"Before AMERICAN PIE there was... CANNONBALL RUN!" - this is how Hal Needham's recently re-issued film from 1980 is being promoted in Europe. They're also pushing it as the ultimate Hollywood vanity production and a true quilty pleasure. Curious, I had a look and indeed, it's terribly bad in an entertaining way - you get ancient unfunny comedians like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis jr, then-hot stars such as Tom De Luise, Farrah Fawcett, Roger Moore and Burt Reynolds, lots of spot-the-celeb moments, plus one actual current movie star, Jackie Chan. Scarily, one character playing a sheik is a dead ringer for Osama bin Laden. But what was interesting was the theme song Cannonball. Any of you remember this tune? Can you decide if it's meant to be disco or country or something in between? The track kicks off with an imitation Shaft intro but then a singer with a whiter than white cabaret voice comes on. The film does contain scenes showing people in "evening elegance" doing country-style quickstep barndancing or whatever the thing is called, as well as a form of primitive hustle, on the same floor to a shuffling mid-tempo disco tune by singer sounding somewhat like Lou Rawls. Some of the fashions paraded are extremely cool - Burt wears a short bright orange sport jacket you'd swear was this year's Prada.  | 
November 14th, 2001, 07:33 AM
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