The Making of 'Deliverance' Sounds Horrifying

The Big Picture

• The production of the film Deliverance was filled with conflicts and challenges, including disagreements with the studio and physical fights between the director and writer.
• Burt Reynolds, the lead actor in the film, had a negative impact on some of the local cast members, causing unpleasant working experiences.
• Jon Voight, another actor in the film, nearly died while performing one of his own stunts, highlighting the dangerous and high-risk nature of the filming process.

As the places that bring fantastic stories to life, movie sets can feel just as magical as the films they produce. While not every set can be as playful as Barbie's Dreamhouse, that doesn't mean that they have to match the exact tone of the movie itself. Just because a horror movie is terrifying on screen doesn't mean it has to be as frightening off-screen as well, with a perfect example of Danny Lloyd, who played the young child in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, who was completely unaware that the project was meant to be so scary in the first place. However, other film sets are not quite as fortunate, and a thriller on-screen can sometimes be equally stressful behind the scenes as well. The 1972 film Deliverance happens to fall in that category.

The emotionally exhausting and provocative survival thrillerDeliverance follows four businessmen on a camping trip that turns viciously dire as they must find their way to make it out of the deep wilds of rural Georgia. While the movie itself is already one of the most gripping and fear-inducing projects from that decade, stories from the director and actors have revealed that some of the events behind the camera were harrowing themselves. Though no one had to fight for their lives in the raging rapids and isolated wilderness, physical disputes with writers, judgment from other performers, and stuntwork that very nearly turned catastrophic all made the set of Deliverance a harrowing thriller itself.

Deliverance

Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.

Director John Boorman Got Into a Literal Fistfight While Filming 'Deliverance'

Director John Boorman faced multiple conflicts during the production of the film, some of which were more physical than others. As he recalled in an interview with The Guardian, Boorman shared that Warner Bros. wasn't convinced about the movie's success. First, they asked Boorman to cast two stars in the film. But though Boorman had secured the talents of Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando, the studio instructed Boorman to instead, "Make it with unknowns for $2m." This casting instruction ultimately turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as Deliverance served as Burt Reynolds' breakout role, and co-stars Ned Beatty and Ronnie Cox made their cinema debuts after mostly performing in regional theater. However, the studios' lack of faith in the project was still prevalent, as Boorman shared that the executives who watched the test screening left the theater in silence— but their doubts were proven wrong as the film became a commercial and critical success.

Boorman's disagreements with studio executives, however, are far less dramatic than his recurring conflicts with James Dickey, the author who wrote the book that which Deliverance is based. As Dickey's son shared in a memoir about his life, the author struggled with alcoholism, which contributed to a cavalcade of personal and emotional hardships. One such stressful moment on set involved Dickey being asked to serve as a stand-in for positioning on the infamous sexual assault scene, not quite a glamorous inclusion into the film's production. Dickey had disagreements with Boorman's direction on the film, criticizing many of the changes that they had implemented to his original story.According to some members of the crew, tensions boiled over into a literal fistfight between the director and writer, resulting in the latter's removal from the set. With no charges ever being brought up, the exact extent of Boorman and Dickey's fighting remains nebulous, but the overarching tensions were certainly present on set.

A Local Cast Member Didn't Care for Burt Reynolds' Behavior on the 'Deliverance' Set

Another source of tension on-set was far less explosive than Boorman and Dickey's but had a lasting impact on one of the actors. Billy Redden was a local cast in the movie for a very specific role, that turned into one of the two most iconic moments in the film. Redden played one of the locals at a gas station early in the film, absentmindedly observing while the main characters prepare for their canoeing trip. Then, in one of the movie's brief happy moments, Redden and Ronny Cox participate in an upbeat call-and-response song with their banjo and guitar in the memorable "Dueling Banjoes" scene. The song is phenomenal and continues to be one of the scenes most associated with the movie, but Redden recalls that his time on set wasn't nearly as enjoyable. Redden shared that he didn't enjoy working on set, in particular, because of his interactions with Burt Reynolds, the lead in the film. In a feature in The New Yorker, Redden explained that “Burt [Reynolds] didn’t want to say nothing to nobody,” continuing to say that, “He wasn’t polite. And he made us look real bad—he said on television that all people in Rabun County do is watch cars go by and spit.”

Jon Voight Almost Died Doing His Own 'Deliverance' Stunt

Interpersonal conflicts and judgment aside, one notable occurrence on set was literally almost fatal. As Jon Voight also shared in the aforementioned feature from The Guardian, he almost died while filming one of his own stunts. In one of many memorable scenes from the movie, Voight's character, Ed scales the side of a cliff and stands in wonder at the sight of a waterfall. However, to get an authentic close-up shot of Voight in this scene, he decided it would be necessary for him to do it himself, rather than a stuntperson. Voight climbed 10 feet up on the steep rock face but fell off due to the slipperiness of the surface and the difficult angle of the ascent. Fortunately, he was caught by two grips down below, but Voight still found his head a mere few inches away from a sharp rock that could have certainly ended in something far more fatal.

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Voight wasn't alone in taking risks, as many of the scenes involved roughing it out in the woods and water. However, after one of the actors tried to tap out from the stress of filming, John Boorman leaped into a canoe himself and went downstream to show his actors that it was entirely feasible for them. In a film about man's relationship with survival, fear, and a twisted combination of desperation and bravery, the actors themselves had to reckon with what they could and couldn't do to make the film possible.

Deliverance is available to rent on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

Watch on Apple TV+

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