PHANTOM SWAY

    • The Worst of Burt Reynolds

    Burt Reynolds died last week and much has been written since about him and his career. In my opinion, while he was a good actor, Burt was a great movie star. I compare him to Cary Grant, if not in style then in substance. Grant was a great actor, but he excelled at being Cary Grant, movie star. Burt was the same way. He could step away from his screen persona and successfully deliver unique performances, but in the end he was always good ol’ movie star Burt.

    His lengthy filmography includes “Deliverance,” “Semi-Tough,” “Starting Over,” “The Longest Yard,” “Boogie Nights,” “Citizen Ruth,” all films to be proud of, as well as his crowd pleasing blockbusters like “Smokey and the Bandit,” “Hooper,” “White Lightning” and “Cannonball Run.” Though not classic, his 80s comedies like “Paternity” “The End” and “Good Friends” are all worth watching.

    Along the way though, Burt made some really bad films. It wasn’t always his fault but for whatever reason, Burt has been associated with some of the biggest flops to ever come out of Hollywood. Five of his films have been nominated “Worst Picture” at the Golden Raspberry Awards, one of them going on to win. Comedian Robert Wuhl once said, “Burt Reynolds makes so many bad movies, when someone else makes a bad movie Burt gets a royalty.”

    Let’s take a look.

    Note: In compiling this list, I left out films where Burt only made a cameo appearance as well as the many films Burt made late in life which never made it into theaters.

    Lucky Lady (1975)

    Lucky Lady was 20th Century Fox’s big holiday adventure film for 1975. All three of the leads agreed that the shoot was the most grueling they’d ever experienced and they blamed the failure of the film on director Stanley Donen. Three endings were filmed for it and none of them worked.  It tanked at the box office.

     

    Stroker Ace (1983)

    Easily one of his worst.  Five years after the making of this movie, Burt married co-star Loni Anderson.  That marriage was only slightly more disastrous than the film. It’s another good ol’ boy action/comedy only it’s not good.  What on paper seemed like a sure-fire hit was a box office bomb.  Burt was nominated for his first Razzie as Worst Actor.

    City Heat (1984)

    Based on a script written by writer/director Blake Edwards in the 1960s, the film went into production in the early 80s after the success of his films “10“ and “Victor/Victoria.” The mega-watt pairing of Burt Reynolds with Clint Eastwood had the suits at Warner Brothers salivating. Reynolds once said, “If you could just release the announcement for City Heat and not have to look at the film, it’d be the most successful picture I’d ever been in.” But Eastwood didn’t see eye to eye with Edwards, a director with a somewhat deserved reputation as “difficult.” The studio let him go, after which an angry Edwards insisted his script credit go to “Sam O. Brown,” a reference to his earlier scathing film satire on the movie business, “S.O.B.” Richard Benjamin took over the reigns, but it was too late. The film was a critical and commercial failure and through no fault of his own, Burt received his second Razzie nomination for Worst Actor.

    Cannonball Run II (1984)

    Why “Cannonball Run II” and not the original film?  “Cannonball Run” was pretty bad, right?  It was panned by critics but it was a huge box office success.  That’s somewhat common for a Burt film and I won’t disparage it for that.  This film, however, is actually worse than the first while adding nothing to it.  It was made for no other reason than greed and it even failed there, earning less than half the original.  Burt received another Razzie nomination for Worst Actor.

    Rent-A-Cop (1988)

    Burt and Liza were reunited in this 1988 film proving that lightning can strike twice and the results can be just as ugly. For their efforts, both stars received Worst Acting Razzie nominations.

    Switching Channels (1988)

    In 1988, the classic Charles MacArthur/Ben Hecht play “The Front Page” was remade for the eleventy-second time with Burt starring opposite Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve. From the first day of filming, Reynolds and Turner bumped heads and those feelings translate to the screen in the form of their complete lack of chemistry.  It’s not as bad as other films on this list, it’s just completely pointless. Burt earned yet another Razzie nomination for Worst Actor.  He was on a roll.  He was like the Glen Close of the Razzies.  Always a bridesmaid.

    Cop and a Half (1993)

    A low rent knock-off of “Kindergarten Cop.” The only good reviews for this 1993 film highlighted the performance of the half cop, nine year old Norman D. Golden II. The rest was a mess.

    The Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

    Yet another attempt to create a franchise from a long defunct product that failed spectacularly.  It’s confusing, right?  “Dukes” was a TV series created to capitalize on Burt’s biggest movie hit “Smokey and the Bandit.”  Burt’s stunt casting here as Boss Hogg is something you can only imagine he did for the paycheck and possibly for the Razzie nomination he received as Worst Supporting Actor.

     

    He didn’t win…again.

     

    Striptease (1996)

    Up until now these films have been presented in chronological order.  But these last two deserve special recognition.  Burt lobbied hard to get the role of debauched congressman David Dilbeck in “Striptease.”  The film went on to sweep the Razzies, winning in all major categories except Worst Supporting Actor which Burt lost to Marlon Brando in “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”  However, he did finally claim the coveted “Golden Raspberry” as part of the Worst Couple award, which he shared with Demi.

    Recognition at last.

    At Long Last Love (1975)

    This film holds a special place in bad film history. Like Francois Truffaut, Peter Bogdanovich was a film critic turned film maker. He hit the trifecta with three successful films in a row, “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon” and by all accounts, became a bit insufferable.  Then came “At Long Last Love,” his cinematic love letter to classic Hollywood musicals. His former fellow critics got their long knives out and with good reason.  The film is a mess.  Few of the performers in the movie could sing and none could dance. Even the evergreen songs of Cole Porter couldn’t save this film. It’s reviews are legendarily hilarious:

    John Simon, The National Review – “may be the worst movie musical of this or any decade: Sitting through this movie is like having someone at a fancy Parisian restaurant, who neither speaks nor reads French, read out stentoriously the entire long menu in his best Arkansas accent, and occasionally interrupt himself to chortle at his own cleverness”

    TV Guide – “One of the worst bombs of the 1970s, this foolish attempt at re-creating the lush musicals of the 1930’s offers fabulous art deco sets, memorable Cole Porter songs, and slick production values, yet it goes down like a stricken elephant.”

    John Barbour, Los Angeles Magazine – “If this Peter Bogdanovich fiasco were any more of a dog, it would shed”, and, “Burt Reynolds sings like Dean Martin with adenoids and dances like a drunk killing cockroaches”

    Frank Rich –  “the most perverse movie musical ever made…a colossal, over-extravagant in-joke…Every time his stars open their mouths or shake their legs, they trample on Cole Porter’s grave…As for Shepherd’s dancing, the best to be said is that it may not be recognizable as such: when this horsey ex-model starts prancing around, she tends to look as if she’s fighting off a chronic case of trots.”

    Ah, critics!

    In a perverse way, I’d like to think Burt Reynolds would have enjoyed this post.  He was quite candid in interviews about his hits and misses and his public image.  His legacy is there for our interpretation, but ultimately, he was a great star and won’t be forgotten soon.

    André Dupuy
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