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Deliverance

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For other uses, see Deliverance (disambiguation).
Deliverance
Original movie poster
Directed byJohn Boorman
Written byNovel & screenplay:
James Dickey
Produced byJohn Boorman
StarringJon Voight
Burt Reynolds
Ned Beatty
Ronny Cox
James Dickey
CinematographyVilmos Zsigmond
Edited byTom Priestley
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release dates
July 30, 1972
Running time
109 min
CountryUSA USA
LanguageEnglish

Deliverance is a 1972 Warner Bros. motion picture drama directed by John Boorman. Principal cast members include Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox, Jon Voight, and Ned Beatty. The film is based on a 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey.

Motion picture

Widely acclaimed as a landmark film, Deliverance is the story of four suburban professional men from Atlanta, Georgia on a weekend canoe and camping trip. The film is noted for the memorable music scene near the beginning that sets the tone for what lies ahead: a trip into unknown and potentially dangerous territory. In the scene, set at a rural gas station, character Drew Ballinger plays the instrumental Dueling Banjos on his guitar with a mentally retarded hillbilly named Lonny (implied as being an inbred albino in the novel, portrayed by Billy Redden in the film). The boy eventually outplays Drew with his banjo. The song won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance.

Deliverance was shot in the Tallulah Gorge in Tallulah Falls, Georgia and on the Chattooga River, dividing the states of Georgia and South Carolina. Additional scenes were shot as well in Clemson, South Carolina. Since the film's release, more than thirty people have drowned attempting to recreate the canoe trip along the section of the river where the film was shot.[1] The rapids within both book and film become a major symbol and plot device to reflect the natural dangers of the untamed wilderness in the face of inexperienced urban outsiders.

In 2001, the book was named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library. The film was selected by the New York Times as one of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made," whilst the viewers of Channel 4 in the United Kingdom voted it 45 in a list of The 100 Greatest Films.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Four Atlanta businessmen — Lewis, Ed, Bobby, and Drew — (played by Reynolds, Voight, Beatty and Cox, respectively) decide to canoe down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded over by the upcoming construction of a dam and lake. The trip turns into a terrifying ordeal revealing the primal nature of man, his animal instincts of predation and survival, and even his potential for violence.

File:ReddenDeliverence.jpg
Billy Redden as "Lonny"

Traveling in pairs, the foursome's two canoes are briefly separated. The occupants of one canoe (Bobby and Ed) encounter a pair of grizzled hillbillies emerging from the woods, one wielding a loaded shotgun. Bobby is forced at gunpoint to strip naked, his ear twisted to bring him to his hands and knees, and then ordered to "squeal like a pig" before being brutally raped by one of the hillbillies while Ed is bound to a tree and held at gunpoint by the other, who is nearly toothless. After tormenting Bobby, the two turn their attention to Ed, as the toothless man declares, "He's got a real purty mouth, ain't he?" before he attempts to force Ed to fellate him.

Hearing the commotion, Lewis — who is wary of danger in the woods — secretly sneaks up and kills the rapist with an arrow from his recurve bow. Meanwhile, the other hillbilly quickly escapes into the woods. After a brief but heated debate between Lewis and Drew about whether to inform the authorities, the men vote to side with Lewis' recommendation to bury the dead hillbilly's body and continue on as if nothing had happened. Lewis argues that they would not receive a fair trial, as the local jury would be composed of the dead man's friends and relatives. In addition, Bobby does not want what had happened to him to be known.

They run for it downriver, cutting their trip short, but soon disaster strikes as the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. As Drew and Ed reach the rapids in the leading canoe, Drew clutches his head and falls forward into the river. The reason for Drew's fall is left unclear although Lewis repeatedly yells that Drew was shot. However, the film ambigously suggests that Drew might have been unable to live with what they had done or return and the knowledge that would be concealing a homicide from everyone they knew and trusted.

