I had never seen THE DEFIANT ONES and I sat down to watch it a couple of days ago in eager anticipation since this was regarded as a classic American movie from the 1950s , I mean we're talking about the movie with " the white convict and the black convict handcuffed and on the run " . After seeing it I thought perhaps the critical acclaim was to do with the TVM remake that starred Robert Urich because this is a film so melodramatic and dated that any cynical audience member will either fall asleep through boredom or throw popcorn at the screen
A truck carrying members of a chain gang crashes and a couple of convicts escape . The cops leading the hunt are shocked to discover that the authorities have in their infinite wisdom shackled a white guy to a black guy . You might have thought they might have been more surprised that considering the spectacular crash the two escapees manged to run away without a scratch between them
The action cuts to the two felons on the run John " Joker " Jackson and Noah Cullen and just in case there's any blind people in the audience who haven't realised that Tony Curtis is white and Sidney Poitier is black they call each other all sorts of racist names . At this early point I knew instantly where the story was going so all the name calling seemed superfluous in the end and to be blunt I was never convinced that these characters would exist in reality , in fact I couldn't believe they were characters at all , just a couple of actors playing roles
And as the story went on I realised I was getting battered over the head with the message " Racism is wrong and we should look beyond the colour of a persons skin in order to survive " . Thank you for pointing this out but I would have come to the same conclusion without it getting rammed down my throat . If the movie had been subtle then I would have regarded it better but that's the problem it's not a subtle movie at all - It's an often ridiculous melodrama best summed up by the ending which is both entirely predictable and laughably illogical
A truck carrying members of a chain gang crashes and a couple of convicts escape . The cops leading the hunt are shocked to discover that the authorities have in their infinite wisdom shackled a white guy to a black guy . You might have thought they might have been more surprised that considering the spectacular crash the two escapees manged to run away without a scratch between them
The action cuts to the two felons on the run John " Joker " Jackson and Noah Cullen and just in case there's any blind people in the audience who haven't realised that Tony Curtis is white and Sidney Poitier is black they call each other all sorts of racist names . At this early point I knew instantly where the story was going so all the name calling seemed superfluous in the end and to be blunt I was never convinced that these characters would exist in reality , in fact I couldn't believe they were characters at all , just a couple of actors playing roles
And as the story went on I realised I was getting battered over the head with the message " Racism is wrong and we should look beyond the colour of a persons skin in order to survive " . Thank you for pointing this out but I would have come to the same conclusion without it getting rammed down my throat . If the movie had been subtle then I would have regarded it better but that's the problem it's not a subtle movie at all - It's an often ridiculous melodrama best summed up by the ending which is both entirely predictable and laughably illogical