The Defiant Ones
| The Defiant Ones | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Stanley Kramer |
| Produced by | Stanley Kramer |
| Written by | Nedrick Young (story) Harold Jacob Smith |
| Starring |
Tony Curtis Sidney Poitier |
| Music by | Ernest Gold |
| Cinematography | Sam Leavitt |
| Edited by | Frederic Knudtson |
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Production
company |
Curtleigh Productions
Stanley Kramer Productions |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $778,000 |
The Defiant Ones is a 1958 crime 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 and 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.
The film starts with a truck driving at night. It swerves to miss another truck and crashes through a barrier. The rescuers clear up the debris and cover the people killed... mainly prisoners in the back. It is revealed that two are missing: a black man shackled to a white man, because "the warden had a sense of humor." They are told not to look too hard as "they will probably kill each other in the first five miles." Nevertheless, a large posse and many bloodhounds are dispatched the next morning to find them.
The setting is in the American South, the men are the black Noah Cullen (Poitier) and the white John "Joker" Jackson (Curtis). Despite their mutual loathing, they are forced to cooperate, as they are chained together. At first their cooperation is motivated by self-preservation but gradually, they begin to respect and like each other.
Cullen and Joker flee through difficult terrain and weather, with a brief stop at a turpentine camp 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 inhabitants, who form a lynch mob; they are saved only by the interference of "Big" Sam (Chaney), a man who is appalled by his neighbors' blood-thirst. Sam persuades the onlookers to lock the convicts up and turn them in the next 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.
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