Cara Williams – Movie Musings

Kramer’s film is well-balanced mix of drama and message with two strong performances from the leads

Director: Stanley Kramer

Cast: Sidney Poitier (Noah Cullen), Tony Curtis (John “Joker” Jackson), Theodore Bikel (Sheriff Max Muller), Charles McGraw (Captain Frank Gibbons), Lon Chaney Jnr (Big Sam), King Donovan (Solly), Claude Akins (Mack), Lawrence Dobkin (Editor), Whit Bissell (Lou Gans), Carl Switzer (Angus), Kevin Coughlin (Billy), Cara Williams (Billy’s Mother)

The Defiant Ones is a vintage Stanley Kramer message film, one of his best mixings of serious social issues with entertainment. Two convicts escape from a prison transport, making a run for it while chained together at the wrist. They are thief John “Joker” Jackson (Tony Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier), imprisoned for standing up to a racist thug. Cullen is Black – and that’s a big issue in the racist world of Southern America. Forced to work together to survive, despite their mutual distrust and outright dislike, slowly the two form a curious bond – all while dodging the dangers of recapture and falling foul to vigilante ‘justice’ from ordinary people.

The message of The Defiant Ones is pretty clear to see, but Kramer’s film manages to avoid laying it on too heavily, mostly letting it be seen in everyday casual prejudice. Starting with Jackson’s constant use of the word “boy” – and his complete failure to understand why Cullen finds this grating. Jackson has already used the n-word the very first time he speaks to Cullen, side-by-side in the prison transport. Most of the police and enthusiastic deputies helping them are itching to release fierce dogs on the escapees (it’s clear why). The hostility Cullen immediately encounters when they are briefly caught by turpentine workers, accelerates with terrifying speed into ropes being flung over lampposts for a lynching (Jackson’s protest, that you can’t lynch a white man, is telling in itself). Even when they encounter a scared child, he jumps to Jackson to protect him from Cullen (he even assumes Jackson must be Cullen’s guard).

The constant repetition of the dangers and assumptions behind racism probably gained added force at the time because they a white man shared some of the chance of being suddenly murdered for looking the wrong way. Part of The Defiant Ones aim is to show through adversity that more connects us than not. This also comes out when the two men talk about their lives. When Jackson bitterly describes his life of working-class drudgery in a hotel, scraping and smiling for tips from the rich, Cullen quickly points out it places him only a mild rung above a Black man who wouldn’t even be allowed in the hotel unless he was holding a mop. Both are firmly wedged on the bottom of the social ladder, part of the film’s suggestion that, prejudice aside, they are natural allies.

Allies is what they become, a relationship that develops smoothly thanks to the skilled playing and excellent chemistry between Poitier and Curtis (both Oscar-nominated). They certainly were put through their paces physically – aside for brief doubles (or dummies) work when they traverse some rapids, pretty much all the difficult stunts (all the more so, since they were chained together) were done by the actors themselves. In particular, an awkward escape from a clay pit was remembered by Curtis as possibly the toughest thing he ever did on a film set. Kramer throws the two stars into a parade of dangerous terrain – wading bogs, fast rivers, climbing awkwardly up and down heights – which adds a narrative energy to his issues-based plot.

Poitier at this time had to carry the burden not only of acting, but also representing a significant share of the American population single-handed. Here, he’s sharper, rougher and more resentful than his reputation suggests. Poitier makes Cullen a no-nonsense fist, someone who refuses to take crap from anyone – least of all Jackson. Frequently he uses singing to express his refusal to knuckle down and be silent, and it’s his strength and resourcefulness that does the most to keep the men moving. If Poitier does have a disadvantage, it’s that Kramer’s film gives him less of a personal journey – it’s the world that must accept Cullen, not vice versa, and rightly-or-wrongly the character is little different from his journey (aside a personal loyalty to Jackson) than he was at the start.

This means, Tony Curtis actually many of the more interesting character beats. If Cullen remains largely unchanged, Jackson progresses from holding thoughtless, knee-jerk assumptions into someone who forms his own opinions and loyalties. It’s very well-drawn by Curtis – who relished the chance to play such a complex character – as he slowly reveals Jackson as a vulnerable, regretful and lonely figure under the bluster. So much so, that his late realisation of where his true loyalties lie – an outburst of anger, expertly delivered by Curtis – feels completely earned, as an expression of all the character depth we’ve watched him develop. Its Curtis’ finest performance.

The Defiant Ones does lose some energy in its later stages. It splits, fairly naturally, into three acts: the convicts alone, the convicts at the turpentine camp and the convicts at the secluded home of a lonely woman (an Oscar-nominated Cara Williams) who takes a shine to Jackson. Each of these acts is, if I’m honest, marginally less compelling than the one before, in a film at its strongest when focused on the relationship between its two stars and their conflict with each other, the elements and the wild terrain. There is something more melodramatically familiar about watching Cullen resentfully face down would-be-lynchers, or Curtis’ flirt with a desperate woman who doesn’t even need to know his name to have the hots for him.

There is good work from the rest of the cast. Cara Williams does manage to make a lot of her quietly siren-like character, with surprising depths of selfishness and cruelty – even if her section is the film’s least narratively intriguing. Lon Chaney Jnr is very good as a work boss, appalled by the racist violence his colleagues are capable with. The police crew following our heroes – oddly soundtracked to a constant barrage of music from their portable radios (the only music in the film) – are little more than narrative tools, but Theodore Bikel (Oscar-nominated) finds a fair bit of humanity in his sheriff.

