Helmed by stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham, Smokey and the Bandit sped to a mighty $126 million, lapping the domestic gross of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The wise-cracking, law-breaking hero, Bo “Bandit” Darville, would become his calling card from that point on… for better and for worse. At the time, Bandit looked like an agent of chaos.

It wound up being Smokey and the Bandit. Burt was at the peak of his fame at the time, but I don’t think he was ever really given the recognition as an actor that he deserved. He could be really ...