Smokey IS the Bandit, Part 3: The Forgotten Film

Universal Pictures originally shot Smokey IS the Bandit, Part 3 with Jackie Gleason portraying both the Bandit and Buford T. Justice roles. Test screenings were poor, so they recasted the Bandit role to Jerry Reed. The film did poorly at the box office, but recently, new evidence surfaced that confirms the existance of the original version of the film.

Sign the petition at: http://www.petitiononline.com/smokey3/petition.html

UPDATE 5/6/2011: After sending snopes.com 2 different emails AND the original trailer, I have not heard back from them nor have they updated their page recognizing the trailer. Only time will tell.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• smokey and the bandit
• smokey is the bandit
• jackie gleason
• jerry reed
• burt reynolds
• part 3

[DiscoKat]

I would speculate that it's highly doubtful the footage exists. Universal, like many other movie/music companies have several times purged their vaults of excess. Even a blockbuster movie like the Blues Brothers had nothing left it the vaults. No trims, no deleted scenes, no alternate takes - not even the original multitracks to the soundtrack. Nothing. So, if a huge movie like that has NOTHING left in the vaults, I'd be the first to say fat chance in hell anything from this abortion remains.

[william5000forever]

@DiscoKat Concerining the Blues Brothers, there actually is an expanded edition that shows more to the movie. You can see where the colors are a bit off due to the age of the edited clips, but it added a bit more to the film.

[MurderAt1300]

a full version with gleason as the bandit was shot, but got a bad response, so jerry reed re shot all the bandit scenes

[william5000forever]

@MurderAt1300 that is exactly what i am saying

[PhantomLordNYC]

I want to believe and hope that there is a work print of Smokey Is The Bandit somewhere out there.

[BooNube]

Snopes is one of my favorite sites on the web, but I'm massively disappointed that they haven't updated the status of this 'urban legend' given the overwhelming evidence.

[MegaGum1]

in my acting class when ever anyone talked about their favourite film it was always Godfather, Cane, Shawshank, Starwars, Pulp Fiction. My favourite film was always Smokey and the Bandit PART III

Is that bad?

[Srd1126]

I remember as a kid reading about Part III coming out the next year and Gleason was to play 2 roles. Considering he played 3 in Part II the story fit. Hard to believe the first product was worse than what they eventually put out as Part III. It was so bad I am suprised they didn't have the Bandit drive a Sunbird instead of a Trans-Am.

[FirebirdKnight]

yet snopes still have it listed as undetermined :(

[TheNimon1]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this. It would be good to see this version of the film. Do we know if the footage still exsists in the Universal Pictures archives?

[X24RIDER]

OMG an actual pic of Gleason as the Bandit :D Thanks for sharing and showing william5000forever !!!!!

[bigdaddybf]

i was excited over the trailer but the photo put me over the top/.....release this friggin cut of the film instead of shit remakes of other classic movies.