| Smokey Bites the Dust | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Charles B. Griffith |
| Written by | Max Apple |
| Produced by | Roger Corman |
| Starring | Jimmy McNichol Janet Julian Walter Barnes |
| Music by | Bent Myggen |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | New World Pictures |
Release date |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Smokey Bites the Dust is a 1981 car chase film fromNew World Pictures directed byCharles B. Griffith. Despite the title, the film is not connected to theSmokey and the Bandit series.
The stock plot deals with Roscoe Wilton, a teenage joyriding car thief, evading Cyco County Sheriff Turner and his unintelligent deputies.
Turner becomes even more obsessed with catching Roscoe after he kidnaps his overly-sheltered daughter, Peggy Sue, just as she is about to be crownedhomecoming Queen during a football game at their high school. In so doing, Roscoe also makes himself a target of other characters, including his best friend Harold, Peggy Sue's friend Cindy, and Kenny, asanctimoniousquarterback who is deeply, but vainly, in love with Peggy Sue.
While Roscoe is being chased by Sheriff Turner, Turner himself incurs the wrath of neighboring Knotsie County Sheriff Sherm Bleed after commandeering one of Bleed's cruisers. Turner's pursuit of Roscoe (and Peggy Sue, who quickly begins to enjoy being in Roscoe's company) goes through two other neighboring counties, with Turner commandeering several other police cruisers and civilian cars only to wreck each one in spectacular fashion.
Though the majority of the cars used in filming had California licence plates, the exact location of the storyline was more ambiguous; film dialogue mentioned theboonies, which generally refers to theAppalachian region, and also mentioned running off to "eastSt. Louis or west toColorado". Near the end of the film, Roscoe suggests they hotwire a boat and take off for St. Louis orNew Orleans, both of which are on theMississippi River.
Charles B. Griffith had made a popular film forRoger Corman'sNew World Pictures calledEat My Dust! (1976). Corman wanted Griffith to make a follow-up calledCar Wars using stunt footage from five old New World films. Griffith wrote a script which he later calledWham Bam, Merci, Madame, which he says Corman rejected. However a few years later he reactivated the project.
He called again and offered me a lot more money than he ever had before. I guess I got flattered, and I went ahead and did it. He had Max Apple in Texas go ahead and write a script around all the wrecks and chases. But Max wasn't allowed to see the footage. It was too expensive to rent a Movieola and send Max prints or anything else, so he had only vague descriptions written down on what the stunts were—and nothing worked. So I made a lot of changes in it, and that made Roger angry. He tried to cut it just to the action of the old pictures, but he couldn't, because he needed all the distribution rights. Then he cut all the motivations and all the character development. It was a mess, a jumbled mess![1]
Apple later described the experience: "They wanted four or five crashes, of which they already had the footage. It was more bricklaying than writing.[2]