Thirty-Six Years in the Making

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2017)

"Cannonball Run" hit theaters when I was 20. Having a low threshold for Burt Reynolds and little tolerance for car-race movies (I hung with an artsy crowd at the time that disdained anything popular as suspect) it took me thirty-six years to finally sit down and watch it, and I wish I'd seen it in the theaters.
This tale of a cross-country race (literally, from NY to CA preferably in 72 hours) has a phenomenal cast (circa 1981). I expected a lot of cardboard characters, but in fact the film takes too long setting up the characters--and still they come off as cardboard.
Reynolds stars. Frequent Reynolds co-star Dom DeLuise is his co-driver, and Dom needs a stronger hand than Hal Needham to keep him from going over the top, which he does too frequently. They are accidentally joined by Farrah Fawcett, looking even more lovely than she did when leaving "Charlie's Angels" four years earlier. Fawcett is the reason I wish I saw this flick in the cinema. Though the film contains no actual nudity Farrah wears a sweater at one point that perfectly shows off her nipples, and I'd rather see it on a large screen with twenty-year old eyes than a small screen with what I have today.
High points: Jack Elam's crazy doctor. Wall-eyed actor Elam steals every scene he's in. While good use is made of his eyes, he never falls into the trap that often killed Marty Feldman, who thought his eyes were enough for a joke. Elam is always inventive and his crazy doctor always does the unexpected.
Then there's Roger Moore. He's also crazy, a nice Jewish boy who believes he's . . . Roger Moore, international celebrity. It sounds like a one-note part but he's actually given some clever bits, including appearing in every scene with a different girl (the last girl he's with has the best line in the movie).
"Cannonball Run" is wonderfully politically incorrect. The prime beneficiary of this is newcomer (to American audiences) Jackie Chan, who is able to show off some of his martial arts prowess. Jamie Farr is a hoot as an Islamic Arab prince, who today would have vest bombers in the theaters. And George Furth plays a whinging bureaucrat (in the mode of William Atherton the later "Ghostbusters") who lives to put an end to everyone's fun. It's good to revisit the days when even film-makers who like liberty thought the nine scariest words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Low points: 1) Two NC rednecks played by football player Terry Bradshaw and stuttering singer Mel Tillis add nothing to the movie, especially not humor. 2) Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., perhaps the last of the all-round entertainers who can sing, act and do comedy and who are as comfortable onstage as they are in front of a movie-camera, don't even seem to be trying. The two most talented members of the cast, and two of the eldest who, like Elam, should be showing the youngsters how to do it right, are just abysmal. If you want to see this movie because you're a Dean or Sammy fan, do yourself a favor and remember them as they used to be. 3) Adrienne Barbeau based a lot of her career on her bust (she got a big break onstage in "Hair" and her shapeliness never hurt her. Here, her only contribution is, every time she's stopped by the cops is to unzip her skin-tight suit and show off her cleavage (just enough to get by without an "R" rating). If that's all you want, rent "Swamp Thing" instead.
Then there's Burt Reynolds, as usual thinking he merely has to show up for women to swoon. He struts across the scene wearing that 70s "porn moustache" in the way Moore's character does in his fantasy world, only in a real, live moving picture. It's hard to believe this movie came out the same year as the subtle, beautiful drama "Chariots of Fire" which was about another sort of race.
Apart from the low points, "Cannonball Run" is brainless fun, but it may be just the remedy for you when you're ill or can't sleep or on a low biorhythm. But Dom really is hard to swallow.