Sheriff Hugh “Smokey” Turner (Walter Barnes) of Cyco County, Arkansas is determined to capture teenage car thief and prankster, Roscoe Wilton (Jimmy McNichol). Roscoe is determined to disrupt the high school homecoming dance by abducting the homecoming queen, Peggy Sue (Janet Julian). Peggy Sue is, at first, determined to escape from Roscoe but changes her mind as they flee from her father, who just happens to be Sheriff Turner.
From producer Roger Corman, Smokey Bites The Dust is an 88-minute car chase film where the most spectacular getaways and crashes are lifted from other Roger Corman productions. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot footage from Eat My Dust, Grand Theft Auto, and Moving Violations. In order to explain why the cars keep changing from scene to scene, the chase moves from county-to-county where both Roscoe and Sherriff Turner inevitably end up ditching (or crashing) their old car and then stealing a new vehicle to continue the pursuit.
That’s not much of a plot so the run time is padded out with several subplots. A local moonshiner tries to sell his special brew to a group of Arabs. Peggy Sue’s boyfriend, Kenny (William Forsyth, in one of his first films), joins in the chase. Dick Miller flies around in a helicopter and also gets involved in the chase. None of it makes any sense and none of it is particularly amusing but Roger Corman undoubtedly made a lot of money pushing this thing into Southern drive-ins and letting people assume it was some sort of a sequel to Smokey and the Bandit.
Most of the acting is pretty bad. When it comes to being an incompetent sheriff, Walter Barnes is no Jackie Gleason. Jimmy McNichol comes across as being seriously disturbed. Of the main cast, Janet Julian is alone in giving an appealing and naturalistic performance as Peggy Sue. While Julian (who has since retired from acting) never became the star she deserved to be, she is remembered for her later turn as Christopher Walken’s lawyer and girlfriend in 1990’s King of New York.
Through the Shattered Lens