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Burt could have been one of the greatest tough-guy action heroes but he chose comedies.

posted 6 years ago by whynotwriteme (7121)
8 replies | jump to latest

All of his movies were enjoyable and lots of fun, but when you watch Deliverance or even his first film, Navajo Joe, you see a totally different Burt Reynolds from the happy-go-lucky Bandit or Hooper. Burt could play a deadly serious action hero when he wanted to. He could have been the successor to guys like Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin.

I like all his light-hearted movies, but it would have been nice to see him in some more serious action roles.

[–] ccr1633 (1414) 6 years ago

Financially speaking those corny good ol' boy movies were a smart move for Reynolds, and even for Eastwood who surprisingly decided to tread the same turf. Artistically, it seemed to result in his being typecast as a wisecracking hick who couldn't be taken seriously. His attempts in the early 80s to return to more serious macho man roles just weren't all that good, the best of them being the mediocre Sharkey's Machine. Instead of becoming Charles Bronson (who had his own slew of misfires, although a much larger set of quality action flicks) Reynolds became a less violent version of Chuck Norris. It's too bad because Burt proved he could deliver believable drama in films like Deliverance, as well as excellent comic timing in higher quality films preceding Smokey and the Bandit (The Longest Yard, Silent Movie). It took the new wave directors of the 90s to resurrect his career. On that point, I think Tarantino and Anderson deserve a lot of credit for seeing the talent that still lied within actors Hollywood had typecast and later gave up on.

[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

I sort of agree that later directors may have seen talent that earlier directors did not, but it's hard to ignore the kitsch value of having someone like Burt in a role. Not like they chose Richard Burton or O'Toole (had they been alive).
It just seems like a canny casting person might realize reviving an older stars career is a fun way to spark interest.
Pam Grier ! Burt Reynolds ! But I am glad they got a late boost and recognition.
Burt always seemed like someone who comically couldn't believe he was where he was at. Maybe that's why he chose to go with light comedies. He might not have felt he was up to the heavy-lifting a bunch of serious films need.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I think the OP is offering a pretty fascinating realization of how the Burt Reynolds career worked.

In TV series like "Hawk"(his 60s cop show) and "Dan August"(the early 70'scop show that he made right BEFORE Deliverance, two other movies in 1972 and that Cosmo centerfold made him a movie star) --- Burt was the tough guy. Humorless. Macho. Beating guys up. And doing great stunt jumps (the Dan August credits showed him sliding on his stomach the length of a floor into a camera.)

He was certainly macho in Deliverance. And The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. Serious. Scary.

But on TV talk shows like Johnny Carson and Dinah Shore(the older woman who was his love for awhile)...Burt was one funny guy. Not so much what he said, as the way he said it. I remember he said that Dan August was defeated in the TV ratings by Hawaii 5-0 which was, he said "a show about pineapples and heroin." Not that funny a line...how he SAID it, was.

And he had that ridiculous high-pitched laugh, a direct assault on his tough guy looks.

Well, yeah, he started doing comedies a LOT. Became the good old boy. Seemed averse to going directly against Clint(until he did Sharkey's Machine, where he is a tough guy, but still making jokes.)

I think folks took Burt Reynolds pretty seriously from Deliverance through The Longest Yard(funny, but R-rated brutal, too) and then on to Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper. Reynolds even tried to play some "urban New York men" in the comedies Starting Over and Paternity, to show some range.

But if his comic touch made him a star, his penchant for really silly comedies (often, sadly, with Dom DeLuise) slowly cut his audience off from him: Smokey and the Bandit 2, Cannonball Run, Stroker Ace, Cannonball Run II. His audience left him and he never really got them back. (City Heat with Clint Eastwood in 1984 was the ironic end to Burt's superstar days; Beverly Hills Cop beat it at the box office; Burt was over and Clint had to re-group.) (CONT)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

(CONT) But lucky for Burt, he had been major enough a superstar to last for decades as a "name."

He did TV. He did one private eye show, set in Florida. He had a very successful sitcom, "Evening Shade" with respected actors like Charles Durning, Ossie Davis, and Hal Holbrook in support, because they respected him.

He was name enough to get a good role, and to finally get an Oscar nomination, in a very prestigious 1997 movie, "Boogie Nights." And then he just kept on punching. To pay bills, he did a lot of straight-to-video stuff, but he knew that most of us would never see those films, and he would get paid.

I do like, that in his final year with us, he got one definitive indiefilm -- "The Last Movie Star" which was about Burt Reynolds as much as John Wayne's final film, The Shootist, had been about John Wayne.

And also in his final year with us, Burt was cast in Tarantino's all-star "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Burt didn't get to film his scenes, but he knew he was wanted for a very major film.

Whoever ends up playing the Burt Reynolds part in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" -- most of us will know that it was Burt Reynolds' part.

[–] liscarkat (16515) 3 years ago

He squandered his considerable talent on those idiotic CB radio/car chase movies, which wrecked his serious acting career.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Yep. The question he himself never seemed able to answer was: why?

Why did he keep taking those parts, in movies that were demonstrably bad(he had to have read the scripts).

Perhaps he felt he good do no wrong but -- he was wrong.

People want to escape INTO a movie. Burt would often take them OUT of the movie -- wise cracking in scenes, showing outtakes(ALL the fricking time) at the end of his movies.

The 80s was a time of action. One supposes he could have taken films like 48 HRS, Lethal Weapon -- maybe even Die Hard, and made them his own.

But there was a real life problem: in 1984 on the set of "City Heat"(the Eastwood co-starrer), Reynolds took a REAL chair to the jaw during a stunt fight and evidently was injured for a long time. Couldn't eat, lost weight, looked bad. And he was older than the younger stars who GOT 48 HRS, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. And his wigs started to look real bad (CURLY.)

From about "Stick"(1985) on, Burt Reynolds simply didn't LOOK good anymore, which was the final nail in his movie career.

Off to TV, where he looked REAL good.

But he'd killed his movie star career long before that. With his stupid comedies.

He took one of them -- Stroker Ace -- at the cost of turning down the Nicholson role in Terms of Endearment -- which had been written for HIM.

Bad call.

[–] liscarkat (16515) a year ago

Yeah. Talented actor, smart guy, but poor career and relationship judgment.

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

There are a lot of humorless tough guy actors, but very few tough-guy actors who can do comedy, or really nail a truly manly sort of humor (as opposed to the mord common immature arrested-development-guy sort of male humor).

So I remember that back in the day Reynolds would deliberately mix up his film genres, he'd do action films, action comedies, romances, the occasional drama, etc., while he carved a niche as the one and only actor who was both very macho and very funny! It all worked, until some time in the 1980s he seemed to loose the likability and sense of fun that had made him a huge star.