The Defiant Ones

Stanley Kramer was perhaps the most socially conscious of filmmakers. He wore his liberalism on his sleeve, in films like Judgement at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and The Defiant Ones, which was nominated for Best Picture of 1958 (it is somewhat ironic that my favorite Kramer picture, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, has no socially redeeming content whatsoever).

The Defiant Ones is one of those films that has a simple pitch: two convicts, shackled together at the wrist, escape together. One is black, one is white, and they are in the deep South. The convicts were Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis, and when asked why two men of different races would be chained together, the response is that the warden has a strange sense of humor. Curtis' character is casually racist, while Poitier, though not a Stepin Fetchit by any means, knows the world in which he lives. When Curtis calls him a nigger, he reprimands him. Curtis replies, "Well, that's what you are, aren't you? I'm a honky." Poitier calmly tells him there's a big difference.

During their flight through the forests and swamps, with law enforcement and bloodhounds following them, the two men grow a certain respect for each other. They are captured by men in a work camp, and are about to be lynched (in a scene of gallows humor, Curtis protests that he can't be lynched--he's a white man. Poitier's look at him is grimly funny). But the camp foreman, in a brief but incendiary turn by Lon Chaney, Jr., manage to shame them into simply locking them up until the authorities arrive.

They escape again and are taken in by a woman and her son. The woman, Cara Williams, longs to escape also, only it's the loneliness and drudgery of her farm she wants to flee. She's attracted to Curtis, and gives Poitier information how to get through the swamp and leave Curtis to her. But she's set up Poitier, sending him to his doom, and when Curtis finds out he proves loyal to his fellow convict and goes after him.

Meanwhile the law persists in hunting them down, led by a sheriff played by Theodore Bikel. He's pointedly not the stereotype of a southern sheriff, simply doing his job and stopping the use of Dobermans to attack the convicts. Also in the posse is Carl Switzer, aka Alfalfa from Our Gang. It would be his last film role before he was murdered.

Towards the end of the film is a very iconic image, as Poitier has managed to get aboard a freight car and extends a hand to help Curtis up. In 1958, this image must have been particularly resonant--a white hand reaching for the aid of a black hand. Perhaps not surprisingly, this film did not do well in the South.

Kramer, Curtis, Poitier, Williams and Bikel all were nominated for Oscars. Sam Leavitt won for Best Cinematography (Black and White). It was the first film in which a black actor received top billing along side a white actor. Poitier, who would later go on to be the first black actor to win an Oscar, doesn't play the noble African-American he would later specialize in. His role in The Defiant Ones is an ordinary man, beaten down by years of racism. It's an excellent performance in an excellent film.