The Defiant Ones (1958)

A major contention I hear about new movies is that they are too "woke".  Woke, of course, originally meant just being aware of the way things were and conscious of racism and double standards.  It was never even meant for white people to be woke since it was specific to the experience of black people in the United States.  

Still, the word comes up whenever a movie is made today where the protagonist is not a straight, white male.  There are problems with modern storytelling, with too many writers wanting to race-swap characters or add characters who have no arc outside of being a skin color, a sexual orientation, a gender or a stereotypical white racist.  It is more accurate to call it lazy than woke.

The Defiant Ones, on the other hand, comes from a time where certain racial attitudes were not only accepted but, in many parts of the country, backed by the power of law.  There is an entire speech about it in the film as Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) calls out John "Joker" Jackson (Tony Curtis) for his attitudes and blind acceptance of how things are.  While director Stanley Kramer, and definitely writers Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith, meant to represent equality in the situation the two main characters find themselves in, they knew there was a long way to go to get to that point.  They also knew that the best way of reaching the audience was through the characters and their struggle, not through sloganeering or finger waving. 

Cullen and Joker are part of a chain gang and, while they are being returned back to prison, their transport truck goes off the road.  Most of the prisoners are wounded or killed, but Noah and Jackson manage to escape.  Problem is, they are both chained together and wish to go opposite directions.  Joker is eager to head south where he knows people, while the last thing Cullen wants to be is a black fugitive alone in Georgia.  He aims to head for Ohio. 

The first thing they have to do is avoid Sheriff Max Muller (Theodore Bikel), who along with Capt. Frank Gibbons of the state police (Charles McGraw) and a posse of men including dog handler Solly (King Donovan) are in pursuit of the fugitives.  The two hope to make it to a train near a turpentine factory and then separate, but to do so the two men must overcome their own prejudices and in-grown dislike for one another. 

I am used to seeing an older, more genteel Sidney Poitier in a number of films, including Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? from 10 years later.  He's not overtly threatening to the point where theaters at the time would have objected to the film and audiences would have turned away, but he's also not the "magical negro" stereotype that Hollywood still perpetuates nor the impossibly perfect person he portrays in the latter film.  Rather than helping Joker become a better person and improve his life he helps him to understand that pretty much everyone, unless they get to a certain socioeconomic level, have to deal with the same barriers.  There is also a pronounced homosexual undertone to the movie, with some hints that the actions of both men may be due to an underlying mutual attraction rather than some sort of major racial or moral awakening. 

Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier work well together, and the actors had mutual respect for each other, as did Kramer, although it sounds like the latter may have been a bit more patronizing toward Poitier.  Although there are plenty of sequences with Theodore Bikel pursuing them and a final amoral female protagonist (Cara Williams) at the end, the two actors pretty much know their job is to carry the film.  Sidney Poitier was always the choice for Cullen.  Once again, though, Elvis Presley was up for the part of Joker, a part which would have given him a solid acting credit at a time when his musical skills were still at their peak, and once again Tom Parker sabotaged him. 

One of the biggest surprises in The Defiant Ones is an appearance by Lon Chaney Jr.  As the old-style horror films had played out so had his career for the most part, stuck acting in skid-row knockoffs of his best roles, but here he gets to play a sympathetic foreman in one of his best roles outside of Larry Talbot.  He plays that opposite of a perfectly evil and despicable Claude Akins who is just aching to see Cullen and Joker swing before the sheriff can get to them.  

Since Kramer had no fear of shooting at night and on location The Defiant Ones stands up a bit better than most '50s films that do sometimes have the feeling of trying to drive home the moral a bit too hard.  It's good that Curtis and Poitier weren't seriously wounded during the shoot as well, since they did most of their own stunts, including some in the river and the entirety of getting out of the clay pit.  It was worth it as we got an iconic movie, one that's been referenced and copied many times throughout the decades. 

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Time: 96 minutes

Starring: Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams

Director: Stanley Kramer