The Defiant Ones

The Defiant Ones
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stanley Kramer
Produced by	Stanley Kramer
Written by	Nedrick Young (story) Harold Jacob Smith
Starring	Tony Curtis Sidney Poitier Theodore Bikel Cara Williams
Music by	Ernest Gold
Cinematography	Sam Leavitt
Editing by	Frederic Knudtson
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	July 1958 (1958-07) (Berlinale) September 24, 1958 (1958-09-24) (New York City)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Defiant Ones is a 1958 drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams, Charles McGraw, and Lon Chaney, Jr. Ivan Dixon was a stunt double for Sidney Poitier

The film was adapted by Harold Jacob Smith from the story by Nedrick Young, originally credited as Nathan E. Douglas. It was directed by Stanley Kramer.

Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, of the Our Gang comedies, has a small role. It was his last before his death.

Plot

Two prisoners in the American South, African-American Noah Cullen (Poitier) and John "Joker" Jackson (Curtis), escape from a chain gang. Despite their mutual loathing, they are forced to cooperate, as they are chained together. Gradually, they begin to respect and like each other.

Cullen and Joker flee through difficult terrain and weather, with a brief stop at a village where they attempt to break into a general store, in hopes of obtaining food and tools to break the chain that holds them together. Instead, however, they are captured by the townspeople, who form a lynch mob; they are saved only by the interference of "Big" Sam (Chaney), a man who is appalled by his neighbors' bloodthirst. Sam persuades the townspeople to lock the convicts up and turn them in in the morning, but that night, he secretly releases them, after revealing to them that he is also a former chain-gang prisoner.

Finally, they run into a young boy named Billy. They make him take them to his home and his mother (Williams), whose husband has abandoned his family. The escapees are finally able to break their chains. When they spend the night there, the lonely woman is attracted to Joker and wants to run off with him. She advises Cullen to go through the swamp to reach the railroad tracks, while she and Joker drive off in her car. The men agree to split up. However, after Cullen leaves, the woman reveals that she had lied - she sent Cullen into the dangerous swamp to die to eliminate any chance he would be captured and perhaps reveal where Joker had gone. Furious, Joker runs after his friend; as he leaves, Billy shoots him.

Wounded, Joker catches up to Cullen and warns him about the swamp. As the posse led by humane Sheriff Max Muller (Bikel) gets close, the escapees can hear the dogs hot on their trail. But they also hear a train whistle and run towards the sound. Cullen hops the train and tries to lift Joker on as well, but is unable to drag him aboard. Both men tumble to the ground. Too exhausted to run anymore, they realize all they can do is wait for their pursuers. The sheriff finds Cullen singing defiantly and Joker nearly passed out in his arms.

Cast

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

Production

Robert Mitchum, a veteran of a Southern chain gang, turned down the role of Jackson because blacks and whites would never be chained together in the segregated South. The story was corrupted into the claim, repeated by Curtis and others, that Mitchum refused to work with a black man. Kramer wrote that Poitier was initially unsure of Curtis' casting but became supportive. Curtis, however, denied this; he stated that he had contractual rights to approve who would play Cullen. However, despite Curtis' many later claims and stories, Kramer had originally cast Poitier and Marlon Brando as the two leads when a previous contractual obligation prevented Poitier from being able to accept the role. Kramer wanted Poitier for the role so badly that he delayed the films production, which lead to Brando having to decline because the delay caused shooting to overlap with another obligation he had. Curtis was cast afterwards. Curtis did request Poitier's name appear with his above the movie title marking a first for Poitier in his career.

Reception

Critical response

When the film was first released, Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the production and the acting in the film, writing, "A remarkably apt and dramatic visualization of a social idea—the idea of men of different races brought together to face misfortune in a bond of brotherhood — is achieved by producer Stanley Kramer in his new film, The Defiant Ones... Between the two principal performers there isn't much room for a choice. Mr. Poitier stands out as the Negro convict and Mr. Curtis is surprisingly good. Both men are intensely dynamic. Mr. Poitier shows a deep and powerful strain of underlying compassion...In the ranks of the pursuers, Theodore Bikel is most impressive as a sheriff with a streak of mercy and justice, which he has to fight to maintain against a brutish state policeman, played by Charles McGraw."

Likewise, Variety magazine, praised the acting and discussed the film's major theme, writing, "The theme of The Defiant Ones is that what keeps men apart is their lack of knowledge of one another. With that knowledge comes respect, and with respect comradeship and even love. This thesis is exercised in terms of a colored and a white man, both convicts chained together as they make their break for freedom from a Southern prison gang. The performances by Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are virtually flawless. Poitier captures all of the moody violence of the convict, serving time because he assaulted a white man who had insulted him. It is a cunning, totally intelligent portrayal that rings powerfully true...Curtis delivers a true surprise performance. He starts off as a sneering, brutal character, willing to fight it out to-the-death with his equally stubborn companion. When, in the end, he sacrifices a dash for freedom to save Poitier, he has managed the transition with such skill that sympathy is completely with him."

A later commentator said Poitier's character is the stereotypical "Magical Negro," where a black character will do anything for a white character.

Awards

Won

• Academy Award
  • Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
  • Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen

• Berlin International Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor (Sidney Poitier)

Nominated

• Academy Award
  • Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier)
  • Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Theodore Bikel)
  • Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Cara Williams)
  • Best Director
  • Best Film Editing
  • Best Picture

• Berlin International Film Festival: Golden Bear

Remakes, tributes and parodies

The basis of The Defiant Ones was revisited several times in popular media:

• Warner Brothers parodied the film in Friz Freleng's 1961 cartoon D' Fightin' Ones, in which Sylvester the Cat escapes from captivity chained to a bulldog.
• In 1972, with gender reversal, as Black Mama, White Mama, starring Pam Grier and Margaret Markov.
• Another 1972 B-movie added a science fiction blaxploitation twist as The Thing with Two Heads, in which a racist white man (played by Ray Millard) has his head grafted onto a the body of a living black man (played by Rosey Grier).
• For television in 1986, as The Defiant Ones, starring Robert Urich and Carl Weathers.
• Homage is paid to the film in the 1992 Quantum Leap episode "Unchained". Protagonist Sam Beckett lands in the body of a white Mississippi road gang worker chained to a wrongly convicted black man, and the two must escape together or be murdered by the corrupt warden.
• In 1996 action film Fled, the film stars Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin.

External links

• The Defiant Ones at the Internet Movie Database
• The Defiant Ones at the TCM Movie Database
• The Defiant Ones film trailer at Turner Classic Movies Media Room
• The Defiant Ones analysis by Ben Mankiewicz