During those three days, they have to avoid Sheriff Theodore Bikel, Captain Frank Gibbons, and bloodhounds on their trail led by rednecks such as radio-playing Carl Switzer, the former Alfalfa in his final screen role before his homicide.
Poitier and Curtis also encounter a work camp led by good guy Lon Chaney Jr. and bad guy Claude Akins, and a farm owned by beautiful, man-hungry Cara Williams and her obedient pre-adolescent son Kevin Coughlin.
How others will see it. The imdb.com user ratings are both high and consistent. The movie received a remarkable nine Oscar nominations, winning two, and at the British Academy Awards, Poitier won Best Foreign Actor.
How I felt about it. It would be an exaggeration to state that The Defiant Ones represents everything that is wrong with the movie industry, and not just because it was made more than half a century ago. It would be more accurate to repeat the maxim that the more things, the more they stay the same.
I know what Stanley Kramer's message is. Racism is stupid, because we are all the same underneath our skin. But this is something our parents should have taught us when we were six, and something we should have figured out on our own by our freshman year in high school.
Kramer's message isn't wrong, but his methods are annoying. The problem begins with the title. The Placid Ones presumably didn't test well, but one can hardly blame Tony Curtis for being angry with Sidney Poitier. I'd hate him too after hearing him sing "Bowling Green! Sewing Machine!" over and over again for hours.
I'll buy that a road accident springs the defiant duo. What I don't understand is why the rest of the convicts didn't flee the truck. Or how Curtis and Poitier had plenty of cigarettes to smoke (with matches to start fires as well) throughout their escape. Or how they avoided getting bitten nearly to death by mosquitoes during their three day journey through swamps, rivers, and forests.
Or why they would try to kill each other midway through their flight, then attempt to throw away their freedom for the other for the rest of the movie. We know that as soon as Tony Curtis got the car started, he'd be gone. And if the cute blonde wanted to come along, he'd take her with her. As for Poitier, he'd be gone, too, as soon as the chain was removed.
Can you believe that violent felon Curtis, instead of escaping in the car, runs after Poitier to warn him that Williams gave him instructions that would lead to his death in the swamp? Then what do Curtis and Poitier do? They follow her instructions exactly, wading through the swamp to the railroad. If Curtis had driven off, Poitier would have caught the train, and both would have escaped.
But why is Williams so eager to abandon the farm for a presumably violent felon with a price on his head and no money? Is Tony Curtis that handsome? She couldn't find a better man simply by going to the local church on Sunday and smiling once or twice at a stranger? Her husband abandoned the farm, and left that hottie there, when she wanted off the farm too?
Can't forget Claude Akins wanting to lynch the defiant ones for breaking into a toolshed, and Lon Chaney Jr. letting them go, without even giving a reason for doing so. Then there's the sheriff who apparently never considers using a radio to call law enforcement ahead of where the two convicts are travelling.
It is an aggravating film. But it goes to show how two moviestars, a timely moral, and a story overripe with dramatic tension can put one over an educated audience.