Smokey and the Bandit (1977) - 21 corrections

Directed by Hal Needham, starring Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Mike Henry, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams (add more)

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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Entry In the scene where Snowman and the Bandit are deciding a method of using the radio to avoid being heard by the police they decide to "start in the basement, stay on the odd channels, and switch every time.". But obviously throughout the movie the writers either forgot this or Buford caught onto this pretty quickly because everyone seemed to be on the same channel the whole time. [They're seen switching channels several times. The fact that their plan didn't keep Buford from catching on doesn't make it a movie mistake.]
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Entry Toward the beginning, when Sheriff Justice is chewing out the State Trooper. When the Sheriff is poking the trooper in the chest, first backing the trooper out into the center of the road, then backing him off to the side of the road, first there is a long line of cars waiting behind the trooper's cruiser, then they're not there. [As soon as the Trooper stops Justice's car, and they begin to converse, you can see the line of traffic begin passing behind the trooper. By the time Justice backs the trooper out into the roadway, the line of cars has passed.]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry In the scene where the police car drives off into the lake, the Bandit turns right off the highway and onto the dirt road. But when he comes back he turns left when he gets on the highway, which would send him right back where he came from. But still he comes up from the semi's rear when he catches up with Cletus. [This would be true if there was an indication he reversed direction on the dirt road, emerging exactly where he left the road. There was no such indication. But if he turned right off the first paved road, went down the dirt road, and eventually emerged onto another paved road that was somewhat parallel to the first paved road, a left turn would send him in the correct direction. As it did in the film. A later merge with the first road (or a later left, then right) would put him back on the original roadway.]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry The car that was driven by the Good Witch of the North was most likely used in several different scenes. In the front end damage, you can see her blue car was red before that, and yellow before that. [The fact that this accident-prone old woman is driving a car that has been repainted more than once is in no way a 'mistake', nor a 'revealing mistake' etc. She simply owns a blue car that has been red, and yellow, in the past, or has been repaired using parts from red and yellow vehicles in the past. Now, if she had just bought it new and crashed on the way home from the dealer, it could be argued this is an error (or simply evidence of a crooked salesman). As it is, though, no mistake here.]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry In the beginning of the movie when the 2 rigs are racing the of the competitor changes from 11 to 21 when they show a different angle of the track. [The number changes from 27 to 10, but that's because it is two different race heats. The 27 truck is not the same truck as the number 10. In the second shot, the 27 truck (a GMC model) is waiting behind the 10 truck (a Freightliner model). Note also, that the first shot has the flagman at our far left with both trucks to the our right of him, while the second has him standing in the middle of the two rigs. The first shot has no orange cones along the far side of the track, the second shot does have the cones. Different races on the same day. No error.]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry The Trans Am's tail lights and rims seems to have an identity problem. All through the movie they change from scene to scene. [This is incredibly unspecific. At least one example of timecodes proof should be provided so it can be verified. Especially since all the Trans Ams used in the film were then-brand-new cars, bought straight from Pontiac. And as such, would have been outwardly identical (their drivetrains are known to have varied).]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry The Trans-am has an open roof, and the windows are down all through the movie. And they drive at more than a hundred miles an hour. So how does the Bandit keep his hat on? [The same way countless other driver's do. The windshield sends the air up, over and around the driver. On any warm, summer day you can see convertible owners driving the highways with hats on. Ceratinly, if he stood up and looked up, his hat would come off. But with minimal attention, the hat can be kept on.]
Corrected by John W Rosa Time
Entry Toward the end, when Snowman's truck comes roaring triumphantly into the fairgrounds, the band is playing "Marching Through Georgia". This is a YANKEE song describing General Sherman's devastating invasion in 1864 and would most emphatically NOT be played in Atlanta to celebrate anything! [While a Georgian band would never play "Marching Through Georgia", we never see the band which plays it. They might actually be at the fairgrounds, or they might be soundtrack music, like the strings we hear when the Bandit and Frog are out of the car learning to like each other earlier.]
