John G. Avildsen’s amiable, largely forgotten 1975 road movie came out the same year as Robert Altman’s Nashville, but everybody I knew back then was way more excited about this—shoot, it had Burt Reynolds, and car chases, and country music, and Burt Reynolds. Plus it was set and shot in Nashville—the glimpses of the stand-alone L&C Building and bygone Lower Broad are worth the trip. Reynolds plays a gum-smacking Robin Hood who ushers Conny Van Dyke, Don Williams and their honky-tonk band onto the Opry; it was the late Jerry Reed’s film debut, and Polly Holliday (Flo from TV’s Alice) and even Brad Dourif are in it somewhere. (Cool credit alert: the production designer, Lawrence G. Paull, went on to do Blade Runner and Back to the Future.) Quentin Tarantino said it inspired him to write screenplays—because it sucked so badly compared to screenwriter Thomas Rickman’s original conception. Unavailable on DVD, it shows free in The Belcourt’s parking lot, projected outside at dusk.
Second Saturday of every month, 7 p.m. Starts: July 11. Continues through Aug. 8, 2009
