, but he is either too virtuous or too stupid to do so, causing Charming a lot of consternation.

How can she go after that lunkhead when she has the option of this
prime cut of beef?

After a few more failed traps, Jack gets ahead of Charming and Handsome and prepares to ambush them at Charming's family's property, stacking barrels of gunpowder in the main house to blow it up once they get inside. But will it work?

Will Jack finally manage to steal the money and deliver it to Simpson? Or will Charming and Handsome continue to unwittingly foil Jack's plans? And will Whiskey finally realize he is the brains of the operation and leave Jack for a more competent outlaw? You'll have to tune in to find out! (Or pick up the flick at Amazon for about $10, which is totally worth it.)

Larry is fascinated with Ann-Margret as Charming, and who wouldn't be? He is also endlessly amused by the different traps Jack sets up, only to have them fail, especially the ones involving boulders. He finds Handsome Stranger's cowboy outfit incredibly disturbing, however.

Derek is impressed with the way Kirk Douglas goes all-in with the over-the-top goofiness of Cactus Jack. He, too, is infatuated with Charming, as well as Whiskey the horse, who is clearly the smartest character in this entire movie. He is also terribly, terribly sorry to any Native Americans who had to sit through Paul Lynde as Chief Nervous Elk.

So shine up your spurs, watch out for falling boulders, and tune in to this latest episode!

The Princess Bride

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Well, it has finally come to the last in our series of Fantasy movies, and what a way to finish! This time around, Derek and Larry watched Rob Reiner's classic The Princess Bride, an incredible cast, including Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Fred Savage, Robin Wright, Peter Falk, Carol Kane, and Billy Crystal.

A sick boy (Savage) receives a visit from his grandfather (Falk), who tries to entertain the boy with a story about Princess Buttercup (Wright) who falls in love with a stable boy named Westley (Elwes) wo, whenever she asks him to do something, responds only with "as you wish."

Westley would later go on to become a tornado chaser in the Midwestern U.S.

Westley leaves to find his fortune (as one does when one wishes to marry a princess, we assume), but is thought to be dead when his ship is attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts.

A few years later, Buttercup agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Sarandon), because she presumably does not want to die a spinster at the ripe old age of about twenty-ish, as people tended to do back in medieval times. However, before she can give up on life and marry the prince, she is kidnapped by three bandits named Vizzini (Shawn), Fezzik (Andre the Giant), and Inigo Montoya (Patinkin). Inigo and Fezzik do not seem to care for Vizzini, but they help him anyway because he might be able Inigo find the six-fingered man who murdered his father.

The bandits, shown here in a Tarantino-esque shot before Tarantino was a thing.

While escaping with Buttercup, the three find they are being followed by what appears to be the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts. They stop at a high cliff face and Fezzik carries all three of them to the top, where they make a plan (except for Buttercup, who really seems disinterested in helping them for some reason) involving using Inigo as a primary defense, Fezzik as a secondary, and Vizzini as the guy who runs away with his kidnapping victim in tow.

Inigo waits on top of the cliff for Roberts to climb up so he can be killed. When it doesn't look like Roberts will make it, Inigo offers to throw down a rope to speed things up. After a bit of arguing about whether or not Inigo can be trusted, Roberts finally agrees, climbs up the rope, and the two talk while Roberts catches his breath. (Inigo is really a pretty friendly and helpful bandit.) Inigo even tells Roberts about the six-fingered man who killed his father. Then they fight with swords, and Roberts eventually wins and escapes, leaving an unconscious Inigo behind.

Next, he catches up to Fezzik, who basically throws Roberts around a bit and smashes him against a rock until Roberts chokes him out. He goes down hard.

When he catches up to Vizzini, he challenges him to a duel of the brains. Roberts takes two cups of wine, does some stuff behind his back, and tells Vizzini to choose, warning him that one has poison in it. Vizzini, believing himself a superior intellectual, goes on a long and unnecessary rant explaining why he believes he is smarter than Roberts, and then chooses a cup, which he drinks, and then immediately dies.

Genius has far less practical application in the real world
than you might think.

Roberts takes Buttercup and tries to leave, but she is having no part of it. When he tries to force her, she pushes him down a tall hill so she can get away. As he falls, he yells, "as you wish," about the only thing Westley said to her before they fell in love, and Buttercup realizes she made a mistake. So she throws herself down the same hill.

The two, now reunited, make their way through the Fire Swamp, where Westley tells her how he had been captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, only to learn that there had been several Dread Pirate Robertses and, when this one was ready to move on, he gave the name to Westley, who used his resources to track down Buttercup.

Aside from one minor attack by a giant rat, things go swimmingly through the Fire Swamp, only to end up with the two of them being caught at the end of it by Humperdinck and Count Rugen (Guest), Humperdinck's vizier who also happens to have six fingers on one hand.

Buttercup agrees to go with Humperdinck and marry him, provided he doesn't harm Westley. Humperdinck agrees, but then he secretly tells Rugen to take Westley prisoner and torture him.

Dicks.

When Buttercup complains that she is not happy and intends to kill herself if Humperdinck forces her to marry him, he agrees to search for Westley, although he really plans to killer her and make it look like a neighboring country did it in order to start a war. When Buttercup discovers Humperdinck never tried to find Westley, she starts mocking him, and he kills Westley

 Later, when Humperdinck orders all the thieves in the forest arrested, Inigo and Fezzik meet back up, and Fezzik tells Inigo about Rugen. They decide that the only way to get into the castle and kill Rugen is to get Westley to help them. They hear Westley's screams and follow them to where he is being kept, but it is already too late. Westley is dead.

Inigo, not one to let something like a little bit of death get in the way of his vengeance, has Fezzik carry Westley's body to the hut of Miracle Max (Crystal) and his wife (Kane), who determine that Westley is only mostly dead, and they might be able to fix that.

No, you put the lime in the coconut. Not the other way around, idiot.

But can they? Can they bring Westley back from (just) beyond the grave to save the princess? Will Inigo put Rugen, who most assuredly has difficulty finding comfortable gloves, out of his misery? Or will Fezzik get tired of the whole thing and just eat them all? You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek picked this one, and with good reason. Rob Reiner is great at movies like this, and it shows he loves the material he is working with. The cast is phenomenal, the story is fun, and the whole thing is beautifully shot. Wallace Shawn's character was really obnoxious, though.

Larry has nothing bad to say about this film (except, like Derek, the Vizzini character's over-the-top personality), and he would watch it again without hesitation. He says he liked it so much that he had a hard time making jokes!

So buff up that tiara, put on your pirate mask, fire up your Princess Bride DVD, and listen to this week's commentary!