![]() ![]() A widescreen version of White Lightning finally popped up as a DVD-R double feature from TGG Direct paired up with The End, oddly enough, but the compression left a lot to be desired. Those eyesores were recycled in various double- and triple-feature combos for the bargain bin market, though flat letterboxed transfers popped up on TCM and later in improved 1080i renditions on MGM HD (albeit a slightly overzealous application of noise reduction). The addition of Hutton and Weston as wild cards is a nice touch as well, and while the plot doesn't come close to reinventing the genre at any point, it moves along like a well-oiled machine for maximum entertainment value.īoth White Lightning and Gator were notoriously botched DVD releases from MGM, both stuck with cruddy full frame transfers that demolished the compositions of the second film in particular. Now sporting his trademark mustache, Reynolds slips easily back into the role and makes for a likable hero, while Reed makes for a much more interesting, unpredictable villain this time around. Running nearly two hours (a virtual epic for a drive-in movie), Gator manages to run fast and furious for the entire running time and features an excellent feel for Southern life with an emphasis on the geography, sweltering heat, and local manners of the area. ![]() Also on hand is pretty, quirky reporter Aggie Maybank (Hutton, taking her character's name from her grandmother) as the requisite love interest, but more importantly, both Needham and Bernstein are also here to ensure that we get plenty of great, twangy music and ridiculously dangerous stunts galore. Brought in to recruit Gator (at first with disastrous results) is fast-talking New Yorker Irving Greenfield (Weston), who recognizes Gator's value as a colleague of the main culprit, Bama McCall (Jerry Reed, a frequent future fixture in Reynolds movies and the best actor here). (That doesn't explain why several shots were deliberately shot slightly out of focus, but presumably it was on purpose.) Here the vengeance aspect is dropped entirely but the formula is pretty much the same as Gator is recruited from his idyllic post-prison swamp life of living with his cranky dad and petting puppies to help bust up a corrupt county the unnamed Governor (TV host Mike Douglas, a weird bit of casting if there ever was one) wants to have nice and clean in time for the next election. Three years later, Reynolds took up the feature film directorial reins for the first time for a sequel, Gator, which shifted locations to Georgia and switched the visual scheme from flat 1.85:1 to a more spacious, gliding 2.35:1 Panavision shot by expert cinematographer William A. However, its greatest assets were behind the camera courtesy of stunt coordinator Hal Needham, who would go on to direct Reynolds in several films starting with Smokey and the Bandit, and composer Charles Bernstein, whose flavorful score would later make a cameo appearance in Kill Bill: Vol. Armstrong, drawling Louise Latham, and a young Diane Ladd (whose daughter, Laura Dern, makes a brief kindergarten-era appearance). The feds show up offering to spring Gator if he agrees to use his skills to help them take down Connors, who's running a nasty criminal ring with bootlegging as one of its mildest offenses.īoasting a very colorful supporting cast including Bo Hopkins (reuniting with Reynolds after The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing), the reliably gruff R.G. One well-timed blast sends the captives slowly sinking to their deaths in the water, and we're off on running as we find out one of the dead kids was the little brother of Gator, a bootlegger now serving time in an Arkansas penitentiary. Things start off a fairly sadistic note for a PG-rated film as shotgun-toting Sheriff Connors (Ned Beatty) and one of his cohorts canoe through a swamp to another nearby boat, populated by a gagged and bound young couple. Reynolds had scored a major hit in '72 with Deliverance and hit it off with the locals in Georgia, so it made sense for him to stick with a Southern persona in White Lightning, a deep-fried tale of corrupt lawmakers and revenge shot in Arkansas by director Joseph Sargent, a TV vet who would score the following year with the popular The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. There's no question that Burt Reynolds owned movie theaters in the '70s, and if there's a ground zero for his trademark down-home bad boy persona, it's his role in two films as Gator McKlusky, moonshiner and tough guy extra or din ai re. Kino Lorber (Blu-ray & DVD) (US RA/R1 HD/NTSC) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9) / MGM, TGG Direct (DVD) Starring Burt Reynolds, Lauren Hutton, Jack Weston, Jerry Reed, Alice Ghostley, Dub Taylor, Mike Douglas Kino Lorber (Blu-ray & DVD) (US RA/R1 HD/NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9), MGM, TGG Direct (DVD) Starring Burt Reynolds, Jennifer Billingsley, Ned Beatty, Bo Hopkins, Matt Clark, Louise Latham, R.G. ![]()
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