One can feel that Kramer, instead of letting the idea grow from an inner necessity, started with a cliche: "Now I am going to make a social film."

The Defiant Ones is a film no one with mind or heart is likely to forget in a long, long time.

This Stanley Kramer messageathon plays better as a high-concept thriller than a statement about race relations or the human condition.

No one, clearly, was able to foresee what Poitier would do with his role -- nor was anyone, thereafter, able to undo it -- and his performance, which lends the film its only real distinction, also, paradoxically, smashes it to pieces.