The only Burt Reynolds movie that was ahead of its time: “Nobody cared”
The movie stars who stay at the top of the pile for the longest time are the ones who adapt and evolve to their surroundings and the circumstances of the industry at large. Burt Reynolds wasn’t one of them, which is why his dalliance with the A-list was so brief.
Think of today’s cinematic superstars, and a recurring denominator is that many of them have been in that position for not just years, but decades: Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, and Leonardo DiCaprio have all been delivering quality performances in hit films since at least the early 1990s.
Reynolds was named the most bankable actor in Hollywood for five consecutive years between 1978 and 1982, but that was as good as it got. One major reason was that he was a product of his time: his glorious moustache became synonymous with smash-hit action comedies, but once his golden period of being a draw was over, he never recovered.
To put things into perspective, Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood were the stars who topped the bankability charts on either side of Reynolds in 1977 and 1983. While the Smokey and the Bandit frontman’s star faded throughout the decade, that pair continued making profitable films into the 2020s.
By his own admission, Reynolds was stuck in a predicament of his own making. He knew audiences would turn up to his latest high-octane genre flick, and they paid very well. On the other hand, it meant people struggled to take him seriously as an actor when he tried something different.
According to the Academy Award nominee, he didn’t make a single good film until Deliverance either. For the record, that was the 11th feature in his filmography, so his track record wasn’t great. However, one of those pictures was ahead of its time, according to Reynolds anyway, not that paying customers gave a shit.
1969’s western comedy Sam Whiskey starred Reynolds as a lifelong gambler who accepts an offer to retrieve a cache of stolen gold for Angie Dickinson’s recently widowed daughter of a powerful politician. As was often the case in his early years, it flopped, but it did at least offer the first glimpses of what would soon become his signature persona: a confident, cocksure, and charismatic rogue.
“This was ahead of its time,” Reynolds declared when looking back on his career. “I was playing light comedy, and nobody cared.” Both of those statements are true to a certain extent, with Sam Whiskey sinking without a trace in cinemas while laying the groundwork for everything that would help the actor achieve superstardom just a few years later.
It’s hard to look at any of Reynolds’ films and say they were miles ahead of the curve, but Sam Whiskey states a better case than most.
