[Originally published in Movietone News 42, July 1975]
One’s lip needn’t tremble with forthrightness in suggesting that W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings is John Avildsen’s most likable movie; on the amiability meter, Joe and Save the Tiger leave nowhere to go but up. But as sneak-preview audiences already begin to murmur about the overselling of Nashville (I’m inclined to say that’s their problem, and will undoubtedly contribute to it in MTN 43), it may be time to put in a word or two in behalf of this very easy-to-take summertime divertissement. Burt Reynolds jovially represents himself as a Chevy-driving stick-up man who is so effective at convincing service station attendants to part with the money in the till that he generally has them wishing him to “come back again, y’ hear.” He specializes in one chain of stations, with the result that a fire-and-brimstone, black-garbed ex-lawman is hired to run him down. Thunder claps when this fellow (played by Art Carney with what we might call austere relish) closes his notebook; he’s an ex-lawman only because his former constituents had the temerity to expect him to enforce the law on the Sabbath. Meanwhile, while ducking out on an earnest local cop who wants to nail him on a traffic violation, W.W. Bright (Reynolds) falls in with a country-western band that can’t get out of the toolies. At first for a lark, then—to his own bewilderment—in earnest, he begins to promote them. How to support the outfit while waiting until they’re good enough to take the Grand Ole Opry by storm? Well, heck, that oil company just opened a li’l ol’ bank right down the road…. W.W. is every bit as heavyhanded about its hick comedy as its two sententious predecessors were about their solemn concerns, but once one gives up on the notion of directorial finesse and settles back to enjoy the broad humor, it’s quite a pleasant show.
