Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)

Director: Dick Lowry

Writers: Stuart Birnbaum, David Dashev

Composer: Larry Cansler

Starring: Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams, Pat McCormick, Mike Henry, Colleen Camp, Faith Minton, Burt Reynolds

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Pull out the stops. To heck with the cops. Someone's making out like a bandit.

Plot: Big and Little Enos are opening a sea food restaurant. They bet Sheriff Buford T. Justice that he cannot drive from Miami to the Enos ranch in Texas in a given amount of time. If Buford loses he has to give up his badge.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.


You know you're in trouble when the movie opens with clips from the much better film that started it all. It's done in fullscreen and sepiatone 'cause it was all so long ago that it happened.  I really hope Gleason got a fat check for this.  Is it wrong of me to think this is a more entertaining movie than Part II?  Don't hate me.  It's only marginally better.  Why?  More Gleason, a lot more Gleason, and something I never imagined seeing and a S&tB flick...

And that's just from the scenes at the nudist picnic.  There's more at the hotel where everyone stays earlier in the film.  Fuck yeah!  Like the second picture, it's not a good film but it seems like they at least tried this time and I think it helped not having Burt & Sally back (but Burt makes a cameo at the very end).  That business with the elephant in the last one was just awful.  Both films are quickly paced.  This is the last of the three films in the Universal Smokey and the Bandit Pursuit Pack Franchise Collection DVD set.  It's hardly a set as it's one DVD with the first two films on the first side and the third on the other side.  This is the only of the three that's not anamorphic so you get the black bars all the way around and if you want to expand it you zoom and lose quality...quality you say?  Ha!  Anyway this one doesn't have a single extra.  I'm not exactly busted up about it but it would be nice for fans of this franchise.