Smokey and the Bandit episodes of the series. Needham saw an advertisement for the soon-to-be-released 1977 Pontiac Trans Am and knew right away that would be the Bandit's car, or, as Needham referred to it, a character in the movie. He contacted Pontiac and an agreement was made that four 1977 Trans Ams and two Pontiac LeMans 4-door sedans would be provided for the movie. The Trans Ams were actually 1976-model cars with 1977 front ends. (From 1970 to 1976, both the Firebird/Trans Am and Chevrolet Camaro had two round headlights, and in 1977, the Firebird/Trans Am was changed to four rectangular headlights, while
Burt Reynolds "Bogdanovich can get him to do the telephone book! Anybody else has to persuade him to do something. He's fascinated by Bogdanovich. I can't understand it." He turned down the part of Clark Gable in "Gable and Lombard". Reynolds had the biggest hit of his career with a car chase film "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977), directed by Hal Needham and co-starring Jackie Gleason and Sally Field. He followed it with a comedy about football players, "Semi-Tough" (1977), co-starring Jill Clayburgh and Kris Kristofferson and produced by David Merrick. He then made his second film as director "The End" (1978),