Trivia

To minimize costs, the production wasn't insured, and the actors did their own stunts. Jon Voight climbed the cliff.

"Dueling Banjos" was the first scene shot. The rest of the movie was almost entirely shot in sequence.

To save costs and add to the realism, local residents were cast in the roles of the hill people.

Billy Redden didn't know how to play banjo. To simulate realistic chord playing during "Duelling Banjos", another boy, a skilled banjo player, played the chords with his arm reaching around Redden's side while Redden picked. Musicians Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell played on the soundtrack.

Following the film, tourism increased to Rabun County by the tens of thousands. By 2012, tourism was the largest source of revenue in the county. Jon Voight's stunt double for this film, Claude Terry, later purchased equipment used in the movie from Warner Brothers. He founded what is now the oldest whitewater rafting adventure company on the Chattooga River, Southeastern Expeditions. By 2012, rafting had developed as a $20 million industry in the region.

Much of the dialogue was taken almost verbatim from the source novel.

The cliff climbing scene was shot during the day, and underexposed with a bluish tint added in post-production. "Day for night" shooting was common until the late 1970s because of slow film stocks and anamorphic lenses that didn't let in as much light as spherical lenses, requiring a lot of lights.

Billy Redden, the boy with the banjo, liked Ronny Cox and hated Ned Beatty. At the end of the duelling banjos scene, the script called for Billy to harden his expression towards Cox's character, but Billy couldn't pretend to hate Cox. To solve the problem, they got Beatty to step towards Billy at the close of the shot. As Beatty approached, Billy hardened his expression and looked away.

When Sir John Boorman first tapped Jon Voight to appear in the film, the actor was at a low point. His previous film, The All-American Boy (1973), was deemed an unsalvageable mess. Convinced his career was over, Voight credited Boorman with saving his life, then spending the next few months trying to kill him with extreme stunts during filming.

Jack Nicholson agreed to play Ed as long as Marlon Brando played Lewis. However, the actors' combined fees added up to more than $1 million, half the movie's budget, forcing Sir John Boorman to cast cheaper actors.

Donald Sutherland turned down the role of Ed because he objected to the violence in the script. He later said he regretted that decision after the film was so successful.

Sir John Boorman wanted Vilmos Zsigmond as director of photography because he'd famously filmed the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. Boorman reckoned that anyone who had filmed under the threat of Russian tanks and guns would be ideally suited to an intensive and grueling shoot, which this movie promised to be.

Author James Dickey gave Burt Reynolds a few days of bow and arrow lessons. By the end, Reynolds was quite proficient.

Author James Dickey would only address the actors by calling them by their character names.

Sir John Boorman's gold record for the "Duelling Banjos" hit single was stolen from his house by Dublin gangster Martin Cahill. Boorman depicted the crime in his film about Cahill, The General (1998).

The inspiration for the Cahulawassee River was the Coosawattee River, which was dammed in the 1970s and contained several dangerous whitewater rapids before being flooded by Carters Lake.

Burt Reynolds described James Dickey as "a guy who when he's had a couple of martinis you want to drop a grenade down his throat."

Though "Duelling Banjos" won a 1973 Grammy Award (category: Best Country Instrumental Performance), it was written back in 1955 by Arthur Smith and used in an October 1963 episode of The Andy Griffith Show (1960).

Sir John Boorman discovered Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty working in theater.

Author James Dickey claims this was loosely based on a true story.

Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand were married during filming.

The cinematography pallette of the entire film is desaturated, meaning that the vibrant colors of the natural landscape are muted and suffused with dark tones. This creates an emotional affect of foreboding.

When the Sundance Film Festival first kicked off in Salt Lake City, Utah, in August 1978, this was one of the first selections screened.

Bobby is the only one of the four leads whose occupation is revealed (an insurance salesman). The book reveals that Ed is a graphic designer, Lewis is a landlord, and Drew is a soft drink executive.

Gene Hackman was offered the role of Ed. He wanted to play Lewis, but was turned down.

James Dickey took John Boorman aside, made him promise not to repeat this, and said, "I'm going to tell you something I never told a living soul, everything in that book happened to me." The director later learned that he did the same with other members of the cast and crew. "When I got into a canoe with James Dickey and he capsized it, I realized that nothing in this book had happened to him."

The first time Jon Voight watched the finished cut was at Warner Brothers in their screening room, and present were Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Jon's father.

No credit was given for the film score. The film has several sparse, brooding passages of music scattered throughout, including several played on a synthesizer. Some prints of the movie omit much of this extra music.

Roger Ebert amazingly gave this movie 2-1/2 stars, saying it was overrated. Ebert praised the action scenes showing the white water rafting in the movie. But he wrote, "What the movie totally fails at, however, is its attempt to make some kind of significant statement about its action. For all of his 6 feet 4 inches and prowess with a bow and arrow, what James Dickey has given us here is a fantasy about violence, not a realistic consideration of it." He called the story itself "adolescent" and laced with "sadism." However, Gene Siskel, his fellow critic on "At The Movies," gave the movie 4 stars. He wrote in his syndicated column: "It is a gripping horror story that at times may force you to look away from the screen, but it is so beautifully filmed that your eyes will eagerly return."

