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.
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.
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
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