It's got the most memorable opening on movie history -- "Duelling Banjos" speaks for itself after 30 years -- and one of the cinema's most horrifying rape scenes as well (most recently aped in Pulp Fiction). This tale of "city boys" taking a weekend trip by canoe down a soon-to-be-dammed river is about primitivism of both the all-talk and the real kind, and how desperate circumstances can make real men out of the weakest of wills. A landmark in movie history.

A new deluxe edition DVD includes an extensive series of making-of featurettes.