Emory University Chemistry professor Claude Terry consulted on the canoe trip and navigating the Chatooga and other rivers. After the movie's release, Claude founded Southeastern Expeditions, which provided raft trips with trained guides on whitewater rivers. Rafting the Chatooga, the Ocoee River in Tennessee, and other whitewater rivers has become very popular, especially in the summer. Claude is now retired.

The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year not to be nominated in any of the writing categories.

James Dickey visited the set and in addition to drinking a lot, "He really spooked the actors because he insisted on calling them by the characters'" names. The cast eventually asked Boorman to send Dickey on his way, and while the author complied he insisted on saying goodbye first by telling the actors "It appears that my presence will be most efficacious by its absence." Reynolds replied saying, "Does that mean he's going or he's staying?"

The ambulance attendant (Johnny Popwell) in the window at (1:34:06) shot and killed a man in 1975. He was sentenced to 10 years jail.

Warner Bros. initially told Boorman he could only make the film if he found two name stars to headline. He did just that, at which point WB said the movie was now going to cost too much because of those stars. They then decided to produce the film on a tight budget with four unknowns, so Boorman scoured the country's theater scene and found Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox.

Sales of camping equipment plummeted and the Appalachian camping industry was nearly bankrupted following the film's release.

The toothless attempted rapist is played by Herbert "Cowboy" Coward who Burt Reynolds first met while working at a dude ranch.

The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year not to be nominated in either of the lead acting categories or in any acting category.

In his memoirs, Charlton Heston said he declined the role of Lewis due to his commitment to Antony and Cleopatra (1972).

"I had no doubles, no stuntmen," says John Boorman. "I don't like the idea of stuntmen because if a shot is dangerous enough that you need a stunt man then you shouldn't be doing it." He acknowledges that there are exceptions including one instance where Voight was doubled (while Reynolds insisted on doing his part himself), but in general he prefers doing the scenes with the actual actors.

Warner Brothers wanted Steve McQueen to play Lewis. He passed on it.

The aluminum canoe has the blue and white logo of Grumman, the aircraft company that built the F-14 Tomcat and the Apollo Lunar Module.

It has been erroneously noted that this movie features a young Ed O' Neill in his first film role (as the deputy sheriff in Lewis's hospital room). O'Neill himself contends he is not in the movie.

John Boorman shoots very little beyond what's necessary as he rehearses and plans out his shots with precision. "When I made Point Blank at MGM, I had the lowest ratio of film of any director of the last twenty years."

It's been claimed that a real banjo player performed the fretting from behind actor Billy Redden in the dueling banjo sequence. However, any real player can tell you that the fingering seen on screen is not even remotely realistic, regardless of who actually performed it.

Interestingly, Ned Beatty came up with the "squeal like a pig" line while they were all improvising. (The most memorable line in the movie; the one that wound up being used on him, ironically).

The film aired on the Sky Network in New Zealand as a tribute to Burt Reynolds after he passed away.

Sometime during this period, the 70s, Burt Reynolds appeared in a Florida Gold Orange Juice commercial with his real father, Burton Milo Reynolds, Sr. It's amazing that Burt Sr. agreed to act in commercials because reportedly he hated actors. Burt Jr. told reporters his father would also disparage actors, Hollywood, and showbiz to his face. "Whenever I would talk to him about my friends, he would say, 'Are they actors or do they have a job.' He was always saying 'When are you going to get a real job?' He never even told me he loved me." Obviously acting wasn't so evil that Burt Sr. would turn down a paycheck from the Florida Gold company!

Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of the Top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.

Lewis drove a 1970 International Harvester Scout 800.

Reynolds and Beatty did well canoeing for the most part, but Voight and Cox "made a lot more mistakes." That said, their worst experience was when Beatty went under and was stuck for nearly a minute. Boorman asked how he felt when he was trapped, and Beatty replied that his first concern was if Voight would be able to finish the film without him.

Amazingly, this seedy Gothic set in the backwoods of the American south was directed by Englishman Sir John Boorman.

Billy Redden plays Lonnie, the boy who shares the banjo duel with Drew (Cox), but while bright and talented he couldn't actually play the banjo well enough. His left arm in the scene actually belongs to a second boy who's crouched behind him. "I hope you're not disillusioned."

Some people apparently think the arrow Ed fires is the one that goes through his side.

While the first two acts are of the action genre, the final act, when the surviving members are covering up what happened, it becomes a kind of thriller.

At the beginning of the film when Lewis says to Ed that he's never been insured in his life and doesn't believe in it, it's very likely he came to regret that philosophy when, at the end of the movie, he had his leg amputated due to his injuries and would have no insurance to pay for any of the hospitalization and all the doctors bills and all these expenses would have to have been paid out of his own pocket.

The raging waters the protagonists find themselves in after Drew goes overboard belong to Tallulah Falls, a dam-controlled drop that anticipates a massive 1,000-foot (300 m) deep gorge.

