re: Deliverance - A Movie Often Overlooked

Agreed. And I think all those tropes and references do it a disservice.

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They lucked out that Lake Jocassee Dam was being constructed also in South Carolina at the time of filming.

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thanks! I didn't realize Jocassee was the location. I knew about the Chattooga. I have a house just a few miles from both and have hiked and fished the Chattooga. I think a lot of the rapid scenes were filmed at Bull Sluice which is a very easy walk and a fun place to watch rafts come through on a summer day.

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I just want to know wtf actually happened to Drew

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My head canon has always been that he was shot. They make it look like he was so distraught that he just gave up and fell in but that doesn't fit his character. He was too God fearing and loved life too much for that.

Plus, that wouldn't explain why the other hillbilly was up on the cliff waiting to shoot the rest of them.

Another one of those great scenes. All of those old country people at the table are straight out of real life. And Ned Beaty's character is finally back in his element, civilization, and dove tails right in.

I'd watch a movie just about the people around that table.

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i love that they draw it out and show them in the hospital and around the dinner table and jsut the general aftermath of it all.

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Completely agree. In fact, it ramps the tension up at the end instead of a "clean" ending. At the dinner table in such a normal setting again but looking at each other realizing they will ALWAYS be worried about getting away with what happened. And then the discussion at the lake with the Sherriff (played by James Dickey) ending the movie with that tension still present.

Snowed in watching The Andy Griffith Show and the Darlins were drilling down on this.

Fantastic movie. But the main characters in Southern Comfort brought that shite on themselves and I have no sympathy for them.

In my younger teen years, I saw a bit of the movie, probably on regular pay TV. And of course one scene I saw was the "squeal like a pig" bit, which is about all anyone who hasn't seen the movie or read the book knows about or associates it with. And they think the whole movie is about "city" guys encountering evil redneck/ hillbillies.

But years later, as a grown-up married man with a job and a child, I READ the entire novel, which is written in the first person from the point of view of Ed (Jon Voight's character). I found it a great story, immensely relatable, and extremely well-written. I highly recommend it to any of you who have not read it.

I then sat down one night and watched the entire movie start to end.

And I had the same reaction -- this was a masterpiece. I saw beyond the caricature the movie had become over time. In movie form, with beautiful scenery, perfect camera work, and top-notch cinematography, it remained a great story about the nature of manhood in a civilized world, how thin that veneer of civilization goes, and what men will do to deal with a difficult (if not overwhelming) situation.

I also think this was Burt Reynolds' best dramatic role; he should have been nominated for an Oscar.


TL, DR-- yeah, it's GREAT. Movie and novel.

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Drew was shot, Burt says it.

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Agreed, but it's left as somewhat of a mystery the way it goes down. I like that. There's some moral gray that underlies the face value story.

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I enjoyed the book as well. James Dickey was a genius and an alcoholic- he apparently was barred from the set when he broke the director's nose in an altercation.

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Well, he did make it into one of the last scenes, playing the town's Sheriff.
James Dickey was kind of a dying breed (similar to the poet-warrior type).
He flew combat mission for the AIr Force in WW2, the ended up writing poetry and even teaching poetry classes as a college professor...very Hemingwayesque. He was also quick to get drunk and throw fists in a bar room brawl.