White Lightning (1973)

(On Cable TV, May 2021) Years before Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds was already playing the Bandit, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Let’s see: In White Lightning, we find him playing a likable rogue — a moonshiner doing time, and recruited by a federal agency to go undercover so they can expose local law-enforcement officials as corrupt. Forced into driving moonshine and seducing a mobster’s girlfriend, he eventually takes on the local sheriff in a southern backwoods car chase that ends up being the climax of the film. There are differences with The Bandit, and the tone isn’t quite comic as the better-known film, but the basics are there and Reynolds does the rest in trying out the mannerisms fully exploited in the latter movie. Look at the credits and you’ll even see Hal Needham (future director of Smokey and the Bandit) doing stunts. The plot does get goofier as it goes on, which doesn’t set the best first impression but at least makes for a stronger back-half. A touch too long at 101 minutes but infused with a remarkable southern-state atmosphere, White Lightning would have been better if it had been more focused on Reynolds and the action. Exactly like what happened latter with Smokey and the Bandit.