Year: 1958
Director: Stanley Kramer
Country: US
Language: English
Tony Curtis, who ensured his co-star received top-billing, and Sidney Poitier had great admiration and respect for Director Stanley Kramer. The man would make pictures about important and controversial social issues, during a time in which tabloid journalists could easily make or break careers. Despite the love on the set, both stars would find themselves constantly exhausted, as The Defiant Ones was their most physically demanding film to date.
Two escaped convicts chained together, white (Tony Curtis) and black (Sidney Poitier), must learn to get along in order to elude capture.
Nominated for 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and winning 2 (Screenplay and Cinematography) The Defiant Ones attempts to break racial-barriers by having a drama where where their difference in color seems to matter more than the fact that both are fugitives from the law. We see Curtis and Poitier's relationship slowly progress throughout the run-time; from pure hatred to tolerance to a kind of kinship. An incredibly well written story gives us two quite deep and revealing character studies.
Stanley Kramer's picture has an unpleasantness about it as it highlights many unfortunate racial attitudes of the (hopefully) past. Even though both Curtis and Poitier are criminals, Poitier is treated far worse by the people they come across. One child even asks Curtis if he's handcuffed to Poitier because he's taking the man to jail. If this picture is a glimpse of 1950's intolerance, I'd hate to actually be living in that era.
Overall I think this isn't one of Kramer's best pictures (Judgement at Nuremburg and Mad World are vastly superior works) but I do think this is a well made film with an important message that resonates even 60+ years after the film's initial release.
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