The Defiant Ones (1958) is perhaps Stanley Kramer’s greatest film with masterful performances by Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bickel, Charles McGraw, Claude Akins, etc. Lon Chaney Junior steals the show however as a man, secretly along ago escaped con, who is not going to tolerate a lynching. It is a tragedy that an actor of his ability did not have more roles like this. The film could easily have been an “issue film” solely about race. Instead it is a character study where we learn the old, old truth that the line between good and evil can be traced through each human soul and that redemption is always possible.