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Entry When Snowman breaks though the fence near the end, he honks at two guys standing there. Only one turns around to see the truck coming for them, the other just starts running when he hears the horn without seeing the truck or the other guy's reaction. [This is more of a difference between characters than a mistake. Some people just react to the sound of horns by getting out of the way. Others look to see what honked at them and why.]
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Entry In the scene where the Bandit convinces Snowman to go with him to Texarkana, Texas, to get the beer, he says, "It's only 900 miles there and 900 miles back." In fact, it is only 557 miles between Texarkana and Atlanta, meaning they could cover the 1114-mile round trip in the pre-determined 28 hours in an average speed of 40 mph. [This is a character mistake on Bandit and not a film mistake. ]
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Entry In the scene where Bandit is going to jump the bridge, he spins the Trans Am around twice. When the camera angle switches to showing the Bandit step on the brake pedal, a clutch pedal can be seen in the bottom left of the screen. This is strange as all the interior shots of the car show an automatic transmission. [This is not the clutch pedal but the parking brake pedal .]
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Entry When Burt and Sally catch up to Jerry, just before they stop at Ole Miss, Jerry looks at his rearview mirror and says, "Damn again." He sees Burt in the driver's seat, even though Sally is still supposed to be driving - she gets out of the driver's seat when they stop. [Snowman actually says "Damned if ya ain't" and he says it twice.]
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Entry At the beginning of the movie, when the Bandit drives into that town at night, all four headlights are working. When he pulls around the building to get away from the police, only three headlights are working. [Given how he's driving, he could easily have hit a slight bump, causing the light to burn out or one of the wire connections to break.]
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Entry In the scene where the sheriff tries to pass Snowman, the truck clips the car in the left rear, causing it to spin. The truck then T-bones the car on the driver's side. In the following scenes, no damage is apparent to the car. [In the scene where the sheriff tries to pass Snowman, the truck clips the car in the right(passengers side) rear, causing it to spin. The truck then T-bones the car on the passengers side. In the following scenes, no damage is apparent to the car.]
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Entry The Bandit is being chased on a dirt road by a police car. The police car then goes off the road into a lake. At first the police car is a Pontiac LeMans. The police car that goes into the lake is a Dodge. [The Bandit is being chased on a dirt road by a police car. The police car then goes off the road into a lake. At first the police car is a 1976 Plymouth Fury. The police car that goes into the lake is a 1977 Pontiac LeMans..]
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Entry At the beginning of the movie, during the song, a train is coming when the bandit slams on his brakes. But he doesn't hit the brakes, instead he stepped on the gas. [Big rigs of that era had brake pedals that were shaped just like the accelerator (unlike a typical car's), so it can be a bit confusing to an untrained eye as to which is which.]
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Entry When Bandit drops Frog off at the Choke and Puke, he parks in the third spot to the right of the entrance. After his scene with Sheriff Justice, Bandit runs out to the Trans Am driven by Frog, then Sheriff Justice exits and walks to his cruiser blocking the now empty spot. I didn't know the '77 Trans Am had flight capabilities. [Frog has obviously moved the Trans Am before the Sheriff got there, therefore, the Trans Am was not blocked in. Otherwise, the Sheriff would have seen the car and Frog sitting in the parking lot.]
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Entry When Big and Little Enos are first looking for the Bandit at the truck rodeo,they find his manager who says he is paying him $25 a day so his fans can look at him. Big Enos says he's buying his attraction for half an hour, which should only be about 50 cents, but Little Enos hands him a bill. [He's not being paid to be looked at 24 hours a day - even if he's "working" 12 hour days that's $1.04 per half-hour.]
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Entry In the scene where Burt Reynolds and Sally Field are walking in the grass by the car, you can see outlined under his shirt that Burt Reynolds is wearing a girdle to hold in his stomach. [He's not wearing a girdle, it's a back brace. Burt Reynolds has had a bad back since his football days and has in fact done time in rehab for a prescription painkiller addiction.]
Corrected by Debby Kelly Time
Entry When Bandit uses the CB radio to ask Snowman where he is, and Snowman says "mile marker 85" you can see that "Frog" is driving. Then, when the camera shows Snowman look in the mirror, Bandit is driving. A moment later, it shows that Frog is driving again. [Because it's a reflection, things look reversed. Frog is actually driving the car all along.]
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