The Cannonball Run *** (1981, Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Dom DeLuise) – Classic Movie Review 6581

The ever-smiling, good-natured Burt Reynolds stars as J J McClure and Dom DeLuise plays his tubby sidekick Victor, as the duo take part in a daft, non-legal trans-America car chase in director Hal Needham’s madcap 1981 slapstick comedy action thriller. The amiable movie is positively overflowing with stunts, action, high spirits and Reynolds’s equally good-natured buddies.

The performers and ex-stuntman director Needham just about keep the rickety but very popular show on the road. Among the crazy ideas you will have to be able to swallow is Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr as priests – well, drunken priests in a red Ferrari!

It was a big hit, costing $18 million and grossing more than $72 million in the US. But ironically it was also eventually damaging to Reynolds’s career as it seemed to spell the end of any serious work from him.

Also in the cast are Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Adrienne Barbeau, Jack Elam, Bert Convy, Jamie Farr, Peter Fonda, Molly Picon, Bianca Jagger, George Furth, Warren Berlinger, Rick Aviles, John Fiedler, Hal Carter, Jackie Chan, Valerie Perrine, director Hal Needham and the film’s screen-writer Brock Yates.

It is written by Brock Yates, shot by Michael C Butler, produced by Albert S Ruddy and scored by Al Capps, with Art Direction by Carol Wenger.

It is inspired by a real event called the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. Writer Brock Yates ran the final Cannonball in 1979.

Cannonball Run II followed in 1984.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6581

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