After Drew's fall into the river, the survivors enter dangerous rapids, and both canoes collide on the rocks, spilling Lewis, Bobby, and Ed into the river. Lewis breaks his femur and the others are washed ashore alongside him. Encouraged by the badly-injured Lewis, who believes they are being stalked by the other hillbilly, Ed climbs a nearby rock face in order to dispatch the other hillbilly using his bow while Bobby stays behind to look after Lewis. Ed reaches the top and hides out until the next morning. The other hillbilly appears on the top of the cliff with a rifle, looking down into the gorge where Lewis and Bobby are located. Ed clumsily shoots, falls down on one of his own arrows, piercing himself on his side. It appears as if he has missed his target but as the hillbilly totters toward Ed to shoot him point blank, he falls down dead, revealing the arrow through his neck.

Later, when Ed looks in the dead man's face, he notices that the man has front teeth; whereas the surviving hillbilly had not. Ed's horror is somewhat abated when he touches the man's teeth and realizes that the man is wearing removable false front teeth. He lowers the body and himself back to where Lewis and Bobby are. Bobby asks if Ed is sure that he killed the right guy. Ed is not entirely sure and shoves the dead man's face toward Bobby and says, "You tell me!" He ties a large rock to the body and sinks it. Ed, Bobby, and Lewis then continue downstream in the surviving canoe.

Shortly afterwards, they happen to come across Drew's body. Doubtful about what could have caused his death, Ed and Bobby opt to weigh down and bury Drew's body in the river to ensure it will never be found, rather than risk bringing it to town and incriminating themselves. They then canoe to the town of Aintry and take the injured Lewis to the hospital. They carefully concoct a cover story for the authorities about Drew's death and disappearance being an accident, lying about their ordeal to Sheriff Bullard (played by author James Dickey) in order to escape a possible double murder charge. The sheriff clearly does not believe them, but unable to find any conclusive evidence, he allows them to leave and tells the men never to come back. They readily agree. The trio vows to keep their story of death and survival a secret for the rest of their lives. At the end a man's hand is seen coming out of the river in Ed's dream, prophesizing the long struggle with his conscience that lies ahead for him.

Trivia

  • There are two versions of the rape scene between Beatty and McKinney. The original movie version includes the scene, while another version, edited for broadcast television, does not have the Beatty character being raped--only ridiculed. [2]
  • Although the film closely follows the novel, some sections are different. Examples include the character description of Ed (in the novel, Ed was bald and in his late 40s), the missing introduction (explaining why they decided to go on a canoe trip instead of playing golf), and an epilogue after the tragedy.
  • Ned Beatty claims to have come up with the infamous "squeal like a pig" line while he and actor Bill McKinney were improvising the scene.[3]
  • Billy Redden, the Banjo Boy, could not really play the banjo and all his music was dubbed.
  • One local was played by Randall Leece Deal, a real convicted moonshiner. In 2006, he obtained a pardon for a conspiracy conviction from President George W. Bush.[4]
  • Several plot holes in the movie:
    • Ed impales himself on an arrow-yet the succeding scenes show little bleeding for such a serious wound; also Ed would have been in danger from peritonitis.
    • When Ed shoots the arrow at the hillman-they are facing one another-yet when the man falls down dead, the arrow point in his neck is from back to front.
    • When Drew's body is found, the others examine his right temple for a gunshot wound, yet if he was shot, the bullet would have hit his left temple.
  • John Boorman's gold record for the "Dueling Banjos" hit single was later stolen from his house by the Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, a scene Boorman recreated in The General (1998), his biographical film about Cahill.
  • This film was #63 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Characters

  • Drew Ballinger
  • Sheriff Bullard
  • Thad Emerson
  • Dean Gentry
  • Ed Gentry
  • Martha Gentry
  • Griner
  • George Holley
  • Kitt'n Britches model
  • Lonnie[5]

Crew

Cast

Award nominations

Notes

  1. ^ [citation needed]
  2. ^ "Artistopia: Deliverance Biography".
  3. ^ "Ned Beatty: I created 'squeal like a pig'".
  4. ^ "Moonshiner who appeared in 'Deliverance' pardoned". 2006. {{cite web}}: Text "The Associated Press - Atlanta" ignored (help); Text "publisher" ignored (help)
  5. ^ Characters from the book, Deliverance. See Deliverance summary for additional citations.
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