But I did the scene where their canoe breaks apart on another river, which was dammed. I had already been down the Chattooga, a ferocious river, to make sure it was safe. We rehearsed for quite a long period, because we had to get the actors up to scratch in archery and canoeing. But the locals were thrilled with the film. There was a lot written afterwards about how Deliverance libelled mountain people. So we made a shirt with an extra sleeve in it, and a musician crouched behind doing the fretwork as Redden strummed. My assistant found this boy, Billy Redden, who looked extraordinary, but couldn’t play. We needed someone who looked inbred for the banjo player. And he finally said yes.” Billy Redden looked extraordinary but couldn't play the banjo so a musician crouched behind him doing the fretwork In our last phone call, I told him: “I’m going to count to 10. I found Ned Beatty and Ronnie Cox from regional theatre, and eventually went to Jon Voight to play Ed, the lead alongside Burt Reynolds. Eventually, the studio said: “Make it with unknowns for $2m.” I had budgeted for a composer and orchestra to flesh out Duelling Banjos as a musical theme, but in the end I just hired a guitar and banjo player to do variations on it in the studios. Once we had the script, they said: “We’ll do it if you can cast two stars.” I secured Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando, but they were too expensive.
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