50 Fun Facts About Deliverance

How did Deliverance fake the banjo picking of Billy Redden, the local boy who could not play?

A player hidden behind him did the playing. Careful camera angles kept the local musician out of frame, and the music itself was dubbed in from a studio recording.

In the Deliverance scene set to Dueling Banjos, Drew answers the banjo boy on which instrument?

Guitar is what Drew plays, so the famous duel has only one banjo in it. Ronny Cox really could play, which is why he was hired for the part.

Burt Reynolds cracked which bone when he rode a canoe over a real waterfall for Deliverance?

His tailbone took the damage after Reynolds asked to replace the dummy first used for the shot. He recalled John Boorman telling him the new footage still looked like a dummy going over a waterfall.

Novelist James Dickey appears near the end of Deliverance playing which small-town character?

The sheriff who doubts the survivors' story is Dickey himself. John Boorman offered him the cameo after the two men, who had clashed bitterly during the shoot, made up.

Which Georgia governor set up a state film commission after Deliverance was shot there?

Jimmy Carter created the commission to lure more productions, years before he reached the White House. By 2012 Georgia had become one of the top five production destinations in the US.

Deliverance earned a Best Picture nomination but lost the Oscar to which fellow 1972 release?

The Godfather took Best Picture, even though Cabaret won eight Oscars that night. That set a record for the most wins by a film that missed the top prize.

The four businessmen who take the doomed canoe trip in Deliverance come from which Southern city?

Atlanta is home for all four men. James Dickey's novel never names the city, and readers simply assumed it was the author's own hometown.

In Deliverance, Lewis rescues Ed from the two mountain men by killing one with which weapon?

A bow and arrow, fired from cover, drops the attacker before he can turn on Ed. The second man escapes into the woods, which leaves the friends fearing an ambush downriver.

Shortly before Deliverance opened, Burt Reynolds posed nude for a centerfold in which magazine?

Cosmopolitan ran the photo in its April 1972 issue, a few months before the film made him a major star. Reynolds later said he regretted posing.

The graveyard filmed for Deliverance now lies about 130 feet underwater in which lake?

Lake Jocassee filled in 1973, the year after the film came out, and drowned the valley where the cemetery scene was shot. The unfinished dam glimpsed on screen is the real one that created it.

Before his first novel, Deliverance, made him famous, James Dickey was acclaimed for writing what?

Poetry was his calling: Dickey won a National Book Award for the collection Buckdancer's Choice and was named US Poet Laureate in 1966, four years before the novel appeared.

Before Deliverance, Jon Voight earned his first Oscar nomination as hustler Joe Buck in which film?

Midnight Cowboy made Voight's career in 1969 and is the only X-rated film to win Best Picture. He and co-star Dustin Hoffman both lost Best Actor to John Wayne.

Ned Beatty, who played Bobby in Deliverance, later voiced Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear in which Pixar film?

Toy Story 3 cast Beatty as the bear opposite Tom Hanks's Woody. The two actors had already shared the screen in Charlie Wilson's War.

When the canoes capsize in the rapids of Deliverance, Lewis suffers which serious injury?

A broken leg turns Lewis, the group's survivalist leader, into the one who must be carried. It leaves mild-mannered Ed to take charge and climb the cliff alone.

For Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox, playing Bobby and Drew in Deliverance marked which career milestone?

Their feature film debuts came side by side in the same canoe trip. Cox went on to RoboCop and Total Recall, while Beatty earned an Oscar nomination for Network.

The river where Deliverance was filmed forms part of the border between Georgia and which state?

South Carolina sits on the far bank, so the cast spent the shoot paddling along a state line. Some scenes were also filmed in the town of Salem on that side.

Which outdoor business had become a $20 million industry in the Georgia mountains by 2012, decades after Deliverance?

Whitewater rafting took off as visitors arrived by the tens of thousands. Jon Voight's stunt double, Claude Terry, bought equipment used in the film and started an outfitter of his own.

Dueling Banjos, the hit single from Deliverance, was held at No. 2 by a song from which singer?

Roberta Flack kept it from the top for four weeks with Killing Me Softly with His Song. The banjo instrumental did reach No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart.

The canoe scenes in Deliverance were filmed on which real river, known for its Five Falls rapids?

The Chattooga River was the location, and it runs free: with no dam upstream to control the flow, its level rises and falls quickly with the rain.

In Deliverance, the four friends set out to canoe which river before a new dam floods its valley?

Cahulawassee is a name James Dickey invented. He conceived the story after a traumatic canoe accident of his own on Georgia's Coosawattee River in the early 1960s.

The survivors of the canoe trip in Deliverance finally come ashore at which small town?

Aintry is as fictional as the river that leads to it. Bill McKinney, who played one of the mountain men, later recorded an album titled Love Songs from Antri, a nod to how the name is said on screen.

John Boorman wanted which screen legend to play Lewis in Deliverance before Burt Reynolds was cast?

Marlon Brando was the director's pick for Lewis, with Lee Marvin as Ed. Charlton Heston and Donald Sutherland both turned the part down before it made a star of Reynolds.

Which Hollywood studio bought the film rights to Deliverance before the novel was even published?

Warner Bros. moved early and began production in the summer of 1971, little more than a year after the book reached shops in March 1970.

In Deliverance, what do the four friends vote to do with the body of the mountain man Lewis kills?

Bury it in the woods is Lewis's plan, and Ed and Bobby back him. Drew argues for going to the law but is outvoted, and the friends paddle on as if nothing had happened.

The shotgun-carrying mountain man played by Herbert Coward in Deliverance is missing what?

