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    (#1) Who Actually Wrote The Line "Squeal Like A Pig" Is A Bit Of A Mystery

    "Squeal like a pig" is a demented and disturbing expression in the context of the scene. Interestingly, it's unclear who came up with that famous line of dialogue. Some say Boorman's frequent writing partner Rospo Pallenberg thought it up. Still others insist that McKinney ad-libbed it.

    Boorman has his own account. In the DVD audio commentary, he claims that the studio insisted he film a profanity-free version of the scene so that the movie could play on television. Everyone was standing around trying to think of something Mountain Man could say when a crew member randomly chipped in with that suggestion. The director thought it was better than what was on the page, so he decided to keep it.

    What's the true origin of the phrase? We'll probably never know for sure. 

  • The Actor Playing The Defiler Intimidated Ned Beatty Behind The Scenes on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#2) The Actor Playing The Defiler Intimidated Ned Beatty Behind The Scenes

    Actor Bill McKinney plays Mountain Man, the guy who defiles Bobby. He apparently knew their big scene together would be more effective if Ned Beatty was legitimately afraid of him. According to Burt Reynolds, McKinney attempted to intimidate Beatty behind the scenes for that very reason. 

    "I just remember [McKinney] would sit three tables away from us during lunch, just staring at Ned," Reynolds explained. "Later I asked Bill why he was doing that. He said he was taught by Bruce Dern. And Bruce Dern said your main thrust, pardon the pun, should be to scare the hell out of Ned Beatty. And he did."

  • Beatty's Performance In The Scene Was Influenced By An Adolescent Memory on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#3) Beatty's Performance In The Scene Was Influenced By An Adolescent Memory

    Performing such a heavy-duty scene is perhaps the most difficult thing an actor can do. They have to get themselves into a certain headspace so they can project trauma, even though they aren't being traumatized for real. Ned Beatty told Garden & Gun that he used an unpleasant memory from his adolescence during the sequence.

    As a high school student in Kentucky, Beatty got a job working for a farmer. His primary duty was to round up wild hogs and boars for castration. The actor explained:

    Because I was a football player, I was given the job of hitting the boar with all my strength up on the shoulders and knocking him down on the correct side, like I was doing a block. As fast as possible, I had to get some rope around his feet and nostrils so he wouldn’t bite me. This older man who was well into his sixties would grab the correct hind foot that we had to lay over. I had to sit on the boar’s head while they performed this awful operation on him. That really came back to me [during the performance].

  • Reynolds Claims The Scene Went Overboard, So He Stopped It on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#4) Reynolds Claims The Scene Went Overboard, So He Stopped It

    Watching the "squeal like a pig" sequence is nerve-rattling. Filming it certainly must have been, too. In 2008, Burt Reynolds told Maxim that he thought the scene crossed a line while it was being filmed, so he stepped in to stop it. The star said:

    All that "squeal, piggy, piggy" stuff was not in the script. Two camera operators looked away during the scene because it was getting so hairy. Finally it went too far, and I ran into the shot. I asked John Boorman, the director, "Why did you let it go that long?" He said, "I wanted to take it as far as I could take the audience, and I figured you’d run in when it got too far."

  • Jon Voight Nearly Turned The Film Down Because Of The Scene  on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#5) Jon Voight Nearly Turned The Film Down Because Of The Scene

    The scene in which Bobby is violated would still be shocking today, but it was especially shocking in 1972. The mere fact that it was in the screenplay indicated that Deliverance had the potential to be very controversial. In fact, Jon Voight almost turned the movie down because of the sequence. 

    He told The Guardian, "I resisted making the movie up to the very last point. Reading the script, I’d got stuck on the ['squeal like a pig'] scene." Only after John Boorman pressured him to read the script again did he "start seeing myself in the piece" and recognize that Deliverance could be an important project. 

  • The Original Author's Son Was Ned Beatty's Stand-In on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#6) The Original Author's Son Was Ned Beatty's Stand-In

    The summer in which Deliverance was filmed was a memorable one for Chris Dickey. His father James wrote the novel on which the movie was based, then adapted it into the movie's screenplay. Chris, who was just 19 at the time, got to hang around the set. He was even drafted to be Ned Beatty's stand-in for rehearsals of the "squeal like a pig" scene.

