Deliverance (1972)

[Jack Corbett]

How bad is the Squeal like a Pig bit? Seriously?

[AndyC]

Scott wrote:
> Boorman and starring Burt Reynolds, John Voight, Ned Beatty and
> another guy I didn't recognize. The only part of this film that

I believe the fourth guy was Ronny Cox, who should be very familiar to B-movie fans. He was Dick Jones. DICK JONES!! Number two man at OCP!

Been a few years since I've seen deliverance, but I remember liking it. Seen worse things than "squeal like a pig" but it was pretty disturbing, and would have been downright shocking at the time it was made. Little wonder that scene (and even that line) is what many people remember about the film. I wonder how many of us knew about that scene, and even used the reference, before we actually saw the movie.

Loved the duelling banjos scene too. As I understand it, that kid wasn't an actor, but the real deal. Is that true?



Post Edited (02-08-05 10:27)

[peter johnson]

Banjo boy was the real deal, not an actor.  He played at the Galax, Va. & Union Grove, N.C. bluegrass festivals in the '70's.  Can't remember his name to save my life . . .
What makes the pig scene so disturbing is not graphic closeups or copious amounts of gore, but a driving sense of helplessness as these "civilized" men are swept up in the moment and forment conspiracy to murder(?)/self-defense.  It's a "bad" scene -- as well as the rest of the film -- because of the serious questions it raises about the veneer of sophistication/civilization that these men possess.  
This is a good companion film to "Lord of the Flies", as it deals with similar questions of "the skull beneath the skin", albeit in a somewhat different manner.
We've had threads on this topic before, but I'll say here again that it's a damn shame that we can't have another wave of serious Hollywood films dealing with serious issues, like we did in the '70's.  '70's Hollywood was like '30's Hollywood:  Numerous big-budget mainstream films dealing with serious socio-philosophical issues in highly entertaining & mainstream ways.
If Deliverance was made today, the moonshiners would have to be dealing coke for the Mob, not merely possessed of innate human wickedness.  There would be a big explosion on the river.  Somehow, the actions of the boatmen would prevent the river from being dammed.  Ned Beatty would become A Man.  The Deuling Banjo scene would be a full-blown music-video number, with dozens of dancing mutant hicks, etc.
Even small-budget exploitation '70's films seemed to have ideas behind them, not just noise.
peter johnson/denny crane

[odinn7]

Point well taken Peter.
I was watching The Gauntlet on Max yesterday and though it doesn't have any social value or underlying message that I can see, I love the movie. Then my wife started crap talking it. I was thinking how if they had added more fantastic explosions and stunts and perhaps some CGI, she probably would've liked it more. It's a shame really.

[Ozzymandias]

peter johnson wrote:

> If Deliverance was made today, the moonshiners would have to be
> dealing coke for the Mob, not merely possessed of innate human
> wickedness.  > peter johnson/denny crane

Actually, the wouldn't be moonshiners but meth cookers. They wouldn't need the mob because they would be their own criminal organization.   Deliverence is one of the few major Hollywood pictures that shows the underbelly of rural America that everyone, including those who live here, want to admit exist. Someone in Hollywood needs to realize small middle American towns and rural backwaters are not all Mayberry.

[AndyC]

It kind of reminds me of what H.P Lovecraft wrote of the little backwater places so far removed from society, where people have lived in isolation for so long that the normal rules no longer apply.

[trekgeezer]

The 70's were the directors decade. This was right after the death of the old Hollywood system and directors had most of the control over what got on the screen.  This all ended when Michael Cimino made the movie Heaven's Gate and bankrupted MGM. It made the rest of the studios take back control of the movies they were producing, so you get the crap we have now most of the time because bean counters and non creative types run the show.



Post Edited (02-09-05 11:58)

[BoyScoutKevin]

How bad is it? So bad, that when they finished shooting that scene, Ned Beatty took after Bill McKinney, who played the mountain man in that scene, with fists swinging,, and had to be restrained from hitting McKinney, because Beatty thought McKinney was having a little too much fun filiming that scene.

[Yaddo 42]

Also if "Deliverance" were made today, to take off from Peter Johnson's premise,  in the dueling banjos scene the Banjo Boy would probably just be white trash kid who wants to be a rapper (like Eminem or Bubba Sparxx) or have some cobbled together turntables powered by a jury-rigged car battery. So there could be a hit single to sell the soudtrack, and because redneck kids who want to be rappers are funny.

According to the Christopher Dickey book, the Banjo Boy's name was Billy Redden. He says Billy could fake the strumming convincingly for the camera but another kid was hiding behind him in the scene and his arm was hidden in Billy's left sleeve to fake the fretwork on the banjo. He adds that the sick little girl being tended to by the old woman when Ed looks through the window was actually thirteen, even though she looks only five or six.