Two front teeth were really gone: Coward lost them to a prop pistol accident while playing a gunfighter at a Wild West amusement park, where he had befriended Burt Reynolds.

In James Dickey's novel Deliverance, Bobby Trippe makes his living selling what?

Insurance is Bobby's trade, while Drew is a soft drink executive, Lewis a landlord and narrator Ed a graphic artist. All four are comfortable city men far out of their depth.

Which Chicago critic gave Deliverance a lukewarm two and a half stars, faulting its sensationalism?

Roger Ebert found it effective as simple adventure but exploitative. Across town, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the same film a full four stars.

In 2008, Deliverance joined the National Film Registry, which is kept by which American institution?

The Library of Congress adds films it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. Deliverance was chosen 36 years after it first reached cinemas.

John Boorman, who directed the very American thriller Deliverance, was born in which country?

England is where Boorman was born, in Shepperton, the son of a pub landlord. He was knighted in the 2022 New Year Honours.

Which musician sued over the use of Dueling Banjos in Deliverance and won a songwriting credit?

Arthur Smith had recorded the tune back in 1955 as Feudin' Banjos, and the film used it without his permission. He won both the credit and a share of the royalties.

Nine years before Deliverance, which sitcom first aired the tune later known as Dueling Banjos?

The Andy Griffith Show featured it in 1963, played by the Darlings, a visiting musical family portrayed by the bluegrass group the Dillards, with Griffith himself joining in.

What had John Boorman done to anger James Dickey before their bitter row on the Deliverance set?

Rewritten his script is the charge: Dickey turned up at the canoe shoot drunk and the quarrel reportedly came to blows. He was thrown off the set, though the two later became good friends.

Where did John Boorman see Burt Reynolds before casting him as Lewis in Deliverance?

On a talk show appearance, Reynolds caught the director's eye. The actor joked that it was the first script to reach him without Paul Newman's and Robert Redford's fingerprints already on it.

Bill McKinney, a mountain man in Deliverance, went on to appear in seven films with which star?

Clint Eastwood made McKinney part of his regular company, most notably as Captain Terrill, the Union commander hunting the last rebels in The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Three decades after Deliverance, Billy Redden played another banjo picker in which Tim Burton film?

Big Fish cast Redden as the banjo-playing welcomer in the town of Spectre. Burton tracked him down in Clayton, Georgia, where he part-owned a café and worked as its cook and dishwasher.

In James Dickey's Deliverance, Ed loses his nerve on a dawn hunt and misses a shot at which animal?

A deer escapes unharmed, and Lewis is unimpressed. The failure sets up the moment on the cliff top when Ed must aim at a man instead.

Before Deliverance, James Dickey worked as an advertising copywriter selling which soft drink?

Coca-Cola and Lay's potato chips were both products Dickey wrote copy for at advertising agencies, after he quit a university teaching job in 1956.

Most of Deliverance was shot in which county in the northeastern corner of Georgia?

Rabun County supplied the mountain locations around the town of Clayton. Forty years on, a documentary called The Deliverance of Rabun County explored how residents felt about the film.

Which Georgia canyon, crossed on a high wire by Karl Wallenda, hosted canoe scenes for Deliverance?

Tallulah Gorge runs about two miles and drops almost 1,000 feet. Wallenda was 65 years old when he walked the wire across it, the summer before the film crew arrived.

Which Hungarian-born cinematographer shot Deliverance before winning an Oscar for a Spielberg film?

Vilmos Zsigmond helped shape the look of 1970s American movies, also shooting The Long Goodbye and The Sugarland Express. His Oscar came for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Besides Best Picture and Best Director, Deliverance was Oscar-nominated in which third category?

Best Film Editing brought a nomination for Tom Priestley, the only son of the novelist and playwright J. B. Priestley. The Oscar went to David Bretherton for Cabaret.

Which Juilliard-trained musician played the banjo on the Deliverance recording of Dueling Banjos?

Eric Weissberg got the call only after fellow picker Bill Keith turned the job down and recommended him. He shared a Grammy for the recording with Steve Mandell.

John Boorman restaged the theft of his Deliverance gold record by a Dublin gangster in which film?

The General is Boorman's 1998 film about the burglar himself, Martin Cahill. It won him the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Before John Boorman got the job, James Dickey wanted which American director to make Deliverance?

Sam Peckinpah, the director of The Wild Bunch, was the author's choice. Dickey also pictured Gene Hackman as Ed, the role that went to Jon Voight.

The graveyard scene in Deliverance was filmed at the cemetery of which country church?

Mount Carmel Baptist Church stood in a valley that was about to be flooded for a reservoir. Most structures there were demolished before the water rose, and the old churchyard has been submerged ever since.

In the final scene of Deliverance, a traumatized Ed has a nightmare about what?

A hand rising from a lake jolts Ed awake at home beside his wife. In James Dickey's novel, Ed and Lewis later buy neighbouring places on another dammed lake.

Burt Reynolds riffed on his Deliverance role in which 2004 comedy about friends lost in the wild?

Without a Paddle was one of several late roles that winked at his past, alongside the remake of The Longest Yard and The Dukes of Hazzard.

In James Dickey's novel Deliverance, Bobby eventually moves away to which state after the ordeal?

Hawaii becomes Bobby's new home, about as far from the river as he can get. Ed sees him only occasionally before he goes, while Lewis is left with a permanent limp.

In Deliverance, Deputy Queen grows suspicious of the survivors because which relative is missing?

His brother-in-law went hunting a few days earlier and never came home. With no evidence to hold the men, the law can only warn them never to come back.

The novel Deliverance made which magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923?

Time included it in 2005, and the Modern Library had already ranked the book 42nd among the best novels of the 20th century.