    Dickey described the experience as awkward. "Nobody was sure how far it would go, or how convincing it would be," he said. "I wasn’t in my underwear. I was fully clothed. But it was a very unpleasant sensation, lying over a log with your *ss up in the air..."

  • It Took An Entire Day To Film on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#7) It Took An Entire Day To Film

    Although it only occupies a few minutes in the movie, the "squeal like a pig" scene took an entire day to film. A big part of the reason was that Boorman planned to film part of it in one unbroken shot. This required a significant amount of rehearsal to help the actors perfect their blocking as they move in and out of the frame. He also had to spend time deciding where to put the camera.

    In the DVD audio commentary, Boorman states, "I didn’t know how to shoot it, until I found the setting; brown laurels with the acid green of the leaves, the tangled wood. As soon as I found the scenery, I knew how to shoot it."

  • Voight Claims It Was His Idea To Film The Scene In One Take on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#8) Voight Claims It Was His Idea To Film The Scene In One Take

    A basic rule of filmmaking is that the fewer cuts a scene has, the more real it plays. A scene carried out in a single take has the ability to pull the audience in because the uninterrupted flow creates a sense of immediacy. Jon Voight knew that and, according to his own account, he convinced Boorman to film the build-up to the "squeal like a pig" scene in an unbroken take.

    "The scene where Ned and I are taken up into the woods by the hillbillies is maybe my favorite shot in cinema," the actor said in an interview. "It’s done all in one phenomenal take. I pushed John to it, I said: 'Do it in one. It’ll be more exciting, because they’ll see it happen right in front of them. No tricks.'"

  • Burt Reynolds Once Claimed Actor Bill McKinney Took Things Too Far on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#9) Burt Reynolds Once Claimed Actor Bill McKinney Took Things Too Far

    There has long been a rumor that the "squeal like a pig" scene in Deliverance is real. Movie message boards have debated it, with users speculating on whether this could possibly be true. Those rumors were not helped by Burt Reynolds, who once claimed Bill McKinney got carried away during the scene and intended to violate Ned Beatty for real. In his autobiography My Life, he wrote, "McKinney, I swear to God, really wanted to hump Ned. And I think he was going to."

    The actor further claims that he and John Boorman had to physically pull McKinney off Beatty and hold him down because he was so in character.

    No other accounts exist to support the actor's off-hand claim, and it doesn't stand up to common sense. Most likely, this is a case of him embellishing a story to make it more dramatic than it really was.  

  • Because Of The Scene, Stanley Kubrick Was Reportedly Too Scared To Meet McKinney on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#10) Because Of The Scene, Stanley Kubrick Was Reportedly Too Scared To Meet McKinney

    Perhaps the highest compliment one can pay an actor is to say their performance felt completely real. Of course, if you're playing someone who does a bad thing, that can make others nervous to be around you. For example, famed director Stanley Kubrick was afraid to meet Bill McKinney after seeing his work in Deliverance

    As co-star Ronny Cox explained to Maxim, Kubrick was looking for someone to play the drill sergeant in his 1987 war drama Full Metal Jacket. Having seen Deliverance many times, he thought McKinney might just be the guy. "Bill flew to Kubrick's place in Europe, and when he hit the ground, he was given the news that Stanley Kubrick didn't want to see him and to go back home," Cox said. "And they sent him back. And I think it's because Kubrick was too frightened to meet Bill McKinney."

    John Boorman confirmed this story to The Independent, saying that Kubrick told him, "That's the most terrifying scene ever put on film and that guy has gotta be an awful person."

  • People Harassed Beatty For Years, Shouting The Line At Him  on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#11) People Harassed Beatty For Years, Shouting The Line At Him 

    It's safe to say that the scene featuring Bobby's violation has become iconic. That became something of a curse for Ned Beatty, because he became indelibly linked to the phrase "squeal like a pig." In a piece he wrote for The New York Times, he said that people "shouted, said, or whispered" those four words to him for years.

    Although he expressed pride in being associated with a high-quality movie like Deliverance, Beatty acknowledged that hearing that famous line of dialogue was irritating. He admitted, "It hurts my pride when some jerk hollers 'squeal like a pig' at me. I get mad - real mad."

