The only movie directed by John Leone (he also wrote the Richard Fleischer movie Tough Enough), this is also known as The Goodbye Run and The Last of the Cowboys. But if you’re expecting Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed from the title, you won’t get it. This is filmed in the dark, features moments of genuine sadness, and is a low-budget film compared to the Hollywood blockbusters of Hal Needham.

Trucking isn’t as fun as those movies in this. Elegant John Howard (Henry Fonda) is recovering in a Los Angeles hospital when his truck is repossessed. So he escapes from the hospital and plans one last perfect run, stealing back his truck and picking up hitchhiker Beebo (Robert Englund). At the same time, across the country, Madame Penelope (Eileen Brennan) has 48 hours to close down her house of ill repute.

Unable to find a load, due to his truck being listed as stolen, John takes on a job transporting Penelope and her girls — Ginny (Susan Sarandon), Alice (Mews Small), Lula (Melanie Mayron), Glinda (Leigh French, the mother of the kid who are a razor blade apple in Halloween II), Mary Agnes (Valerie Curtin) and Celeste (Daina House, January 1976 Playboy Playmate of the Month and now ministry leader at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California) to a new place to do business.

The only problem? Police officer Harley Davidson (Dub Taylor) wants to arrest them all and get the attention for it.

Austin Pendleton and John Byner (Bizarre!) also appear.

After this played at the Cannes Film Festival, nobody picked it up. It was a depressing movie — Ford was dying of cancer and was fighting real-life illnesses throughout — and the only taker was Dimension Pictures, which re-edited it into an upbeat story, giving it the title The Great Smokey Roadblock.

You can watch this on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meNr8PEdxps&msockid=eb7701def00211f0beccc0b7870aa2bf