It is no surprise that Poitier gives a good performance, but it is interesting to see Tony Curtis in such a nasty, gritty role. Don`t ask me why, but before I really got a chance to see Curtis act, I had the impression that he was some second-rank Cary Grant, or some Las Vegas sort of personality. But Some Like It Hot showed that Curtis had comic flair, and The Defiant Ones shows Curtis with a mean and dark side. I was quite surprised that his character was allowed to say the racial slurs he does here; I figured such words would be against the Production Code of the day. In any case, we do not start out by liking him, yet, as in most films of this type, we are meant to see the change in the white man, until he realizes that a black criminal does not have any less dignity than he, as a white criminal, does.
The Defiant Ones is a slightly dated yet strongly paced film, filled with action, suspense and ideas. The film is a great example of a tight screenplay, without the clutter of unnecessary plotlines, or expository. And it is also an example of the steps that the Hollywood dream machine took to teach audiences, in a realistic manner, of the pointlessness and damaging effects of racism.
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