Recently, one of our netizens brought up a link to a picture of Banjo Boy from the 1972 movie “Deliverance,” and it piqued my interest. Who was Banjo Boy?
Basic plot: Four city slickers venture into the backwoods for a canoeing trip, stop for gas and to hire some drivers to take their vehicles downstream. Having made some stereotypical observations about hillbillies and inbreeding, they soon find out that the locals don’t like them very much.
Once the story line was set up, Banjo Boy had only one scene, a non-speaking one, but it was crucial to the plot of the movie, foreshadowing what was to come.
[More below the break. Skip it if you’d rather jump feet first into an Overnight Open Thread.]
Billy Redden was an 11 year old student at Clayton Elementary School in rural Georgia, and tried out for the movie during a cattle call for local extras. He was chosen precisely for his unusual looks. He didn’t play the banjo, and had trouble even faking it, so another kid provided the left hand fretwork by sitting behind Redden and reaching through a false shirtsleeve. All Redden had to do was to look the part. Awesome amateur acting with awesome banjo picking.
According to this article, Redden was tracked down in 2003 to appear in another movie, “Big Fish,” directed by Tim Burton:
They finally found him in Dillard. Redden, who is now forty-seven, works ten-hour days as a cook and dishwasher at the nearby Cookie Jar Café, and he was hesitant at first about taking time off to appear in another film. For one thing, he had always regretted being the poster boy for “Deliverance” ’s Gothic view of rural America. For another, he hadn’t enjoyed working with the film’s star, Burt Reynolds. “Burt didn’t want to say nothing to nobody,” Redden says now. “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.”
This article from 2003 adds to the story:
After the filming of the Oscar-nominated movie, Mr Redden went home to Clayton with no further thoughts of the big screen. His mother even sold the banjo which he was given as a keepsake to pay some outstanding bills. It was not a great loss: Mr Redden – chosen for the part because of his “indigenous” looks – could not actually play the instrument. Boorman had to employ a banjo player to act as a “body double” and fret the notes with his left hand.
And so it might have remained but for [director Tim] Burton who was in Alabama this summer filming Big Fish. He kept asking his aides to find “the boy from Deliverance”, because he had a banjo-playing part in mind. After a lengthy search Mr Redden was discovered, still in Clayton and working 10-hour shifts in a home-cooking-style diner of which he is part owner.
Billy Redden on the set of Big Fish 2003
Unfortunately, 1972’s “Deliverance” helped perpetuate the sterotype of southern rural culture, graphically promoted in 1969’s classic “Easy Rider” and other movies.
Anyone who believes they can determine the intelligence of a person or group of people based upon their looks, dialect, race, region or nation may find themselves about to be handed a big ol’ can o’ whoopass, and without warning. 😉
Tags: Banjo Boy, Billy Redden, Burt Reynolds was a dick, Deliverance, hillbillies, Open thread, rednecks, sterotypes
