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The Defiant Ones Overview:

The Defiant Ones (1958) was a Crime - Drama Film directed by Stanley Kramer and produced by Stanley Kramer.

SYNOPSIS

Two escaped convicts - one black (Poitier), one white (Curtis), and both shackled in the same pair of handcuffs - battle the elements and each other as they travel Southern backroads eluding the ever-approaching posse. Though the device of binding two racial antagonists together for survival may be rather obvious, the performances make the result compelling.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Academy Awards 1958 --- Ceremony Number 31 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorTony CurtisNominated
Best ActorSidney PoitierNominated
Best Supporting ActorTheodore BikelNominated
Best Supporting ActressCara WilliamsNominated
Best CinematographySam LeavittWon
Best DirectorStanley KramerNominated
Best Film EditingFrederic KnudtsonNominated
Best PictureStanley Kramer, ProducerNominated
Best WritingNedrick Young, Harold Jacob SmithWon
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The Defiant Ones BlogHub Articles:

The Defiant Ones (1958): Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier

By 4 Star Film Fan on Feb 5, 2022 From 4 Star Films

I can’t have made this up myself, but The Defiant Ones is a testament to the pithy axiom that proximity breeds empathy. Stanley Kramer has very clear intent when he builds the premise of his story out of a white and black prisoner, in the era of Jim Crow, who are chained together for the major... Read full article

The Defiant Ones (1958)

By Beatrice on Oct 11, 2016 From Flickers in Time

The Defiant Ones Directed by Stanley Kramer Written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith 1958/USA Curtleigh Productions/Stanley Kramer Productions Repeat viewing/My DVD collection #345 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Sheriff Max Muller: The warden’s got a sense of humor. Chain... Read full article

The Defiant Ones (1958)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 24, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier with director Stanley Kramer, the film opens in the pouring rain with a truck full of convicts. It goes off road and no one is hurt except two men escape.  A Sheriff an state policemen begin tracking them on foot. However, this pair is unique since one is the... Read full article

The Defiant Ones (1958)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Oct 24, 2014 From 4 Star Films

Starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier with director Stanley Kramer, the film opens in the pouring rain with a truck full of convicts. It goes off road and no one is hurt except two men escape.  A Sheriff an state policemen begin tracking them on foot. However, this pair is unique since one is the... Read full article

The Defiant Ones

By Alyson on Feb 3, 2011 From The Best Picture Project

In 1958, the Civil Rights movement was gaining strength and The Defiant Ones became more fuel for the fire.  Directed by the great Stanley Kramer, the film tells the story of two escaped prisoners chained together and trying to outrun the authorities in the south, one man is black, the other white.... Read full article

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The Defiant Ones Quotes:

Noah Cullen: You call me that again, and I'll kill you!
Noah Cullen: [to John] Go on, tell me all that big talk about Charlie Potatoes, when the chains off and nobody chasing you. Come on. You can't, can you? You can't because you're nothing. You're not even a man! You're a monkey on a stick. That cracker mob back there, they pull the string and you jump.
[John punches him]
Noah Cullen: I ain't gettin' mad, Joker. I been mad all my natural life.
John 'Joker' Jackson: Ya'll can't lynch me! I'm a white man!
John 'Joker' Jackson: Cullen, I can't make it.
Noah Cullen: [Holding out his arm as if they are still chained together] Come on, man, you draggin' the chain.
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The Defiant Ones Facts
Stanley Kramer originally had Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando in mind for the two protagonists. Both were interested but only Poitier was available. Brando was caught up in filming Mutiny on the Bounty, a film with a highly troubled and seemingly endless shoot. As the start date for The Defiant Ones loomed, Kramer had no option but to start looking at other actors.
The young man with the transistor radio is played by Our Gang graduate Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer; this was Switzer's final screen appearance before his untimely death in a shooting incident.
The film's co-writers, Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith, were cast as the prison truck drivers, with the writing credits below their faces, because Young was blacklisted and writing under a pseudonym at the time and producer Stanley Kramer wanted to identify them truthfully.
Tony Curtis insisted that Sidney Poitier received top billing.
A technical advisor on board during filming had to go uncredited, because he was a real-life chain gang escapee who was still a wanted man.
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