ATLANTA — He is probably one of the most iconic and memorable characters from the movie “Deliverance.” Billy Redden, who played the “Banjo Boy” in the movie, was just 15 when it was filmed in North Georgia in 1972. Redden lived in Clayton, Georgia, at the time and was handpicked by director John Boorman for the role.
Billy Redden was a typical local teen living in Georgia, handpicked by director John Boorman for the role of an odd banjo player in the Oscar-nominated classic Deliverance (1972).
The banjo kid, real name Lonnie in the film, was played by Billy Redden who was 15 years old at the time of filming. Now Billy is 66 years old and he left the world of Hollywood behind.
Billy Redden (born 1956) is an American actor, best known for his role as a backwoods mountain boy in the 1972 film Deliverance. He played Lonnie, a banjo-playing teenager in north Georgia, who played the noted "Dueling Banjos" with Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox).
What is the significance of the banjo scene in Deliverance?
For Appalachian readers or viewers like me, the emotional consequence has been an unshakable shame. The banjo boy scene in Deliverance establishes the narrative's resonating themes of ability, adaptability, and manhood.
Bobby is raped in the film's most intense scene. While not that graphic, the scene is still very disturbing as it displays the victim being chased, held down and taunted during the assault. And after all that, the anal rape begins, with disturbing squealing from the rapist and the victim, but not explicitly visible.
Ed manages to kill the hillbilly, whose dead body is tied down with weights and tossed into the river by Ed, Lewis, and Bobby to ensure it will never be found.
Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of Ed, while both Donald Sutherland and Charlton Heston turned down the role of Lewis. Other actors who were considered for the film included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty.
In the director's commentary, it is revealed that Drew refused to continue anymore, which is the reason why he shakes his head and falls out of the canoe, he refusing to go on after witnessing and being a part of what has just happened.
15-year-old Billy Redden didn't play on the track, either in the studio version that was dubbed into the film, nor in the film itself. A musician named Mike Addis was used to mimic the movement of Redden's left hand to make the depiction in the film appear closer to the recording. Redden can't even play the banjo.
Did Billy Redden actually play the banjo in Deliverance?
In Deliverance (1972), during the “dueling banjos” scene, Billy Redden, who played the young banjo-playing local, didn't know how to play banjo. To make it look authentic, a skilled banjo player hid behind & played the chords with his left arm in Redden's sleeve while Redden picked with his right.
Lightman happened to visit the Deliverance crew on-location not long after Reynolds' accident. “I slid down a 40′ waterfall the other day,” Reynolds told Lightman. “It looked simple enough, but I lit right on my tailbone, on a submerged rock, and bounced about five feet in the air. Man, did that hurt.
The plot, which seems simple enough, gradually takes on an eerily disturbing nature. The dialogue is sparse, but screenwriters and director use it as a strength, allowing events and cinematography to speak volumes about the characters. The violence, though disturbing, also acts as an integral piece of the film.
“Deliverance,” which the writer hinted was based on real events (although few believe him; Boorman says “nothing in that book actually happened to him”) was his first and only experience in the film industry (although after his death, the Coen Brothers tried to make a silent version of his final book, “To The White Sea ...
Deliverance stands as a powerful exploration of the harshness of the rural landscape, one with an ecological message that still resonates; that the destruction of the natural world has consequences for everyone.
What happened to the toothless guy in Deliverance?
Herbert Coward, known for his “Toothless Man” role in the movie “Deliverance,” died Wednesday in a crash on a western North Carolina highway, according to authorities. He was 85. The crash happened Wednesday afternoon as Coward and Bertha Brooks, 78, left a doctor's appointment, North Carolina Highway Patrol Sgt.
After Drew suddenly pitches forward into the water, Lewis exclaims that Drew has been shot, but they can find no evidence of a bullet wound when they later find his body (although they don't do a very thorough search). Some viewers have suggested that he suffered a stroke or heart attack because of stress.
The film never tells the audience the origin or significance of the title Deliverance, but James Dickey's novel explains that its four city-dwelling protagonists, Ed, Lewis, Bobby, and Drew, take their backwoods canoeing trip seeking “deliverance” from the stresses of their modern, day-to-day lives.
However, Ed (Jon Voight) finds his body further down the river and with no deep wounds that clearly indicates that he committed suicide by drowning. Lewis slips out of the canoe and severely damages his leg. Ed has been injured with an arrow stabbed through his rib while firing another arrow at a hillbilly.
Only a few months after the book's publication in March 1970, a film adaptation confirmed its Georgia setting by filming on location in Rabun County and on the Chattooga.
The Deliverance movie banjo scene is also iconic, where Ronny Cox's Drew plays "Dueling Banjos" with a local boy (Billy Redden). The adventure is set in Georgia and was fittingly shot on location in Rabun County, Georgia.
Deliverance was shot primarily on the Chattooga River following the state line between Northern Georgia and Western South Carolina. Additional scenes were shot on the steeper sections of the Tallulah River and its deep gorge.
To minimize costs, the production wasn't insured, and the actors did their own stunts. Jon Voight climbed the cliff. Burt Reynolds broke his coccyx (tailbone) while going down the rapids when the canoe capsized. Originally, a cloth dummy was used, but it looked too fake, like a dummy going over a waterfall.
At first, Boorman had courted Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson to play Lewis and Ed, but they had proved too expensive. Others considered were Robert Redford, Charlton Heston and Donald Sutherland (who rejected the script as too violent). Boorman later made a virtue of using relative unknowns.
Before you start scouring any maps, we should probably point out that the Cahulawassee is actually a fictional waterway. Instead, the site used to film most river scenes was the Chattooga River in northeastern Georgia. A 10-mile stretch of the river south of Earl's Ford Road was used for many of the river shots.
