Deliverance (Squeel Like A Pig)

It is funny sometimes when you hear so much about a movie that you already have an idea in your head of what the movie is, but when you watch the movie it is totally different then you imagined.  This was the case for me when I actually watched “Deliverance” the other day.  I like many o you have heard all the Deliverance jokes, the squeal like a pig jokes and so on.  But, I never sat down and watched the movie because I didn’t want to sit down and watch a movie about hillbillies running around the woods butt-#ucking city boys.  I’ll pass thank you very much, isn’t OZ on HBO…  Anyway, I was reading The New York Times list of 1000 best movies of all time and Deliverance was #15.  Also reading the tagline for the film it was more interesting then the blurb about sodomizing citizen in the woods.  So I took the plunge into the mythical “Cahulawassee River” and I was impressed.

Ok this is the skinny, 4 Atlanta businessmen decide to take an adventure weekend trip into the Georgia wilderness.  The plan is to canoe down the Cahulawassee River (Fictional river name).  This is the last chance to see this area due to impending damn being built that will flood the entire valley.  This starts out simple and turns into a trip they will never forget (squeal like a pig).

 Turns out, Deliverance is an engaging cinematic outing.  I chose not to call it an adventure because it was slow and little annoying.  The story was good and the acting was good for the time, these guys were pansies (except for Burt Reynolds).  Sorry, the cast includes; Jon Voight (Academy Awards Winner), Ronnie Cox(Beverly Hills Cop 1/2), Ned Beatty(Network) and Burt Reynolds(Boogie Nights).  These for guys are legendary in today’s Hollywood, but it turns out Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty show Deliverance as their first film roles.  I don’t know how they were received after this film was released, but, I had seen these guys in so many movies over so many decades I figured they were proven actors at the time of these roles (Who Knew).

James Dickey

Regarded as one of the best films of 1972, Deliverance is noted as a landmark film and has a place in the US National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.  Described as being culturally, historically and/or aesthetically significant, Deliverance has a “bad-rap” in Pop culture (squeal like a pig).

Deliverance was based on a novel of the same name, written by the late James Dickey (2 Feb 1923 - 19 Jan 1997) who was a lawyer by trade and was appointed as the 18^th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1966).  He also played the Sheriff at the end of the film.  It is noted the film follows closely to the novel with a few differences (there was no “squeal like a pig” in the novel).

A scene in the beginning that is also quite famous/memorable is the “dueling Banjo” scene.  Ronny Cox played guitar with an [inbred-hillbilly] kid (Billy Redden) who is exceptional in his banjo skills.  Writer, Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith, received a gold record and a Golden Globe for Dueling Banjos.  The budget was $2 million and grossed $46 million, released by Warner Bros.

  Burt Reynolds wrote in his book “My Life” the infamous “squeal like a pig” scene was shot in one take because Ned Beatty tried to kill (Bill McKinney) after the shot was stopped, (Burt) said he ran into the shot a tackled McKinney and the director and many crew members had to stop Ned from beating the guy to death…Awesome!