The Defiant Ones
Short description
The Defiant Ones follows two prisoners, John "Joker" Jackson and Noah Cullen, who escape when a prison transport vehicle crashes. Jackson is white and Cullen is black, and in the segregated American South their hostility runs deep before they ever break free. Because they are shackled together with a steel chain, neither can get far without the other, and their flight through the swamps becomes a test of whether mutual resentment can give way to cooperation. A sheriff, Max Muller, leads an armed pursuit with dogs, while the pair's own prejudices prove just as dangerous as the men chasing them.
Stanley Kramer directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith. It followed Kramer's The Pride and the Passion and preceded On the Beach, Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg on a list of eight films he directed. Tony Curtis plays Jackson opposite Sidney Poitier as Cullen, with Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Lon Chaney Jr. and King Donovan in supporting roles. Released by United Artists in August 1958, it runs 96 minutes.
On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.7 out of 10 from 58 reviews, while on TMDB it sits at 7.1 from 337 votes, so critics rated it somewhat higher than the wider audience did, though the general response remains positive.
What's left behind the scenes
- Elvis Presley wanted to get the role of Joker Jackson, hoping to star alongside Sammy Davis Jr., who was planned for the role of Noah Cullen, but Presley's own manager dissuaded him from the role.
- Tony Curtis himself insisted that Sidney Poitier be listed first in the credits.
- The film's screenwriter, Nedrick Young, was on the Hollywood blacklist at the time, so he wrote the script under a pseudonym. But Stanley Kramer gave him a bit part as a prison bus driver and listed his real name as the actor. Only in 1993, at his wife’s request, was Young’s name as the screenwriter restored to the credits.
- Stanley Kramer wanted Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando to star in the film, but Brando had already signed a contract for the long-troubled picture "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), whose launch date had been repeatedly postponed. Eventually, tired of the uncertainty, Kramer was forced to look for another white actor. Tony Curtis really wanted the role, hoping to break away from the series of one-dimensional, brainless heartthrobs he had played many times. Kramer wasn't thrilled with his candidacy, but eventually relented and gave Curtis the part.
- Sidney Poitier became the first African-American actor to be nominated for an Academy Award. He was nominated for Best Actor for his role in this film.
- One of the film's consultants was a wanted man who had once been chained to other prisoners but managed to escape. His name is not listed in the credits.
- Robert Mitchum turned down the role that was eventually played by Tony Curtis. He stated that he didn't believe the original premise of the plot because a white man and an African-American would never have been chained together, as such things were strictly handled in the Southern states. Over time, it came to be believed that Mitchum refused because he was a racist, which was, of course, incorrect.
- The atmosphere on set was friendly, but the filming itself was quite challenging. It was especially physically demanding for Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, as they had to run through fields, swamps, and forests, and fight each other while chained together. The most difficult scenes were those in which the protagonists, chained to one another, ended up in a river among rapids, and another where they tried to climb out of a pit during a downpour. In the pit scene, the actors performed themselves without stunt doubles. In the river scene, Curtis had a double, and for Poitier, a mannequin was chained to him in at least one shot. For the most part, however, the actors worked independently without replacements.
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