He had his legs crossed and his shoes were on the wrong feet. He was wearing the same clothes he had on the night before, except for one thing. Don't be late.' So I got to the set the next morning and he was already there. Gleason, I have to get up early tomorrow morning. Gleason, I've had a long day, why don't we get a drink?' and he said, 'Absolutely.' So we moved to the bar and we never said one word about the script. 'Here we go, on the eve of my directorial debut, a big actor wants to talk to me about the script.' So, I went over to his hotel, he invited me in and I said, 'Mr.

Director, would you come over to my hotel? I'd like to talk about the script.' 'Uh-oh,' I thought. The night before we were to shoot he called me and said, 'Mr. I had yet to meet with Gleason prior to shooting.

I thought, 'What a good idea bootleg a little Coors, get in a truck, lots of fast cars and a lot of cops chasin' em.' I said, 'What on Earth are you doing?' She said, 'Well, you can't buy Coors down here and my boyfriend really likes it, so I was just takin' it home to him.' Then she told me the story about how she couldn't buy Coors east of the Mississippi, so I just gave her both cases and said, 'Thank you very much.' That gave me the idea for Smokey and the Bandit. Finally, I set a trap and caught the maid stealin' my Coors beer. They'd disappear one or two at a time, so I kept replacing them. So I stuffed six bottles in the fridge and went about my business. Can I put a couple cases in your room?' I don't drink beer, but I said OK. Talk to the people and they'll tell you, 'Yeah, we used to make a Coors run every weekend across the border.' Anyway, the driver captain came down, and he said, 'Hey Hal, I bought some Coors. Stories about smuggling Coors beer are legendary. Hal Needham: I was down in Georgia with Burt, working on Gator, and at that time, you could not buy Coors beer east of the Mississippi.

List of smokey and the bandit movies