The film was adapted by Harold Jacob Smith from the story by Nedrick Young, originally credited as Nathan E. Douglas.

It stars Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive.

The Defiant Ones premiered on June 29, 1958 at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival, where Poitier won the Silver Bear for Best Actor.

It won Academy Awards for Cinematography (Black-and-White) and Original Screenplay and was nominated for seven others, including Best Picture and Best Actor for both Poitier and Curtis.

Instead, they are captured by the inhabitants, who form a lynch mob; they are saved only by the interference of "Big" Sam, a man who is appalled by his neighbors' bloodthirst.

She advises Cullen to go through the swamp to reach the railroad tracks while she and Joker will drive off in her car.

[5] Mitchum's reasoning was misinterpreted over the years into the claim that he turned down the film because of his refusal to work with a black man.

In his second autobiography Why Me, Sammy Davis Jr. revealed that Elvis Presley wanted to star with him in this film.

[8] The film earned rentals of $2.5 million in the United States and Canada but did not perform as well overseas.

Mr. Poitier shows a deep and powerful strain of underlying compassion...In the ranks of the pursuers, Theodore Bikel is most impressive as a sheriff with a streak of mercy and justice, which he has to fight to maintain against a brutish state policeman, played by Charles McGraw.

This thesis is exercised in terms of a colored and a white man, both convicts chained together as they make their break for freedom from a Southern prison gang.

Poitier captures all of the moody violence of the convict, serving time because he assaulted a white man who had insulted him.