Deliverance (1972)
by Alternative Reel Staff
MPAA Rating: R
Director: John Boorman
Starring: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
"This river don't go to Aintry. You done taken a wrong turn."
Adapted from James Dickey's prize-winning novel by the author himself, Deliverance focuses on four Atlanta businessmen who decide to take a weekend canoe trip down a whitewater river in Georgia and get more than they bargained for. Inbreeding, moonshine, hillbillies, a brutal rape scene and murder all factor into the equation. Filmed on location on the Chattooga River (which boasts a drop of 49 feet per mile), Deliverance ended up starring up-and-coming actor Burt Reynolds as Lewis Medlock, Jon Voight (who had earned raves for his performance as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy), Ned Beatty as Bobby "Chubby" Trippe and Ronny Cox as guitar-pickin' Drew Ballinger.
Dickey sold the rights to Deliverance to Warner Brothers Studio for a substantial sum that significantly supplemented his teaching salary at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He was also given the task of writing the screenplay. Roman Polanski (Chinatown) was one of Warner Brothers' first choices to direct the film. Dickey preferred Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch). The directing job eventually went to English director John Boorman (Hell in the Pacific). The film, which was made for $2 million, became a box office and critical success.
Deliverance Trivia
- Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Warren Beatty, George C. Scott and Henry Fonda were all considered for the role of Lewis Medlock. Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando were considered for the role of Ed. Dickey wanted Gene Hackman as Ed.
- Dickey was an intimidating presence on the set for both director and actors. Boorman claimed to have had "a turbulent and bruising relationship with Dickey during the filming of Deliverance."
- Toothless Herbert "Cowboy" Coward, a veteran of Wild West Shows, and Billy McKinney, a Los Angeles tree surgeon, portrayed the two hillbillies. McKinney later played a ruthless Union officer in Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales. Coward had once performed with Reynolds at the "Ghost Town in the Sky" theme park in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
- The most famous local used in the film was Billy Redden, the retarded banjo player listed as "Lonny" in the credits. According to Dickey's son, Christopher (Summer of Deliverance, 1998), Redden couldn't even fake the banjo playing and "the scene was set up with Billy sitting on a kind of swinging bench, and another boy hidden beneath it, whose left hand up Billy's sleeve was faking the fingerwork for the camera."
- Believe it or not, Ed O'Neill - yes, Al Bundy on "Married With Children" - appears briefly (and uncredited!) as a highway patrolman in the hospital scene near the end of the film. His only line: "No, we're still waiting for him to come around."
- The hit song, "Dueling Banjos," was actually derived from a '50s banjo tune called "Feudin' Banjos" by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. In fact, Smith sued and was awarded royalties from the filmmakers.
- By the way, the "squeal like a pig" scene was filmed in one take, a good thing since Beatty said he wouldn't do it again. To this day, he won't discuss that scene.
- For a unique variation on the Deliverance theme, check out Southern Comfort about a group of inept National Guardsmen who ill advisedly decide to "fuck with" a band of Cajuns in the Louisiana bayou.
