Corrected entry: The star on Sheriff Justice's car indicates that he is the Sheriff of Montague County Texas. Texarkana is in Bowie County Texas, which is approximately 245 miles east of Montague County.
Corrected 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.
Correction: Snowman actually says "Damned if ya ain't" and he says it twice.
Corrected entry: I find it highly unlikely that the bandit and snowman could have driven from GA to TX without once ever stopping to take a nap or rest from driving so long. Regardless of the law enforcement that's pursuing them, only stopping once for gas, cheeseburgers, sex in the woods, and no rest, almost impossible.
Correction: First, this is your opinion, and in no way a factual error. They only had 28 hours to complete the task, not a very long time to need a nap. And since we don't see everything they did there and back, you're just guessing how many times they stopped based solely on what you saw.
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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 entry: When Bandit first drives the Trans Am out of the trailer, you can see that the walls of the trailer are lined with wood. Reefer trailers (refrigerated) ones like the Snowman pulled are not lined with wood.
Correction: Hobbs trailers were all skinned with wood as were a lot of the trailers of the time. The "refer" trailers were insulated between the wood and the outside skin of the trailer but this is not distinguished between the two.
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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.
Also, you can't know how many times they changed channels; it could be higher second (3rd, 4th) time around.
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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..
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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.
Correction: He is in fact stepping on the brake pedal. You can tell this because of the brake line seen coming out of the bottom of the pedal. What makes this scene confusing is the fact that the filmstrip is 'flipped' here, meaning you are looking at a mirrored image.
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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 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.
Correction: 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 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected 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.
Correction: Because it's a reflection, things look reversed. Frog is actually driving the car all along.
Bandit is driving when viewed in the rearview. It has nothing to do with the image being in reverse. Bandit is on the outside of the mirror which would be the driver's seat in the car behind him. That's how a mirror works.
In the scene, they're on a 2-lane road divided by a yellow line. When we see the car in the truck's side mirror, it's on Snowman's right side, meaning on the wrong side of the road. The yellow line is to the right of the driver (in America), so if they're going the wrong way, the yellow line would be to the left of the driver so that the passenger is closest to the yellow line. In the shot of the car in the side mirror, Bandit is closest to the yellow line, meaning he's not driving.
Corrected entry: Amazing how Bandit and Frog are getting better acquainted - his eyes can leave the road for moments at a time, even though they are speeding 100mph, and not have a single incident. (00:50:45 - 00:55:55)
Correction: Most of the time they aren't driving 100 mph, and I've seen people doing things like applying makeup or using a laptop without incident in over 15 years of driving long distances.
Corrected entry: When Sally Field exclaims,"Are we really doing 110?" the speedometer in the Trans Am is reading 70 mph.
Correction: The speedometer does in fact read 110, approximately on the blue kilometers/hr scale that is. Sally Field doesn't specify the units, therefore her line is perfectly acceptable.
Corrected entry: When the Bandit and Snowman are first driving, and talking on the radio, at the end of transmission Bandit says, "I'm 10-100 on the side." "10-100" means restroom stop. He should have said "10-7 on the side" which means he is out of service, or on standby, not on the air. I didn't see anything about him stopping for a restroom break, and he would have said, "I need to make a 10-100", not "I'm 10-100 on the side."
Correction: The entry is fundamentally wrong. The correct movie line is "I'm 10-10 on the side" meaning "I'm ending my transmission but will be listening on standby," not 10-100 as stated in the mistake entry. The correction is also wrong, in that Bandit makes the statement, NOT Smokey, therefore Smokey's lack of knowledge of CB terms is irrelevant regardless.
Corrected entry: The premise of Smokey & The Bandit was going to Texarkana to acquire Coors beer, which was not available east of Texas. Texarkana, Arkansas is "wet", but Texarkana, Texas is "dry" - there was no Coors in Texarkana, Arkansas, and no beer of any kind in Texarkana, Texas.
Correction: Coors beer, at the time, was not available east of the Mississippi River (because of licensing) for sale. Coors beer was certainly available in Arkansas as the entire state is west of the Mississippi River. Also, there is no reason Coors could not have a warehouse/distribution center in Texarkana, Texas.
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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 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.
Correction: 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).
That's because a couple of 1976 Special Editions are used along with the 1977 that is the principal car in the movie. At least the director kept you from seeing the 76 front which is one of the biggest differences. He must of felt the honeycomb wheels on the 76 would not be as noticeable as the snowflake wheels on the 77. The 76 is most noticeable when Bandit is waiting for Snowman at the Texarkana sign on the side of the road.
Corrected 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?
Correction: The same way countless other drivers 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. Certainly, if he stood up and looked up, his hat would come off. But with minimal attention, the hat can be kept on.
Corrected 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!
Correction: 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.
Correction: Sally Field fled the wedding, and her car was broken down on the side of the road. Sheriff Justice was after her before the Bandit showed up, so the fact that she got 245 miles away before the car either broke down or ran out of gas is not difficult to believe.
The sheriff was also not particularly concerned about jurisdiction throughout the film when it came to apprehending his quarry.
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