La Chaîne

I have seen this film several times and each time I am feeling that this is one of the best drama I've ever seen. There are new remakes of this film, but the original is the best. Acting of Sidney Poitier is without any doubt superb, while Tony Curtis did also his best. The director, Stanley Kramer, chose a very good and interesting plot, how two different persons can have better relationship and interests when they fight together for their lives. No matter if one is black and the other white, or no matter if one is atheist and the other Christian, at the end they will understand each other because their cause is only one and is the same, to become free.

Kramer's story about to escaped prisoners hooked up together, black and white, is still the best picture ever made on racism. At first they hate each other, but through their run for freedom they even become true friends and the different color of their skins actually disappears and they are just to men who like each other. Sidney Poitier is good as always and Tony Curtis gives what is probably his best performance ever in drama, matched only by his acting in The Boston Strangler later in 1967. The supporting cast is also good and correctly chosen. Although real action scenes are just a few, Kramer manages to keep attention permanently for viewers along with an increasing interest in how things turn out. Time has not affected the film which still stands as a big one.

Opposite characters doomed to each other by handcuffs is an old theme in movies that goes back to at least "The 39 steps" (1935, Alfred Hitchcock). In that film the opposites where man and woman, in "The defiant ones" it is black and white. By taking racism as its subject the film is very liberal in a time that the civil rights issue was firm on the political agenda.

The film thanks a lot to its two main characters. In the first place Sidney Poitier as Noah Cullen. Poitier was the only black star actor of its time and was frequently cast in a film wit racism as its subject. Think of films such as "In the heat of the night" ( 1967, Norman Jewison) and "Guess who's coming to dinner" (1967, Stanley Kramer). This type casting can be interpreted as a sort of racism of its own kind.

Even more striking is the performance of Tony Curtis as John Jackson. In the beginning he was casted as the handsome guy. The year before "The defiant ones" he had proven with "Sweet smell of success" (1957, Alexander Mackendrick) that he was capable of serious acting too.

Director Stanley Kramer has the image of being more or less a moralist. In his films the social engagement is sometimes a bit to explicit. Apart from the earlier mentioned "Guess who is coming to dinner" (1967) one can think of films such as "Inherit the wind" (1960) and "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961). In "The defiant ones" there is the right mix between social engamement, action and a sultry form of eroticism. In this respect the film has much in common with "In the heat of the night" ( 1967, Norman Jewison).

A prison truck is transporting a group of convicts when it runs off the road and crashes. Two convicts escape - Johnny (Tony Curtis), a white man, and Cullen (Sydney Poitier), a black man. They loathe each other, especially as Johnny is an ignorant racist. However, they are chained together and have to rely on each other to escape and survive. Meanwhile, the State Police plus the local Sheriff and a ragtag bunch of deputies, assisted by tracker dogs, are hot on their trail.

With enough thrilling action to keep it enjoyable today, this is an important film that provided Poitier with a breakthrough role and helped Curtis to escape the simplistic hero mode in which his talents had too often been wasted. If you look closely, you'll notice that the actor playing Angus is former Little Rascal Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, making his last screen appearance. This is one of underrated producer/director Stanley Kramer's finest humanitarian films. The Defiant Ones won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The performances by Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are virtually flawless. Both Curtis and Poitier deservedly received Best Actor Oscar nominations. 9/10

There is this story going around that Robert Mitchum refused the part Tony Curtis eventually played because he did not want to work with a black man. The actual story is that Mitchum who did spend time on a southern chain gang said there was no way that back in the day a black and white man would have been chained together in the first place. In fact Stanley Kramer must have taken the critique in stride because sheriff Theodore Bikel has a line of explanation saying the warden had a sense of humor.

Though the film dates a bit, it's still quite dramatic even now. Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier chained together have an unplanned jail break while being transported. Curtis has all the attitudes typical of his time and Poitier doesn't take nothing off anybody. Still joined at the hip as they are, they do need each other and find eventually there's more that unites than divides them.

Besides Theodore Bikel in a strange role for him as a laconic southern sheriff, look for good performances from Lon Chaney, Jr. who runs a turpentine work camp who saves Curtis and Poitier from a lynching and Cara Williams as a trampy white trash farm lady whose needs haven't been met for a while.

Tony Curtis in an incredible act of generosity insisted on equal billing for Sidney Poitier since due to the nature of the film, they are on screen together for most of it. That act of generosity may have cost him an Oscar for both he and Poitier were nominated for Best Actor, but lost to David Niven for Separate Tables. An act that rankles Tony Curtis to this day because at the drop of a hat he will insist Niven got 'his' Oscar.

Despite the sour grapes, The Defiant Ones though dated is still a good bit of cinema.