Main Cast: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Lon Chaney, Jr., Cara Williams
Release Year: 1958
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
Plot
Convicts Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier escape from a chain gang. Curtis' character, John "Joker" Jackson, hates blacks, while Poitier's character, Noah Cullen, hates whites. However, the men are manacled together, forced to rely on each other to survive. Captured at one point by a lynch-happy mob, the convicts are rescued by Big Sam (Lon Chaney Jr.), himself a former convict. The men are later sheltered by a lonely, love-hungry widow played by Cara Williams, who offers to turn in Cullen if Joker will stay with her. By the time the two men are within hailing distance of a train that might take them to freedom, they have become friends. The script for The Defiant Ones is credited to Harold Jacob Smith and Nathan E. Douglas. The latter was really Nedrick Young, a blacklisted writer, whom producer Stanley Kramer hired knowing full well that Young was using an alias (when "Douglas"' credit appears onscreen, it is superimposed over a close-up of a truck driver -- played by Nedrick Young). Both the script and the photography by Sam Leavitt won Academy Awards. If you look closely, you'll notice that the actor playing Angus is former Little Rascal Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, making his last screen appearance. The Defiant Ones was remade for TV in 1986, with Robert Urich and Carl Weathers in the leads. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Defiant Ones is best known for its central premise: a black man and white man, chained together and on the lam, must overcome their own prejudices and help each other survive. The racial metaphor is obvious but important nonetheless, seeing as the film was released early in the civil rights movement. The quality performances of Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis help the film avoid mere political posturing. After the success of Blackboard Jungle, Poitier was on the cusp of becoming the first major African-American star in movie history. Also in a career upswing, Curtis was hot on the heels of The Sweet Smell of Success; he and Poitier would receive Academy Award nominations for The Defiant Ones. This was longtime producer Stanley Kramer's first success as a director, it would usher in his string of '60s hits, including Inherit the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Kramer previously produced one of the first white-made films featuring a black lead performer, 1949's little-known Home of the Brave. ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide
Fernando Carrere - Art Director, Joe King - Costume Designer, Paul Helmick - First Assistant Director, Stanley Kramer - Director, Frederic Knudtson - Editor, Ernest Gold - Composer (Music Score), Don L. Cash - Makeup, Rudolph Sternad - Production Designer, Sam Leavitt - Cinematographer, Clem Beauchamp - Production Manager, Stanley Kramer - Producer, Joe Kish - Set Designer, Alex C. Weldon - Special Effects, Nathan E. Douglas - Screenwriter, Harold Jacob Smith - Screenwriter
Two prisoners in the American South, African-American Noah Cullen (Poitier) and racist John "Joker" Jackson (Curtis), escape from a chain gang. Despite their mutual loathing for each other, 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 convinces 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 escapee.
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 cut off 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 so she could have Joker to herself. 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. Cullen refuses to let go and 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.
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
An episode of the Pokémon anime featured Meowth and Pikachu attached to each other with a cord, forcing to work together despite their longtime rivalries.
