Deliverance

Deliverance (1972)

Runtime: 109 minutes

Directed by: John Boorman

Starring: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox

From: Warner Brothers

So, this is something I wasn’t planning to see but a death made public on Friday plus finding the movie on Blu-Ray for cheap at a Barnes & Noble meant me watching this Friday night. Bill McKinney, who appeared in seven Eastwood movies-along with this one-passed away at the age of 80. He was best known for playing a key role in one of the most terrifying scenes ever put to film, which was in this film. He was one of the hillbillies who made Ned Beatty squeal like a pig in this movie. And, he wasn’t the one with the missing teeth, but rather the guy who, ahem, assaulted Beatty. He passed away due to cancer, so why not say a few words about this movie, plus at the end tell a short story about the connection between my dad and the river this movie was filled on? Anyway, RIP to Bill McKinney.

So, most people know this movie just for the squeal like a pig scene plus the dueling banjos scene where Ronny Cox plays acoustic guitar with a backwoods boy playing banjo. However, this movie is much more than just that. This is about a quartet of men from the city with various levels of experience in the outdoors who decide to canoe a river in the South as in a short amount of time that river will be dammed, literally. You get to see the four differing personalities interact with each other for a bit, and you see some very pretty scenery. Then, the guys run into the hillbillies, and deal with them. The ramifications with the decisions they made in that difficult situation fuels the rest of the movie.

I don’t want to give too much away but it’s a quality drama/thriller, even almost 40 years after it was released. You get very good acting from the four leads, which plays a big role in this movie’s goodness. You get nice scenery, exciting canoeing action, some action, character arcs… if you haven’t seen the movie yet you really should. It looks nice-enough on Blu-Ray, too. Oh, and it doesn’t necessarily always portray white trash people who live in the hills and the woods in a flattering manner. But, the movie sometimes makes the leads look dumb for their stereotypes concerning those people, so that is another layer to this movie.

As for the story I referenced, years ago my dad and his pals went down to the Chatooga River, border South Carolina and Georgia, which is where this movie was filmed at and has never been dammed up. They rafted part of the river and no, they did not run into any rednecks who wanted to violate them nor possible inbred types.

I’ll be back on Monday. Late Sunday afternoon I plan on seeing a movie on the big screen for the first time in over a month.