Take two movie stars, chain ‘em together, and have ‘em talk about racism for two hours. I guess that’s a movie.
The bigoted John “Joker” Jackson (Tony Curtis) and the Black Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) escape from a prison truck after a crash, but because they’re chained together, the two must overcome their hatred of each other to escape the posse pursuing them. Unfortunately, the film is almost comically heavy-handed with its symbolism1 and the dialogue exists just to advance the anti-racism message of the movie.
Later, the pair are able to break the chain with the help of a lonely white woman who immediately falls in love with Joker. She tells Cullen he can reach a northbound train by running through the swamp, but once he leaves, she reveals to Joker that Cullen’s likely to die out there. Who cares, right? But Joker, finally getting the message of the movie, runs into the swamp to save Cullen. Together, they make it to the train, but only Cullen is able to board. As he tries to help Joker on, he falls off and the pair are recaptured.2
Cast and Crew
Born Bernard Schwartz, Tony Curtis is known mostly for his famous relations: he married Janet Leigh in 1951 and they starred together in Houdini (1953). Jamie Lee Curtis3 is their daughter, and she’s now part of a power couple with director Christopher Guest.4 We’ll get back to Tony in 1959 when he gets robbed out of a second Best Actor nod.
Sidney Poitier is a big deal. Poitier’s Best Actor nomination for The Defiant Ones was the first acting Oscar nomination for a Black man—and that isn’t the only Oscars history he made. Poitier moved from the Bahamas to Miami when he was fifteen, then set out to New York to make it as an actor. I’m sure lots of actors had to overcome hurdles, but Poitier could barely read, was rejected by audiences because of his accent, and couldn’t sing (at a time when singing was basically a requirement for Black actors).
But sometimes things work out. Poitier’s first leading role was as a doctor to a bigot in No Way Out (1950). As you can tell, this wouldn’t be his only role confronting racism head-on. Poitier was then in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)5, an adaptation of a South African novel by Alan Paton, along with Go, Man, Go! (1954) about Abe Saperstein & the formation of the Harlem Globetrotters. But we’ll talk about Poitier’s biggest roles in an upcoming column.
The Trivia
Joker’s big dream is to be a man who comes down the street with a pair of buckskin shoes, a Panama hat, and a good-lookin’ gal. So, uh, today we’re talkin’ hats.6
First up: Joker’s Panama hat. Wide-brimmed, cream colored, and made from the straw of the jipijapa plant, the Panama hat is actually misnamed, since it’s from Ecuador.
Okay: you may know the fedora, but do you know its cousins? The trilby’s got a shorter brim than the fedora that’s upturned in the back. The homburg and pork pie both have upturned brims, but the homburg has an indent running along the top of the hat while the pork pie has a flat top.
The trilby was worn in a stage adaptation of George du Maurier’s 1894 novel “Trilby,” which is where it got its name.7 Incidentally, that novel introduced the world to the character Svengali, a hypnotist who puts the young singer Trilby under his trance.
The homburg was named for the German spa city of Homburg and was popularized by the Prince of Wales, who became Edward VII.
The pork pie got its name because it just sorta resembles a pork pie.
What about Scottish bonnets, you may ask? Well, the tam o’ shanter is one of ‘em: a flat cap with a pom-pom in the middle. It’s named after the Robert Burns poem whose hero, Tam o’ Shanter, witnesses witches dancing in the Alloway Kirk. Don’t mix the tam up with the Balmoral bonnet or the Glengarry cap.
And let’s not forget the ladies! The cloche hat, which was popular in the 1920s, gets its name from the French for “bell.”
Are there other kinds of hats? Lots! Sombreros (for mariachi bands), fezzes (shriners), pith helmets (safari boys), deerstalkers (Sherlock Holmes), top hats (the 1%), capotains (Pilgrims8), berets (Emily in Paris), tricorn hats (the villains in the American Revolution), ushankas (the villains in the Cold War), fascinators (ladies at the Kentucky Derby), kufis (to match a dashiki), monteras (bullfighters), pillboxes (Jackie Kennedy), Cavalier hats (that guy in the Frans Hals painting), hennins (pointed-headed ladies), snoods (lunch ladies), and toques (Ratatouille).
Bonus milliner trivia! You should know Irish hat-maker Philip Treacy. His hats are often worn by members of the British royal family. And I guess you should also know John B. Stetson, famous for the Stetson cowboy hat.
Odds and Ends
Joker and Cullen watch a farmer slop his hogs; that’s just when wet leftovers are fed to pigs…Marlon Brando was originally slated for the role of Joker…Cullen makes a poultice for Joker’s infected arm; a poultice is soft, moist plant material wrapped around inflammation…Cullen used to work in a turpentine mill; turpentine comes from pine tree resin and is used for paint removal…“The Defiant Ones” was a 2017 HBO miniseries about the relationship between Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine…the song that Cullen sings at the beginning and the end of the film is adapted from a W. C. Handy tune called “Long Gone.”
And a word on Stanley Kramer: he’s lurked in the background of this whole decade, having produced a bunch of the movies we’ve already watched (Cyrano de Bergerac, Death of a Salesman, High Noon, and The Caine Mutiny). The Defiant Ones is his first film in this column that he’s directed, but don’t worry—his “message films” are some of the best-known of the 1960s. We’ll give him his due soon enough.9
At one point, Joker has to blacken his face with mud to not be seen in the dark. The chain, initially a curse, later becomes a tool, helping the pair open a locked gate and serving as a weapon against their pursuers. It’s, uh, not a subtle message.
Godfrey Cambridge changed the ending a bit in a 1964 stand-up special:
So I reached out my hand to my white brother, who was running alongside the train. And I remember what I said to him with tears in my voice as I thought of the sheriff and the posse and the dogs. I remember what I said to him with tears in my voice as I thought of the fact that we were joined together by blood, by brotherhood, by a whole tradition of Americana. I remember what I said to him with tears in my voice as my hand touched his and barely missed it: I said “BYYYYYYYYYYYYE BABY!”
A fun family connection: Tony Curtis was in the 1959 film Operation Petticoat, about the hijinks of a submarine that rescues a bunch of nurses, while Jamie Lee Curtis was in the 1977 TV adaptation of the film.
Yep, multigenerational acting families come up in trivia constantly. For some players, these connections are easy to retain, but for me personally, I find it kinda tough. If you’re someone of the “duh, Tippie Hedren’s daughter Melanie Griffith married Don Johnson and their kid is Dakota Johnson, everyone knows that” persuasion, I ask that you humor me while we go through this stuff.
The novel was re-adapted in 1995 with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris.
Yeah, sometimes the theme is going to be thin.
George du Maurier is the grandfather of Daphne du Maurier, author of both “Rebecca” and the short story the film The Birds (1963) is based on.
As long as we don’t keep getting distracted talking about hats or 1930s China or whatever.