The Defiant Ones though is strongest with the focus on its two excellent leads, with the constant parade of obstacles and dangers it throws them into powering the film strongly without letting it lapse too much into moralising and preaching. It’s a very good balance of high-brow earnestness, and genuine entertainment, one of Kramer’s most successfully films.

Effective journalistic investigation into a murder case turns into engaging courtroom melodrama

Director: Elia Kazan

Cast: Dana Andrews (State’s Attorney Henry Harvey), Jane Wyatt (Madge Harvey), Lee J Cobb (Chief Harold Robinson), Cara Williams (Irene Nelson), Arthur Kennedy (John Waldron), Sam Levene (Dave Woods), Taylor Holmes (TM Wade), Robert Keith (‘Mac’ McCreery), Ed Begley (Paul Harris), Karl Malden (Lt White)

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a popular priest is gunned down in the street, the killer escaping into the night. The police are baffled. The city turns against the reformist mayor’s administration. Then, after several weeks, there is a lead as twitchy ex-soldier John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy) is dragged in and, after hours-and-hours of interrogation without sleep, signs a confession. But who cares about small details like that, when everyone is sure the police has their man? But State’s Attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) has doubts – and no pressure from the public or officials will make him build a case against an innocent man.

Based on an actual 1924 murder case, Boomerang! is told with journalistic sharpness by Elia Kazan that smoothly moves from investigative into courtroom drama. Boomerang! was cited by Kazan as when he started to find his voice, establishing a style that would carry him to Oscar-winning success in On the Waterfront and beyond. Shot largely in location (though admittedly in a different Connecticut town than Bridgeport), it’s full of the immediacy of the streets, avoiding sets and forced studio locations. Kazan leans into the journalistic feel, with a voiceover explaining events and an earnest attempt throughout to make it feel like we are watching real events unfold.

It captures people going about their everyday lives: gossiping over laundry, strolling down streets, pounding typewriters in press rooms, gathering in church and shops. This is a film designed to convey a full sense of a real world. That goes as well for reflecting the investigation, which is full of the visceral pounding of pavements and hustling of suspects into police cars as well as the interrogations of the worn-down Waldron, taking place in an inhospitable room where never-ending questions means Waldron’s head has to be literally picked up to continue answering the questions.

The observational strengths of the film’s opening eventually moves into something more straight-forwardly melodramatic, but Kazan’s documentary restraint tries it best to not make this shift too jarring. As Harvey’s doubts grow, he becomes under increasing pressure from officialdom, principally from Ed Begley’s sweaty Paul Harris (who is too noticeably dodgy from the start for his villainy to be anything like a surprise). This is before a series of courtroom dynamics that hue towards the sort of fireworks you find in larger-than-life films than the journalistic reserve Boomerang! starts with.

Which isn’t to say that these courtroom dynamics are not very well-handled, especially by the under-rated Dana Andrews, who brings just the right amount of humanity and dignity to an otherwise stiff-on-paper character of a crusading, too-good-to-be-true attorney. Andrews delivers the courtroom speeches, and the detailed breakdown of the flaws in the police case, with a real quiet passion – just as he brings a nice degree of moral outrage to the bullying attempts to silence him.

Boomerang! provides several opportunities for compelling character actors, many of whom went on to work again for Kazan to great success. Lee J Cobb’s bulldog fierceness is perfect for put-upon police Captain Robinson who lets his determination to prove he can crack the case compromise his judgement. Cobb gives Robinson a powerful sense of authority – there is a wonderful scene where he faces down a would-be lynch mob with little more than growling disapproval. There is also a lovely moment, where he lifts the sleeping Waldron and carries him into his bed with all the care of a loving father. He’s well backed by Karl Malden as an eager-to-please inexperienced cop.

Arthur Kennedy produces one of his expert portraits in weakness as Waldron, an embittered veteran who has found peace offers little more than failure. While never losing track of what makes Waldron suspicious, Kennedy finds a neat line in vulnerability and fear keeps him sympathetic. Opposite him, Cara Williams explodes with righteous fury as a former girlfriend who believes herself wronged, eager to see Waldron condemned. It’s a more interesting role than any other female role in the film, although Jane Wyatt finds some engaging warmth in the dull role of Andrews’ loyal wife.

Boomerang! at heart is a film about the barrel being fine, aside from a few rotten apples. The crime takes place after the old machine politics system has been cast aside by new politicians, not beholden to the system, willing to introduce reforms. And, by and large, they are shown to really mean it – even if, at one point, some express the view that it doesn’t matter if Waldron is guilty or innocent, since winning means the reformists can remain in power. But all the real sins are collected in the hands of Begley’s character: even the police are absolved, despite the fact we watch them essentially brow-beat a man into confessing (a sergeant even suggesting they rough him up a bit to speed things along, which makes you wonder what the system was like for people are not veterans the police captain feels sorry for).

Boomerang! pulls any punches of really exploring systemic flaws, even while it covers an innocent man being bum-rushed into a trial. But then it puts complete faith in the idea that the same system will turn around and do its job by ensuring he is completely absolved – with the only danger from corrupt elected officials, not the blindness of a potential system. It’s a factor Kazan (to be fair) felt the film made too many compromises on – and he’s right. It might tell a scare story, but Boomerang! is fundamentally a reassuring film that is sure everything will turn out right in the end.