White Lightning (1973)

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Siskoid
Burt Reynolds is a whisky runner who is allowed out of prison to get evidence on the crooked sheriff who killed his brother in White Lightning, an ancestor of the Dukes of Hazzard if I ever saw one (it even has confederate flags painted on car tops). "Gator" gets by on his racing ability (and there's an energetic car chase grounded in reality at the center of the film) and his charm. Almost everything is resolved by seducing one lady or another (the principal love interest, Jennifer Billingsley, is on the whole pretty terribly acted though). It's fun, though the sheriff's motivations for killing the boy are paper thin and even the kid's loved ones seem nonplussed about it. These moonshine-running movies always make me think that, on both sides of the law, the South never accepted the results of the Civil War, making the Feds the true enemy, whether you're the Law or good old boys trying to make a living in a dry county driving booze around. It's a little weird. And what is it with all the black kids smiling up at Gator in multiple scenes? If it wasn't for that one black "speakeasy" owner, they would be the only African-American presence in the flick. I don't know what it says about the South, but it seems to say something. 7 months 3 weeks ago