Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(1983)

Apparently Burt Reynolds does comedies that involve driving and/or racing. And the understatement of the year award goes to Professor Popinjay.

Cannonball Run, Cannonball Run II, Smokey & the Bandit, Smokey & the Bandit 2, White Lightning, White Lightning 2-in-1, Driven, Gumball 3000. Okay some of these are just cameos, some aren’t comedies, and White Lightning 2-in-1 is just a bicycle chain lubricant. But you can bet, if someone made a comedy movie about bicycle chain lubricant, Burt Reynolds would be in it.

Does anybody else love how Norm MacDonald’s impersonation of Burt Reynolds is just Norm MacDonald being himself while wearing a mustache and a feather-adorned cowboy hat? Me too.

Stroker Ace was as entertaining as most his other films in this vein which probably isn’t saying much. I just watched it on a whim one night. Jim Nabors is enjoyable as the sidekick, Lugs. I love that Loni Anderson plays Pembrook Feeney, a pure and sweet Sunday School teacher that everyone is going ga-ga over. Stroker (Burt) can’t wrap his head around someone who looks like her being a virgin and decides it’s a trick. Lugs admires her abstinence and defends her honor at all times. Ned Beatty’s character gets kicked square in the nuts by Ms. Feeney and he deserved it.

There is a scene that seems to have spurred a lot of controversy on the internet and understandably so. Stroker (Burt) is established as quite the womanizer and proceeds to get Ms. Feeney (Loni) intoxicated, a transpiration which is apparently working out to his “advantage”. In her inebriated state Feeney is receptive to Stroker’s advances (not that that makes it okay) but upon laying down on the bed she passes out entirely.

What proceeds is a bit where a very frustrated Stroker struggles with doing the right thing, namely: leaving her be while she sleeps it off. If we look past the fact that it’s entirely his fault that he is in this predicament, he ultimately does the right thing,  but he obviously has a VERY difficult time with it, even going so far as to “help” her out of her outer garments. The scene is played for laughs and he’s presented as an incorrigible rascal but to our modern sensibilities it’s neither admirable nor cute and it’s not the best subject for humor to say the least.

That having been said (and not to excuse any such behavior including purposefully attempting to compromise someone’s integrity with excessive alcohol) he informs the very concerned Feeney in the morning that nothing questionable transpired and ultimately he left her there to sober up. The ambiguity was allowed to hang in the air for an uncomfortable length of time though.

Stoker goes off to make a phone call and Lugs (Nabors) arrives to find Ms. Feeney crying, so grateful and impressed she was with Stroker’s own “honor” such that it is. Lugs gets the wrong idea at the tears and becomes angry with Stroker, thinking he’d taken advantage of her. Lugs storms off, finds Stroker and without warning, hauls off and slugs him right in the face which, frankly, he deserved but perhaps for different reasons.

As awkward and uncomfortable as all that was, I found the pay off quite funny indeed, primarily because Lugs never asked any questions. He just assumed the worst. Stroker just took the punch and then resumed his phone call as if nothing happened. And afterward the matter is NEVER addressed again. As if Lugs hauling off and punching Stroker is a regular occurrence that bears no effect on their friendship. THAT was hilarious.

There’s some racing that happens now and then but mostly this film is focused on Stroker’s manager (Beatty) embarrassing him with all manner of humiliating advertising campaigns to promote a KFC-style chicken restaurant. Those parts are pretty amusing. Reynolds has a great deadpan face.

The races are chock full of stock footage. I think we’re meant to think the wrecks we’re seeing are the drivers featured in the movie but the car colors are always different from one shot to another. It’s pretty low budget but it doesn’t detract from the story or the humor. It’s a decent one-time film.

Of course Burt married Loni in real life in 1988. I’m fairly sure she was sober at the time but who can know? I was sad to learn of her passing in 2025. She seemed nice. Burt… Burt was okay.

TURD FERGUSON!