The Defiant Ones (1958)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Stanley Kramer

Writers (WGA):

Nedrick Young (story) (originally as Nathan E. Douglas)
Harold Jacob Smith (screenplay)

Release Date:

27 September 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

One of the great ones!

Plot:

Two escaped convicts chained together, white and black, must learn to get along in order to elude capture.

Plot Keywords:

Convict | Police | Escaped Convict | Chain Gang | Prison

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 19 nominations

Cast

Tony Curtis	...	John 'Joker' Jackson
Sidney Poitier	...	Noah Cullen
Theodore Bikel	...	Sheriff Max Muller
Charles McGraw	...	Capt. Frank Gibbons
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Big Sam (as Lon Chaney)
King Donovan	...	Solly
Claude Akins	...	Mack
Lawrence Dobkin	...	Editor
Whit Bissell	...	Lou Gans
Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer	...	Angus (as Carl Switzer)
Kevin Coughlin	...	Billy
Cara Williams	...	Billy's mother

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Norway:16 | New Zealand:PG | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:U | USA:Approved (PCA #18985) | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Between Piru & Fillmore, Southern Pacific Railroad, California, USA

Company:

Curtleigh Productions

Trivia:

Stanley Kramer originally had Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando in mind for the two protagonists. Both were interested but only Poitier was available. Brando was caught up in filming Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), a film with a highly troubled and seemingly endless shoot. As the start date for The Defiant Ones (1958) loomed, Kramer had no option but to start looking at other actors.

Goofs:

Continuity: Near the end of the film after Jackson falls in the mud trying to catch up to Cullen there is thick mud all the way up his front over his shoulders. In the next shot his right shoulder is suddenly unmuddied.

Quotes:

Noah Cullen: [to John] Go on, tell me all that big talk about Charlie Potatoes, when the chains off and nobody chasing you. Come on. You can't, can you? You can't because you're nothing. You're not even a man! You're a monkey on a stick. That cracker mob back there, they pull the string and you jump.
[John punches him]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Get on the Bus (1996)

Soundtrack:

Long Gone

Cellmates and Soulmates

There is this story going around that Robert Mitchum refused the part Tony Curtis eventually played because he did not want to work with a black man. The actual story is that Mitchum who did spend time on a southern chain gang said there was no way that back in the day a black and white man would have been chained together in the first place. In fact Stanley Kramer must have taken the critique in stride because sheriff Theodore Bikel has a line of explanation saying the warden had a sense of humor.

Though the film dates a bit, it's still quite dramatic even now. Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier chained together have an unplanned jail break while being transported. Curtis has all the attitudes typical of his time and Poitier doesn't take nothing off anybody. Still joined at the hip as they are, they do need each other and find eventually there's more that unites than divides them.

Besides Theodore Bikel in a strange role for him as a laconic southern sheriff, look for good performances from Lon Chaney, Jr. who runs a turpentine work camp who saves Curtis and Poitier from a lynching and Cara Williams as a trampy white trash farm lady whose needs haven't been met for a while.

Tony Curtis in an incredible act of generosity insisted on equal billing for Sidney Poitier since due to the nature of the film, they are on screen together for most of it. That act of generosity may have cost him an Oscar for both he and Poitier were nominated for Best Actor, but lost to David Niven for Separate Tables. An act that rankles Tony Curtis to this day because at the drop of a hat he will insist Niven got 'his' Oscar.

Despite the sour grapes, The Defiant Ones though dated is still a good bit of cinema.