By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1986 action drama The Defiant Ones, a remake of the Stanley Kramer classic starring Robert Urich and Carl Weathers in the roles made famous by Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier.
In our review of the 1997 Vintage Telemovie Vanishing Point, we discussed the frequently visited concept of the big screen-to-small screen remake, and made brief mention of 1986’s The Defiant Ones. This punchy action drama was a remake of producer/director Stanley Kramer’s famed 1958 race-themed drama starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as two escaped convicts, one a white bigot and one an African-American, who find themselves chained together, on the run, and in the fight of their lives.
A polarising figure who forefronted social themes, historical periods and contemporary politics in films like Inherit The Wind (1960), Judgment At Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967), Stanley Kramer was often accused of being preachy and overly sentimental in his storytelling, but there’s an undeniable strength and sense of meaning to his films. Much of Kramer’s work is distinctly tied to the era in which it was made, but there’s a timeless quality to The Defiant Ones, and its race-based themes still had obvious relevance in the 1980s, and indeed still do today.
As well as the big screen-to-small screen remake, The Defiant Ones is also a solid example of the telemovie star showcase, with the production companies of the leading actors – the sadly passed Robert Urich and Carl Weathers – playing a major role in the creation of the film. It was a good time professionally for both actors, and they obviously used their considerable cache to get The Defiant Ones made, allowing them both to get their hands on a strong, showy role in the process that would highlight both their acting chops and striking on-screen physicality.
Carl Weathers was on a high after having had just starred in 1985’s Rocky IV, memorably closing out his iconic involvement in Sylvester Stallone’s boxing franchise. Robert Urich, meanwhile, was at the height of his small screen popularity, with a long list of superior telemovies to his credit, as well as the excellent weekly TV series Vega$ and Spenser For Hire. The Robert Urich-Carl Weathers team-up proved a big audience lure when The Defiant Ones premiered on major US network ABC at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 5, 1986. The film also had special personal significance for Carl Weathers, who cherished Stanley Kramer’s original as a child. “My first love was acting,” Weathers has said. “I went to Sidney Poitier films as a kid. I sat in the theatre and dreamed of being an actor.”
The Defiant Ones opens with swaggering Johnny “Joker” Johnson (Urich) and taciturn Cullen Monroe (Weathers) sweating bullets while toiling hard on a rural road gang. After the sneering, bigoted Johnson goads the African-American Monroe into a fight, the two are promptly chained together (“You’re not gonna chain me to this nigger, are ya?” Johnson memorably spits), placed in a truck with other recalcitrant prisoners, and informed by menacing prison boss Floyd Carpenter (Barry Corbin) that they will now be headed upstate to be “re-educated” at another prison farm run by a very enthusiastic friend of his. En route, however, the prison truck is involved in an accident, and Johnson and Monroe are thrown unhurt from the wreckage.
Still chained together, the unlikely duo takes the opportunity to make their escape. Running across a harsh, unforgiving landscape, Johnson and Monroe are pursued both by Floyd Carpenter and his hastily assembled posse, along with the more official team put together by the honest and upstanding Sheriff Leroy Doyle (Ed Lauter), who is nevertheless undaunting in his pursuit of the two escaped convicts. With helicopters above, and cars, trucks and horses on the ground, Johnson and Monroe have to put aside their very obvious differences and work together to survive.
Directed with great pace and assurance by prolific TV veteran David Lowell Rich and cogently scripted by James Lee Barrett (who hews fairly close to the original), The Defiant Ones is a cracking chase drama layered with rich characterisation and potent themes. Amidst the fraught action and white-knuckle chase scenes, Johnson and Monroe are compelling figures, with the white man a shiftless drifter whose swagger hides a deep well of self-doubt and pessimism, and the black man a constant victim of casual racism eventually pushed to violence by misfortune and betrayal. The slow, gradual thawing of the icy animosity that initially separates the two men makes for moving viewing, and it’s hard not to become invested in their plight.
Impressive specimens Urich and Weathers are both excellent here, and their distinctly masculine chemistry is one of the film’s true strong points. They get impressive support from character actor extraordinaire Ed Lauter, who makes Sheriff Leroy Doyle a profoundly likeable presence, while fellow character actor Barry Corbin (best known as loveable blowhard Maurice Minnifield on TV’s Northern Exposure) has a ball as the unscrupulous, sadistic prison boss, who comes complete with three cruel, dopey sidekicks. Laurie O’Brien also paints a sad, desperate picture as a bigoted single mother (Stand By Me star, future Star Trek alumnus, and Big Bang Theory punchline Wil Wheaton plays her son) who gets involved with Johnson and Monroe.
Building to a genuinely moving and ultimately inevitable finale, The Defiant Ones is relentlessly paced, strongly performed and highly enjoyable, and also comes dosed with heartfelt sentiments about what can be achieved by people when they put aside their differences and fight their way towards a common goal.
Availability: The Defiant Ones is easy to find online in a clear, nice-sounding presentation.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies A Cry For Help, Trilogy Of Terror, Policewoman Centerfold, Smash-Up On Interstate 5, Something Evil, Savage, A Step Out Of Line, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, A Very Brady Christmas, The Gladiator, Elvis, The Rat Pack, Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, Terror Among Us, The Hanged Man, Hardcase, Charlie’s Angels: Angels In Vegas, Vanishing Point, To Heal A Nation, Fugitive Among Us, To Kill A Cop, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Police Story: A Chance To Live, Murder On Flight 502, Moon Of The Wolf, The Secret Night Caller, Cotton Candy, And The Band Played On, Gargoyles, Death Car On The Freeway, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Mongo’s Back In Town and Tribes.
