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Show T by Rick Drough ' little Enos (Pat McCor-mick, McCor-mick, Paul Williams) to transport a plastic shark to Texas in record time. Along the route he's hampered ham-pered by traps laid by the Enoses, distracted by Cletus Snow (Jerry Reed decked out in the Bandit's clothes and car), and goes through adventures with Cubans in Little Havana, the Ku Klux Klan, a red-light motel, and a nudist colony. Among all this, the only creativity comes when the script writers wonder, "How many cars can we wreck, and what can they crash through (egg cartons, flower stands, billboards) before getting wrecked?" The "Smokey" series should have retired after the first film. Buford's four-letter four-letter grumpiness is getting tiresome, and one starts to feel sorry for his dumb, abused son Junior (Mike Henry). The only humor in the picture comes from Jerry Reed, who is enjoying himself, and the occasional good gag. After Buford's car is buried under a sand dumper dum-per at a quarry, he tells Junior, "Get out and dust off the car." Also on hand, to little lit-tle effect, are Colleen Camp as Cletus" pick-up, and T-urt Reynolds, in a "daydream" appearance as the Bandit. s A Classic Recommended Good double-feature double-feature material Time-killer For masochists v ony J , 2 Nightmares This horror-anthology is too lightweight to be a TV movie, let alone a theatrical film. The picture only claims certain intelligence because the stories have a common theme about characters who learn a stern lesson after af-ter their encounter with the eerie and terrifying. In Story No. 1, a tobacco addict (Christina Raines) runs out of cigarettes, and runs out into the night to the local store even though she's been warned that a homocidal maniac is lurking in the neighborhood! The second tale is about a video-game fanatic (Emilio Estevez) hunted by the ' laser creatures from an arcade ar-cade machine. Lance Henriksen stars in the third segment, a rip-off of the TV film "Duel." He plays a disillusioned priest who regains his faith in the existence of "good vs. evil" after an encounter with a black driverless pickup truck. The fourth story is the strongest (like "Twilight Zone, The Movie" which "Nightmares" may be rip ping off). A troubled suburban subur-ban family faces its hardest test when a giant rat crawls out of the basement. The segment is at least fun because it's bravely ridiculous, with sincere playing from Richard Masur (the arrogant self-reliant husband) and Veronica Cart-wright Cart-wright (his nervous wife). The goofiest touch is Albert Hague as the local pest exterminator ex-terminator coming on like Dr. Van Helsing; he keeps books full of medieval lore about "devil rodents." The rest of the film displays apathetic acting, murky photography, and stories that are tossed off without developing any tension. ten-sion. It also wins the impressive-but-stupid award for special effects, when the devil truck burrows under the earth like a huge gopher and leaps out of the ground. O'Hara's Wife "O'Hara's Wife" is so warm it's droopy. Edward Asner is a harried lawyer about to embark on a long-deserved long-deserved vacation when his adored wife (Mariette Hartley) Hart-ley) drops dead. She bounces back as a ghost and starts cajoling him to retire from hsi strenuous job before he has a heart attack and joins her. The story provides the usual jokes Asner talking to a ghost no one else sees, even kissing empty air! Most of it, though, is a somber som-ber little sermon about grabbing the most out of life while you can. In a dull and unbelievable plot twist, his lazy law partners part-ners don't want him to abandon the firm. The second sub-plot is better. Perry Lang is nicely sullen as the neglected son who thinks Dad is trying to shirk his family by dropping out. Asner is also good he even succeeds with the old talking-to-the-gravestone scene and in fact, points out the movie's mediocrity. The film can't swing from dopey jokes to small fleeting moments of real anguish. Mariette Hartley doesn't use her popular sardonic style here she's stuck with syrupy pathos. (Even Asner isn't believable when he keeps calling her his "gypsy princess.") The movie is filmed in a TV gloss every set looks like it came from the "Parade of Homes" and hosts a sappy love song, plus "guest star" parts from Tom Bosley, Ray Walston, and Jodie Foster as a sympathetic but dull daughter. Vz Smokey and the Bandit III Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) retires to Florida, but seems bored and a tad irritated by his new life. (He punches out the Richard Simmons type in his Sun City exercise class). Looking for excitement, he accepts a bet from Big and 1 |
