Although he doesn’t appear until about 45 minutes into the film and has about seven minutes or so of screen time total, Lon Chaney Jr. plays a pivotal role in The Defiant Ones. As Big Sam, a burly, weathered old soul who saves the escaped duo from a lynching, he delivers a powerful speech against killing the men and beats down one of the angry mob before asking anyone else to step up and try their hand at murder. Given that the guy he slugged went down like a stone wall hit by a wrecking ball, no one decides to test their luck afterwards.

Later on, he cuts the pair loose before brusquely sending them away still chained from the small waterside shack town they’d stumbled across. It’s not until the last moments the three men are together that you realize why Sam isn’t keen on seeing the men harmed (at least by his people)… a flash of his badly scarred wrist reveals he used to be a former chain gang convict. He doesn’t know or care what they’ve done to be chained to each other, but he’s giving them a better chance at survival than anyone else would have… Continue reading →