Friday, July 06, 2007

Inexplicably, this keep me up until 1 AM the other night


The movie is "White Lightning" a two-fisted drama from 1973 starring Mr. Burt Reynolds as Gator, a southern fella convicted of running moonshine and subsequently recruited to work uncover for the feds in order to bring down the corrupt sheriff played by Ned Beatty, who just so happened to have also killed Gator's brother. Whew! It spawned a 1976 sequel called, simply enough, "Gator", which we can assume tied up all the dangling plot threads left from this one.

Actually, nothing was left dangling. Burt got his revenge, the sheriff died, and I staggered off to bed, bleary-eyed and questioning my self-worth and sanity.

I would recommend clicking on the poster image in order to embiggen it, because not only is it nicely painted, but it adroitly sums up the entire plot of the movie in one fell swoop. The cracking moonshine bottles, cursing sheriff and brazen floozy in the front seat are all certainly nice touches, but the crowning detail is the pair of broken handcuffs adorning Burt / Gator's wrist. It really drives home that 70's anti-hero angle. Nicely done. The inset photo of a shirtless Burt seems a bit shoehorned in, but what are you gonna do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's with the slogan under the title "Take a bite and feel alright." A bite of what?

Blogfoot said...

I think it may be some southern slang or nomenclature, where taking a sip of super-strong liquor is referred to as "taking a bite." You know, like "that stuff's got a bite to it."

Or they could merely be suggesting that Burts fans bite him.