Convoy (1978)

A touching story about a small band of men who love to travel and the difficulties that they run into from crooked law enforcement. The men have to use disguises to traverse the barren landscape and make it to the other side. Some of their disguises include a rubber duck (Kris Kristofferson), a pig pen (Burt Young), and an arachnid named Spider Mike (Franklyn Ajaye). The men use a form of short wave radio to communicate as they try to avoid a cottonmouth aka Sheriff Lyle Wallace (Ernest Borgnine). The small group gains momentum and hilarity ensues as several other like minded individuals join in...ah, who am I kidding. This movie is pretty much based on a hit song that started the CB craze.

Trivia: The name of the company on the door of Burt Young's truck is "Paulie Hauling." "Paulie" is the name of Young's popular character in Rocky. The Mack truck in the shootout scene on the Bridge was actually damaged so badly that it broke down just moments before filming the scene and had to be pushed across the bridge by a bulldozer to complete the scene. Although the movie was inspired by the song of the same title, the song really didn't have much of a plot. So after the screenplay was written, Bill Fries (aka CW McCall) recorded a new version of the song, with lyrics that incorporated the characters and events of the film. This is the version that is played during the final credits. The song had been written by Bill Fries in 1974 for a series of bread commercials and the result was a popular trend with CB radios and trucker lingo. By the time the movie went into production in 1977, the trend had already faded but that didn't stop it from being a box office hit.

Not only did this movie miss out on the CB craze that was dying down by the time it came out, it isn't even the first or even the biggest CB movie to come out (Smokey and the Bandit came out the year before.) Borgnine's Sheriff Wallace was an inferior Sheriff to Jackie Gleason's Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Kristofferson's Rubber Duck was cool and all, but nothing compared to Burt Reynold's Bandit. And Sally Field was a lot cuter then Ali MacGraw. Even though the ending was satisfying it sure did come out of nowhere. Basically it was like a poor man's Smokey and the Bandit and that is saying something. The best thing about the movie was the song. Quack quack.