  • Burt Reynolds Thought The Scene Was Just Desserts For Men Who Joke About Assault on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#12) Burt Reynolds Thought The Scene Was Just Desserts For Men Who Joke About Assault

    One of the reasons the "squeal like a pig" scene is so powerful is that men have rarely been shown as the victims of such horrble acts. It's almost always women. Seeing a man victimized in this way really makes male viewers stop and think about the act and its effect. Consequently, Burt Reynolds viewed the sequence as a corrective measure for guys who like to joke about assault or who don't take it seriously. 

    The actor said in a 2012 Maxim interview, "Men used to throw the word 'rape' around in a casual sense. In an asinine way. I remember on opening night, men, not women, men getting up and running out of the theater. They weren't so cavalier about that word after that movie."

  • Herbert Coward Was The Only Person Not Fazed By The Scene on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#13) Herbert Coward Was The Only Person Not Fazed By The Scene

    Herbert "Cowboy" Coward appears in the film as Toothless Man, the other hillbilly who plays a part in Bobby's violation, because Burt Reynolds recommended him for the role. They'd worked together many years before at a theme park, and Reynolds thought he'd be perfect. He also helped his stuttering friend rehearse the "squeal like a pig" scene. Whereas everyone else was nervous about filming it because of the provocative content, Coward was surprisingly nonchalant.

    According to Reynolds, "The director said, 'Do you realize what you have to do in this picture?' - explaining to him that he had to jump this guy’s bones. He looked at the director [and said] 'I’ve done a lot w-w-w-worse things than that.'"

  • One Critic Believes The Scene Is A Stark Feminist Statement, And Some Members Of The Cast Agree on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#14) One Critic Believes The Scene Is A Stark Feminist Statement, And Some Members Of The Cast Agree

    There are different ways to interpret Deliverance. On one level, it can be seen merely as a survival story. It can also be read as addressing the theme of male bonding, or of tackling the old "survival of the fittest" idea. In a 2017 piece for Collider, writer Brian Formo floated another interpretation. He sees Deliverance as having a strong feminist message. 

    Formo writes that Lewis's use of the word "rape" in discussing how the Cahulawassee River is going to be dammed up "shows how cavalier men are in using the language of one of the worst things that can happen to a person but is predominantly only likely to happen to women." Only when Bobby is violated for real do the implications of that word fully resonate for the characters. In that sense, the story can be taken as a tale about men having to confront a threat far too many women already understand. 

    At least one of the stars of Deliverance did not disagree with that reading. Reynolds said in an interview, "You know, for so many years, men throw the word ‘rape’ around and never thought about what they were saying. And I think the picture makes men think about something that’s very important, that we understand the pain and embarrassment and the change of people’s lives.” 

  • More Than Four Decades Later, The Movie's Depiction Of Hillbillies Still Rankles Georgians on Random Behind Scenes Of Infamous 'Squeal Like A Pig' Scene In ‘Deliverance’

    (#15) More Than Four Decades Later, The Movie's Depiction Of Hillbillies Still Rankles Georgians

    Deliverance was made in Rabun County, Georgia. You might think that having an all-time classic movie produced in the area would be a source of pride for residents. It's not. In fact, more than four decades later, there is still some displeasure over the way the film - and the "squeal like a pig" scene, in particular - portrays the people of Georgia.

    In 2012, Rabun County Commissioner Stanley "Butch" Darnell told CNN, "We were portrayed as ignorant, backward, scary, deviant, redneck hillbillies. That stuck with us through all these years and in fact that was probably furthest from the truth. These people up here are a very caring, lovely people."

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About This Tool

Deliverance is a famous American thriller movie produced and directed by John Boorman, released in 1972. The screenplay was based on the 1970 novel of the same name which was written by James Dickey. The film was widely acclaimed and achieved great commercial success, it is memorable for a music scene near the beginning and for its infamous Squeal Like A Pig scene.

It's not easy to film such a great movie. The cast of this movie all made contributions. This page includes 15 behind the scenes of the infamous Squeal Like A Pig scene. There is something that people don't know.

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