DELIVERANCE

 

Deliverance is a heartwarming tale of male-bonding between four friends who decide to take a canoe trip down a river one special weekend deep in the wilderness in Georgia. Actually, it's a rather brutal movie about four friends who do indeed take a canoe trip one rather harrowing weekend down a river deep in the Georgia wilderness. This film is famous for two things: the opening, uh-hum, musical "Dueling Banjos" scene with a creepy kid playing banjo with one of the four friends, uh-hum, playing guitar and the by-now-infamous scene where Ned Beatty is made to "squeal like a pig" before being, shall we say, violated by a psychotic hillbilly at gunpoint. This rather fucked up flick also stars Jon Voight--who's perhaps better known today for being a rather kooky right-wing stooge and for being Angelina Jolie's reportedly estranged father--and Burt Reynolds back when he was still considered to be a sex symbol before all his plastic surgery started making him look like Skeletor. Based on the book of the same name (and, yes, the hillbilly rape scene is just as funny in the book as in the movie, although there's no "squeal like a pig"; damn it!), the movie even features a cameo of the book's author--who also wrote the screenplay, "squeal like a pig" scene and all!--named James Dickey (and, yes, that's his real name!) as the town sheriff. You know, this would be considered a "date movie" in Arkansas! (And I can, of course, make a "joke" like that since I'm from Arkansas! And please keep your own "jokes" to yourself about that, all right?) A sidenote: Poor Ned Beatty! He'll always be known for That Scene. I mean, just Google the guy's name and see what you get (I mean, he's like the Rick Santorum of actors!)! Even his co-star Burt Reynolds stated during a TV interview I saw him give some years back--on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show, if memory serves--that the lake where they filmed That Scene was renamed--and, no, I'm NOT making this up!--Sodomy Creek. Burt also stated in the same interview that he helped cast the part of the hillbilly rapist and, when they told the guy he'd have to rape a guy oncamera, according to Burt, he just looked at them and said (insert hillbilly rapist accent here!), "I've done worse!" I don't think there's anything else that needs to be said at this point, do you?