It is tempting to try to interpret this movie as an allegory. There's a right way to live life, with eternity in view, and a wrong way to live life, for the moment. W.W. stands for "Wrong Way," as in Wrong Way Feldman on Gilligan's Island. Bright means brighter than the rest, as "A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court." The movie begins in the carefree days of 1957. W.W. drives past a sign saying "Christ Is Coming Again", a belief of Southern Baptist dispensationalism. Well, the viewer knows that Christ hasn't come again yet, so it seems that people in 1957 who looked for Christ to come soon and threatened others with that message weren't very bright, were backwoods superstitious fanatics. There was a lot of uniformity and conformity in the 1950s South. Churchgoing reached a peak during the Eisenhower years. The oil company Southland Oil System's initials, "S.O.S.", also stand for "Save Our Souls." W.W. Bright is a man who is trying to "beat the system." The head of S.O.S., Elton C. Byrd, hires ex-law-man and now "man of God" radio evangelist, John Wesley Gore, to stop W.W. Bright from taking advantage of S.O.S. John Wesley was the founder of Methodist-Holiness Arminianism that requires constant holiness to retain one's eternal salvation. What does Gore stand for? I don't know. Wasn't Gore a big name in Tennessee law? Maybe he was just gory. Anyway, W.W. burns his car, and in the end of the movie Gore won't break the commandment about observing the sabbath and gives W.W. another car and a chance to get away. Interestingly enough, the Smokey and the Bandit movies also featured a black car and a pursuing figure from the Jackie Gleason show who kept pursuing Reynolds's character. In fact, in Part 3, Smokey lets the Bandit get away so he can keep on pursuing him. "What would Wile E. Coyote be without the Roadrunner?" Perhaps this intends to show that organized Christianity needs sinners to harp at so it can stay in business. Anyway, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings is possibly Burt's finest movie when you think about it. The End (1978) was pretty good.
Review of W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings
