PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Bo "Bandit" Darville and Sheriff Buford T. Justice will be back in theaters this month celebrating their 40th anniversary on the silver screen.
"Smokey and the Bandit" is racing back into select movie theaters throughout the country, including South Florida.
Co-starring Sally Field and Jerry Reed, "Smokey and the Bandit" chronicles the bootlegging adventures of the "Bandit" as he smuggles Coors beer across the Mississippi River with Justice in pursuit.
It's fitting that the characters made famous in the 1977 film by Burt Reynolds and Jackie Gleason, respectively, will return to the region where the actors who portrayed them have left their marks.
Reynolds, now 81, grew up in Palm Beach County and has a park in Jupiter named for him. Gleason moved his variety show to Miami Beach in 1964 and lived the remainder of his years in South Florida, where he died in 1987.
"Smokey and the Bandit II" was also filmed in South Florida.
The film that made the Pontiac Trans Am a true muscle car will be shown at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday and May 24. Theaters include the Aventura Mall, South Beach, Sunset Place and Magnolia Place in Coral Springs. Click here for a complete list of theaters.