WW and the Dixie Dancekings | A Lost Classic

I talked with my old buddy Jimmy last week, with whom I had not spoken with for a long time.  We were roommates back in our early twenties, and how we survived, I’ll never know.  If you opened up our refrigerator at any point in time, pretty much all you would find would be a jar of mayo, a pack of baloney and a case of beer.  We did keep the place clean, so as not to repel girls.  One week, we splurged.  We got HBO installed.

This was in the mid-seventies, when it was called Home Box Office.  All it showed was movies, only three or four a month.  One of the movies that was running at the time was a Burt Reynolds movie entitled “WW and the Dixie Dancekings”.  It seemed to be on every time we turned on the TV, and lines from the movie became part of our group’s vernacular.  Jimmy mentioned the movie when we talked, and said he had been trying to find it on DVD, but with no luck.  I did some digging and discovered that the movie has never been released either to VHS or DVD, and is very rarely, if ever, aired on the networks.

I don’t understand why.  It is one of the best comedies Reynolds ever did, certainly better than some of the pap he was producing in the years following (Cannonball Run II; Stroker Ace).  The film is set in 1957, with Reynolds starring as WW Bright, a Korean vet who travels about the south in his 1955 Black and Gold Two Tone Oldsmobile Golden Anniversary Special, robbing SOS (Southland Oil Systems) gas stations and splitting the profit with the attendant with the agreement that the attendant will describe someone other than WW when they call the police.  He hooks up with The Dance Kings, a country band featuring Jerry Reed, Conny Van Dyke and Don Williams, and takes them to Nashville to try and hit the big time.  Art Carney plays the fundamentally religious lawman hired by the SOS company to capture WW. 

I did manage to find the entire film on YouTube.  It’s in the sidebar to the right.  And Burt, if you happen to read this, please reconsider and release ‘ol WW to the public… he’s got a hurt arm, y’know!  Keep Cruisin’! –J.