There was no runaway bride beside Robbie Turner, but “Smokey” caught up to the “Bandit” for just a few minutes in Tabor City this morning.
Turner and Tabor City Police set up an impromptu traffic stop to honor the 45th anniversary of the classic Burt Reynolds/Sally Fields movie, Smokey and the Bandit. Reynolds’ character is escorting a tractor trailer load of illegal Coors beer, distracting police from the bootleggers.
When Fields jumps into his car, wearing her wedding dress, to stage her escape, it starts an entirely new chain of events. Reynolds, Fields and the truck drivers are then pursued by a growing number of law enforcement agencies through the rest of the movie.
The movie was credited with a huge boom in “Firebird” model Trans Am automobiles in the years after its debut.
“It was all Mr. Turner’s idea,” said Crystal Edwards of TCPD.
Turner’s nearly-perfect Pontiac Trans Am bears a startling resemblance to the muscle car driven by Reynolds as he draws the ire of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason.
Turner even had his own antagonist for the scene — TCPD Patrolman Nick Forester. Turner called Tabor Police to get permission and cooperation to recreate one of the famous scenes in the movie. Forester, who wasn’t born when the movie came out, stepped up to play the role of the frustrated sheriff.
The “traffic stop” occurred on an empty side street for safety’s sake.
Edwards, who photographed the scene, said Chief Donald Dowless urged several female employees to don a wedding dress to complete the recreation, but time was short and there were no volunteers.
“This was a spur of the moment, fun thing,” Edwards said. “The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. Everybody had a good time.”
