Burt Reynolds occupied a unique place in the pantheon of Hollywood stars, playing numerous smarmy good ole boys on the wrong side of the law. He had touched upon such roles earlier than in White Lightning, but this film, which premiered today in 1973, was the beginning of him basically cornering that market. It was the debut of his iconic character Gator McCluskey, hell hot driver and moonshiner nonpareil, who finagles a release from prison to help the FBI take down the crooked sherrif of Bogan County, Arkansas. The sherrif, played by Ned Beatty, has killed Gator’s younger brother for no other reason than that he was an anti-war protestor, prompting Gator to deal himself to the Feds to get revenge.
White Lightning has the same gritty feel you find in so many ’70s dramas, with its low saturation film stock and grainy look. Narratively it’s gritty too, with numerous portryals considered polarizing today. It presents Arkansans largely as clueless hicks, with opportunistic scofflaws mixed in. It’s anti-government and anti-diversity. Jennifer Billingsly is a two-timing nympho who waxes nostalgic about deflowering a nine year-old boy. And Beatty is a real beaut, railing against school integration, the NAACP, the ACLU, hippies, and the right of blacks to vote. He’s dumb as hell, but animal-clever.
Burt struts his way along the path to bloody vengeance and shows why he became such a huge star. His portrayal of McCluskey mixes swagger with an elemental kindness, a steely resolve with a core of easy humor. It isn’t all in the script. He was simply a natural. Today White Lightning would upset certain rural viewers, most progressive viewers, viewers of numerous ethnicities, and women, yet as an artifact of its era it’s hard to beat. It’s also unique in Reynolds’ ouevre. The 1976 sequel Gator, as well as later rum-running adventure flicks like Smokey and the Bandit, would lean heavily into comedy, to their detriment. Of the grouping, only White Lightning can be considered legitmately good. But anything with Reynolds—and we mean anything—is worth watching.