American Cinematographer Herb A. Lightman happened to visit the crew on-location not long after Burt Reynolds accident. "I slid down a 40' waterfall the other day," Reynolds told Lightman. "It looked simple enough but I lit right on my tailbone, on a submerged rock, and bounced about five feet in the air. Man, did that hurt. I could hardly move for several hours afterwards." As a part of their pre-production training, all of the actors were taught how to canoe (only Ned Beatty had prior experience). It's unclear just how much direction the gang had with respect to going down rapids without a paddle, as it were. Both Reynolds and Claude Terry, a whitewater consultant and Jon Voight's stunt double, do a lot more flailing than is generally recommended. Ideally in these situations you want to keep both your nose and toes out of the water, with your feet pointed downstream to avoid entrapment or a head injury. If you watch the footage, Terry appears far flatter than Reynolds, who is in more of a v-sit position. Terry does lose points for going down head first though it's possible this was an artistic choice on John Boorman's part.

Burt Reynolds wasn't the only actor (or crewmember) to sustain injuries due to the Chattooga River. At one point during the shoot, Ned Beatty fell into the drink and got caught in a hydraulic (a river feature where water falls from an obstruction into deeper water, creating a pullback towards the obstruction). Thankfully, Beatty managed to escape, but not before having an underwater existential crisis. "I thought, 'This is where I die,' and my wife was pregnant, and I thought about how mad she would be that I died in a river in Georgia," Beatty told The Palm Beach Post. Beatty survived, unlike the five wooden canoes that were destroyed over the course of the production, per John Boorman's commentary.

The rape scene was filmed in one take, largely because Ned Beatty didn't want to film it repeatedly.

The rape scene as originally scripted, consisted mainly of swearing. The "squeal like a pig" phrase was an attempt to "clean up" the scene for later television broadcast viewing. Sir John Boorman liked the "cleaner" version better and instead used it in the film.

Sir John Boorman was under great pressure to cut most of Bill McKinney's death scene. After an argument, he only deleted six frames.

An alternate ending was shot, but cut from the final version. It takes place a few weeks, perhaps months, after the main events. It appeared in James Dickey's original script as part of the final dream sequence, but not as the story's literal conclusion. Lewis walks with a crutch (in Dickey's screenplay, his leg is amputated below the knee). Ed, Lewis, and Bobby meet with Sheriff Bullard near the dam in Aintry. The Sheriff directs them to a body on a stretcher, then uncovers it so they can look at its face. No identifiable details of the body are shown, a deliberate choice to make the audience uncertain whether the dead man is Drew, Don Job, or the Toothless Man. The body was played by Christopher Dickey, James Dickey's son, who writes about the scene in his memoir, "Summer of Deliverance", and even he doesn't know whose body it was supposed to be. In the screenplay, Ed awakens from the dream, terrified, just before the corpse's face is revealed.

Bill McKinney became so closely identified with his role as the Mountain Man that he adopted www.squeallikeapig.com as the name of his official website. Since his death, the domain name is available for purchase.

The original UK cinema version suffered minor BBFC censor cuts to secure an X certificate which includes the removal of two lines of dialogue said by the toothless man when threatening Ed after the rape scene, "He got a real pretty mouth, ain't he?" and "You got to do some praying for me boy, you better pray real good." And the death of the Mountain Man where he is seen struggling with the arrow through his chest was reduced. All later home UK video releases are uncut with an 18 certificate.

Some at WB felt the film should have ended as the surviving trio row up to civilization, but John Boorman believes the scenes that follow are not only necessary but also the best in the film.

While a guest on "The Howard Stern Show", Ned Beatty revealed during the "squeal like a pig scene", he recalled a memory in his youth when he worked on a farm capturing and rounding up wild pigs. Beatty would have to hogtie the hogs and listen to them squeal. The actor said this moment would inform his performance during that scene.

Although it is said that the film's title, "Deliverance," is vague or unexplained, Bobby prays, "Oh, Lord, deliver us. . . ." just prior to the attack by the mountain men.

John Boorman acknowledges that he's used a variation of the same shot -- a hand rising from the water -- in several of his films, most notably in Excalibur (1981). The water typically represents the unconscious, and the thing rising out is something buried forcing its way back into the light. Brian De Palma told him the hand rising from the grave in Carrie (1976) was "a homage" to Deliverance.

The squeal like a pig sequence was the subject of countless gay parodies, on Saturday Night Live (1975) and elsewhere.

That's a lamb bone sticking out of Burt Reynolds' pant leg.

There was a ripoff of Deliverance that came out in 1973, a year after the original; called Deliver Us from Evil (1973). It was a TV movie starring George Kennedy and Jan Michael Vincent about a bunch of Oregon men on a hiking trip who come upon a criminal; and decide to kill him; and then they battle over what to do next. Sound familiar? In this version they're fighting over whether or not to turn in the money the criminal stole; as opposed to whether or not to turn in the bodies of their attackers and risk being jailed by the locals; like in the original. Still, same basic concept.