Adapted by James Dickey from his best-selling novel, this poet-novelist-academic-outdoorsman's story of suburbanites and their river adventures have become something of a cinematic punctuation mark concerning the natural world, the American South and squealing like pig. Across the film's two-hour length director-producer John Boorman lays out Dickey's ingeniously simple narrative ark with precision and little fanfare. Characterization is developed in the midst of the natural flora and fauna so deeply a part of the film's setting that the natural setting becomes the theme of the film.

Tagged as, "This is the weekend they didn't play golf," four friends set out from Atlanta to sample the sights and sounds offered by the Cahulawassee River. Their group's bullying leader, Lewis (Burt Reynolds), prompts their adventure because he wants to see the river before a downstream dam diverts its flow to produce hydroelectric power.

An avid archer and weekend warrior, Lewis brings along his bookish, pipe smoking friend Ed (Jon Voight) and two of Ed's friends, overweight insurance salesman Bobby (Ned Beatty) and guitar-playing Drew (Ronny Cox). Immediately the four meet the rural community with its slower pace and distinctive set of white trash signifiers.

Once on the river they venture through white water and the heat of the sun, all of the time testing their mettle, before bedding down for the night with optimism about the rest of their weekend. Their coming troubles are hinted at by the odd, lurking sense of their being watched but also in the study of contrasts evidenced in each of their personalities.

Screenwriter-novelist Dickey is on record as saying each of the characters represents an aspect of his psyche. Lewis is therefore the traditionally physical and powerful male, complete with a muscular build, natural athleticism and the ability to lead as much through intimidation as through superior thinking. Action is his game, though not instinctual action because Lewis has adopted the role of masculinity as much as he actually embodies it.

Ed possesses a lesser set of Lewis's traits coupled with an observer's satisfaction from the benefits of refined thinking. His trouble is in trusting himself to perform when put into terrifying circumstances and it is his journey from timidity through strength of purpose and loyalty to his friends that proves him the hero of the film.

Bobby is the pure fish-out-of-water. His roly-poly body, talkative personality and lack of know-how when coupled with his arrogance put him conflict with Lewis from the very start of their adventures. Unable to adequately handle his changing natural circumstances, Bobby is the most feminized of the four with soft features and emotional outbursts that make him susceptible to the inconveniences of being outdoors.

Drew is the socially responsible voice of reason. Finding an interest in the rural mountain people, he's oddly sympathetic yet out-of-synch with his fellow adventurers. He's also the member of the group killed for attempting to apply civilized law to a world lacking the reach of civilization. His sense of moral absolutes is out of place and dangerous.

Downriver their troubles quickly escalate when two mountain men with a shotgun catch Ed and Bobby. Ed is tied up, Bobby is raped and Lewis comes to their rescue by shooting one of the assailants with his bow and arrow. After burying him as evidence of their crimes soon to be covered up by the coming dam they move on while being pursued by the other mountain man.

Drew is lost to the river and Lewis breaks his leg before Ed and Bobby recover one of the canoes and hole up beneath and 200-foot cliff from which their assailant can shoot or starve them to death. Screwing up his courage Ed climbs the cliff, kills their assailant and regroups his friends to continue downriver. They reach their destination with a cover-up story about what happened and return to their suburban lives forever changed.

Shot for a budget near $2 million Deliverance was one of the biggest hits of 1972. Its rentals returned to producers somewhere near $22 million but the scale of its impact has continued to be felt through the 30 years since its first release.

It was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award and faced off against the classic The Godfather, to which it lost, alongside Cabaret, The Emigrants and Sounder. Being the overt adventure movie, and largely capitalizing on the star power of Jon Voight, it echoed through the year of its release but also managed to seep into the popular memory.

Foremost among its influences is the now infamous hillbilly rape of Bobby as Ed is forced to look on having been tied to a tree. In his movie debut Beatty was asked to wallow in muddy debris while being terrorized, and ultimately sodomized, by a wily mountain man wearing suspenders.

Of course Bobby's violation is necessary to force Lewis into taking aggressive action. Still, the lingering, pathetic memory of Bobby breathing heavy from exhaustion and clinging to his underpants is as indelible as the arrow riven through his rapist for retribution.

Another lasting influence was the profoundly joyful, yet somehow oddly dissonant, dueling banjos scene near the beginning of the film. Drew riffs on guitar with a feral boy suffering from some unknown, disfiguring malady but their resulting song, itself a hit from the film, temporarily gives the building tension a moment of release.

Naturally this release couldn't be further from the truth in that the river is as determined a character as any of the four leads and various supporting players. This natural world balances and reorients the weekend warrior experience and remains the most significant metaphor in the film.

Shot in Panavision the wide screen format adeptly renders the river as a place of wonder, mystery and danger. From the struggle of masculine psychology played out by its four leads the river environment assaults them as a possibly feminine locale to further harm their quest and question the very core values characterizing each man.

In much the same way the symbolic phallus thrusts out into experience to instruct man in his humanness by helping him acquire language, strength and survival skills the river conceals its rewards and dangers from such intrusion. The sexual nature of this conquering and being conquered is further suggested by the way femininity, in the form of the river, is both lustily figured in male heterosexual culture yet also depicted as being endlessly mysterious and terrifying.

Shot on Georgia's Chattooga River the movie was assisted in creating the isolation necessary for its story by first isolating the members of its cast and crew of men. Their intrusion into the world away from any recognizable urban center caused them to throw out conventional filmmaking but also to live through the gendered theme of the film. They were uninsured, taking risks in a setting with no organized reference and they were able to survive their journey away from industrial civilization by relying on one another and working with the laws of nature rather than against them.

In so doing the male leads of the film are transformed. Lewis is neutered with a broken leg that threatens to kill him, Ed is forced to kill his adversary or be killed by him, Bobby is raped and Drew is killed outright in the ensuing struggle. Not the most traditional vision of masculine strength but nor is Boorman's movie from Dickey's novel a traditional kind of story.

That it was a hit demonstrates the turbulence surrounding gender and sex roles in the early 1970s. It also indicates the ability of simple dramatic elements to compel audience interest when focused through the lens of good filmmaking.