Rural Follies

From the 1960s through to the early 1980s, rural-themed movies were box-office gold at the drive-in. Moonshiners, stock car races, highway chases, county mounties, CB radios and country and western musicals could all be classified under the term “hicksploitation”. The box-office smash of Smokey and the Bandit ensured its mainstream popularity – so much that its star Burt Reynolds could be the unofficial king of the genre, with the similar movies he made to follow up that success, and that so many “hick flicks” made thereafter had “Smokey” in the title. “Hicksploitation” also enjoyed popularity on the small screen, with such TV series as The Dukes of Hazzard, BJ and the Bear, Harper Valley PTA and Concrete Cowboys.