My Heart Belongs to Jackie: Smokey and the Bandit II

Inevitably, the Bandit’s nemesis, Sheriff Buford T. Justice is in “hot pursuit,” joined again by his slow and dimwitted son, Junior (Mike Henry). The banter between these two characters is definitely the comedic highlight of the film. This allows Jackie the opportunity to exercise his patented slow-burn reactions and eye-bulging frustration which is most often related to his disappointment that Junior is related to him, the concept being “There ain’t no way, no way, that you could come from my loins.”

If anything is ever a success, it seems only natural that writers and producers would decide to take that one element that made the product so special and unique and expand it. You see this most often with television shows and their spin-offs, when a character becomes so popular that they are either given their own show or their character turns into an extreme caricature of what they were before. It can easily fall into the dangers of “too much of a good thing.”

With Smokey and the Bandit II, Jackie Gleason has the distinction of not only playing the increasingly frustrated and insane Sheriff Justice, but also the roles of his two brothers, Reginald and Gaylord. Reginald is a Canadian Mountie who first appears in an odd spoof of the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald musicals that will be completely lost on today’s younger viewers. The other brother, Gaylord, is an over-the-top homosexual who wears huge, tinted sunglasses and flaunts a cigarette holder (with pinky extended of course!). The brothers join forces for an elaborate and expensive showdown in a desert-set demolition derby spectacular that further fuels the “bigger is better” rule for sequels.

Smokey and the Bandit II was a success, which led to an even stranger sequel, Smokey and the Bandit 3, apparently intended as a larger showcase for Jackie Gleason. The project was initially created with the idea in mind that Jackie would not only return as Buford but he would also play the Bandit as well. The original title was Smokey IS the Bandit, Part 3. The idea was reworked to have Jerry Reed return as his character, Cledus, only this time dressed up as the Bandit to throw off Buford. The film also featured much larger performances by the characters played by Pat McCormick and Paul Williams, a bizarre father and son duo known as Big Enos and Little Enos (characters who deserve an in-depth article all to themselves).

Basically the Smokey films gave me a new appreciation of and interest in Jackie Gleason and in doing so, I discovered that his life was extremely interesting and often quite strange. In addition to being a wildly prolific personality in not only his acting choices and roles, he had many private interests as well, such as involvement with a collection of jazz music albums and a well known fascination with the paranormal, which included a famously large collection of books on the topic of UFOs.

My favorite story from his life occurred in the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon invited Jackie to see something he thought would interest him at The Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida. It was there that Jackie allegedly viewed the bodies of several alien beings. This experience supposedly left him rattled and, according to his wife, caused him to have problems sleeping and eating. He felt strongly that the government should share with the public their findings and evidence of extraterrestrial existence.

Wow.

Now there is a story I would love to see made into a movie or, at the very least, a short film. To further endear me to Jackie, I learned that his daughter is actress Linda Miller, who is forever ingrained in my mind as the mother in the 1976 movie Alice, Sweet, Alice a.k.a. Communion. Linda was married to actor Jason Miller (The Exorcist) and had a son, Jason Patric!

What a life. Ralph Kramden. Minnesota Fats in The Hustler. The Romantic Moods of Jackie Gleason album. UFOs. Sheriff Justice. Co-starred with Richard Pryor in The Toy. Grandfather to one of The Lost Boys. It’s no wonder that he was nicknamed “The Great One”!

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