Sidney Poitier as Noah Cullen and Tony Curtis as John “Joker” Jackson in “The Defiant Ones,” directed by Stanley Kramer, 1958. Getty Images
Stanley Kramer gave us “High Noon” 1952 and “Judgement at Nuremberg” 1961 and that alone is enough to cast Kramer in gold.
MOVIE REVIEW
“THE DEVIANT ONES”
Crime, Drama
Two escaped convicts chained together, white and black, must learn to get along in order to elude capture.
Length: 96 minutes
Rating: Not rated
Director: Stanley Kramer
Writers: Nedrick Young (originally as Nathan E. Douglas), Harold Jacob Smith
Stars: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel
His “The Defiant Ones” in 1958 wasn’t in the same league with those brilliant pieces.
Tony Curtis got to play chain-gang baddie Johnny Jackson, a snarling racist small-time criminal, in a time when being racist was more common. Curtis had previously been nominated for his role as Sidney Falco in “Sweet Smell of Success” 1957.
But here, it was his chained-up partner Noel Cullen who got all the good notices. That was Sidney Poitier doing one of the first of his best roles.
Produced on a small budget and shot and shot, I‘m told, in the mountains north of the “Swamps” of Los Angeles, but as I remember, most overlooked the swollen river, snakiness swamps and good weather, because of Poitier who stood out in our aging memories.
Looking back at the old reviews, the biggest complaints where that both Sidney and Tony were too pretty to have survived in a Southern labor camp.
Cara Williams made an appearance as a very forward widow with a small child, working as a waitress and trying to ignore the stars muddy pants.
Kramer wisely surrounded his stars with the best character actors in the business. Most alive now won’t remember them, but they were the meat that held any movies together and included Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Whit Bissell, Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Akins, who took his racist country boy act to perfection in along side Frederic March and Spencer Tracy in “Inherit The Wind.”
“The Defiant Ones” is worth seeing, this Black History month, if only to honor the great Poitier and Kramer.
“The Defiant Ones” sadly plays one night only at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16, at Waterville’s Railroad Square Cinema, 17 Railroad Square.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.
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