Hal Needham

One of the all-time big box-office hits, Smokey and the Bandit stars Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason in an outrageous comedy that boasts full-throttle laughs and high-velocity thrills. Reynolds is the Bandit, a king-of-the-road trucker hero who accepts the ultimate challenge: pick up a truckload of Coors beer in Texarkana--the closest place it can be legally sold--and haul it cross-country to Atlanta in 28 hours. The reward? $80,000! The result? The wildest series of car chases and crashes ever filmed! The reason? A Texas "Smokey," Sheriff Buford T.

Thirty big-name stars, 300-horsepower horseplay and 3,000 breakneck miles: that's the revved-up sequel Cannonball Run II. A real-life race inspired both The Cannonball Run and this follow-up. Director Hal Needham drove in a good-natured yet admittedly illegal race called The Cannonball Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. To elude the law, Needham and his pals disguised their entry as an ambulance.

Like The Gumball Rally (1976) before it, former stuntman Hal Needham's The Cannonball Run was inspired by the same real-life cross-country road race. If The Gumball Rally was the critical favorite, The Cannonball Run was the box-office favorite (spawning the almost-as-successful sequel, Cannonball Run II, a few years later). Aside from top-billed stars Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise (stars of Needham's Smokey and the Bandit series) plus Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.