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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»1980s Movies»Movies 1981
    Movies 1981 Movies C 2 Mins Read

    Cannonball Run, The (1981)

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    The Cannonball Run is a mindlessly stupid film, described by critic Jeffrey Lyons as making Smokey and the Bandit look like Richard III. Ostensibly about a cross-country motor race on public highways, this movie is a series of scrambled vignettes that would embarrass a high school camera class.

    cannonballrun2

    Burt and obese sidekick Dom DeLuise are racing in an ambulance with the kidnapped Farrah Fawcett tied to a stretcher with a junkie proctologist (Jack Elam) who does disgusting things to her with fingers and hypodermic needles.

    Dean Martin, bloated and unsteady, and Sammy Davis Jr., emaciated and high as a kite, dress like priests in a red Ferrari. Bert Convy is on a motorcycle. Roger Moore is Seymour Goldfarb, an egomaniac heir to a girdle fortune who thinks he’s James Bond.

    Adrienne Barbeau is a tart who bribes the highway patrol out of speeding tickets by unzipping her purple satin jumpsuit. Molly Picon, Bianca Jagger, and Peter Fonda are a few of the “guest stars” unfortunate enough to be desperate enough for exposure to do anything.

    Described as “the automotive equivalent of the Bay of Pigs“, The Cannonball Run has only one philosophy – “There’s not one state in the union that has the death penalty for speeding”.

    Hal Needham, who also directed Smokey and the Bandit and Smokey and the Bandit II, is an ex-stuntman. That just about says it all.

    A sequel – Cannonball Run II – followed in 1984.

    JJ McClure
    Burt Reynolds
    Seymour Goldfarb
    Roger Moore
    Pamela
    Farrah Fawcett
    Victor Prinzim (Captain Chaos)
    Dom Deluise
    Jamie Blake
    Dean Martin
    Morris Fenderbaum
    Sammy Davis Jr
    Doctor
    Jack Elam
    Marcie
    Adrienne Barbeau
    Terry
    Terry Bradshaw
    Brad
    Bert Convy
    The Sheik
    Jamie Farr
    Sheik’s Sister
    Bianca Jagger
    Chief Biker
    Peter Fonda
    A.F. Foyt
    George Furth
    1st Subaru Driver
    Jackie Chan
    2nd Subaru Driver
    Michael Hui Koon-Man
    Mom Goldfarb
    Molly Picon
    The Greek
    Jimmy Snyder
    Mel
    Mel Tillis
    Mad Dog
    Rick Aviles
    Shakey Finch
    Warren Berlinger
    Jill
    Tara Buckman
    Petoski
    Norman Grabowski

    Director
    Hal Needham

    cannonballrun5

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