BURT REYNOLDS IN THE HEIST COMEDY WESTERN 'SAM WHISKEY'

Burt Reynolds in SAM WHISKEY Year: 1969 Grade: C+

It's said Burt Reynolds stopped taking acting seriously when he started doing more lightweight comedies than dramatic films, or when he'd attempt combining both with the zaniness upfront...

But he actually found that perfectly loose, likeable timing in what's otherwise his dramatic peak, DELIVERANCE, when a local he's asking to drive their vehicles down river says, "You're crazy," as Burt quickly replies, "No sh-t", which even gets a laugh from his buddies and seems wonderfully effortless...

Burt Reynolds and Ossie Davis in SAM WHISKEY

But back in the 1960's, Burt could be too serious... the kind of tough guy stonewall presence that he first shed in the Western comedy SAM WHISKEY, as his performance not only plays for laughs, but he can't even fight, getting easily beaten-up by who'd soon be a partner-in-crime in Ossie Davis as a blacksmith (what Burt was on GUNSMOKE)...

As WHISKEY is soon handed a mission by progressive fancy lady Angie Dickinson: to retrieve stolen gold-bars buried in a lake by her late husband... but only to return them to the federal mint so her family's name could be...

Clint Walker in SAM WHISKEY

Well the plot gets as convoluted as the eventual long-con-heist, also involving gentle giant Clint Walker, whose proto-machine-gun invention makes for a set-piece cooler than the picture itself, and that Burt uses to save Walker and Davis from hillbillies who'd tied them to trees (sound familiar?) and, once free, the eclectic trio... trading the rural exterior to a colorful bank/mint interior... wind up over their heads and the audience straight out of LARCENY INC... 

But eventually, SAM WHISKEY, both the character and the movie, wears out its welcome since Burt hadn't yet learned how to breeze through a story (with cohorts breezing along with him) as if nothing mattered: which would make him world's biggest box office draw just under a decade later — ironically the same ingredients that killed that winning streak six years later... which, either way, was a pretty decent run.

Burt Reynolds in SAM WHISKEY with Angie Dickinson

Clint Walker in SAM WHISKEY with Angie Dickinson

Ossie Davis in SAM WHISKEY

Burt Reynolds in SAM WHISKEY