The Defiant Ones

One night in the American South, a truck loaded with prisoners in the back swerves to miss another truck and crashes through a barrier. The rescuers clear up the debris and cover the men killed, however, 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 two missing men are the black Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) and the white John "Joker" Jackson (Tony Curtis). Despite their mutual hatred, 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 (Lon Chaney Jr.), a man who is appalled by his neighbors' bloodthirst. 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 (Kevin Coughlin). They make him take them to his home and his mother (Cara 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 (Theodore Bikel) gets close, the escapees can hear the dogs on their trail. They also hear a train whistle and run toward it. Cullen catches up to the train and jumps aboard. In this pivotal scene, Joker is running alongside, desperately trying to catch up. Cullen calls to Joker, urging him to run faster, and holds out his hand for Joker to catch hold. They are so close. Their fingers touch, trying to catch a grip, but are unable to do so. Cullen could go on alone, but will not leave his friend. As Joker falters, weakened from loss of blood and pain, Cullen abandons hope of escape and jumps from the train. Both men tumble to the ground. Too exhausted to run, they realize all they can do is wait for their pursuers. The sheriff finds Cullen singing defiantly and Joker lying in his arms.

Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in the trailer for the film

• Sidney Poitier as Noah Cullen
• Tony Curtis as John “Joker” Jackson
• 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 "Alfalfa" Switzer as Angus
• Kevin Coughlin as Billy
• Cara Williams as Billy's mother

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 film's production, which led 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.[3][4]^{:30, 280–281}[5]

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

The film earned rentals of $2.5 million in the United States and Canada but did not perform as well overseas.[2] It ultimately made a profit of $1 million.[1]

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

• Warner Bros. parodied the film in Friz Freleng's 1961 cartoon D' Fightin' Ones, in which Sylvester the Cat escapes from captivity in a dogcatcher truck while chained to a bulldog.
• In 1972, the story reversed the gender of the protagonists in the film 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 Milland) has his head grafted onto the body of a living black man (played by Rosey Grier).
• In 1984, in the season 1 episode "Some Like It Hot" of the American sitcom Night Court, the movie plot was briefly alluded to by a maintenance man as Dan and Liz (white and black characters, respectively) are handcuffed together: "Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier ... what was the name of that movie?"
• The 1985 sci-fi film Enemy Mine pitted a white earthling (Dennis Quaid) against a lizard-like alien (Louis Gossett Jr) while stranded on a desolate planet.
• In 1986, the film was remade for television, starring Robert Urich and Carl Weathers.
• The film was paid homage to by the 1992 Quantum Leap episode "Unchained," in which 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 the Red Dwarf episode "The Inquisitor", an altered-reality Rimmer responds to Lister and Kryten being chained together with: "Look, they come here with some cock-and-bull story they're chained together like Sidney Poiter and Tony Curtis. I say open the door to oblivion and kick 'em through!"
• In 1996, the film was remade as Fled, starring Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin.
• In an Everybody Hates Chris episode, Principal Edwards (Jason Alexander) cites the film as the reason he pairs Chris Rock with Joey Caruso (Travis T. Flory) on a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History.
• In the "Coyote Lovely" episode, after handcuffing Lana and Cyril together, Archer says "... just like The Defiant Ones."
• In the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, a side mission involves two shackled men, Mr. Black & Mr. White, escaping a chain gang.

• List of American films of 1958

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Defiant Ones.

• The Defiant Ones on IMDb
• 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
• "The Defiant Ones" at Every Oscar Ever