Where Was Deliverance Filmed: All Locations

Here’s where the classic 1972 survival thriller Deliverance was filmed. While he had been acting for over a decade prior to the movie, it was Burt Reynolds’ Deliverance performance that made his career. It also set him on the path to being one of the biggest box office draws of the 1970s thanks to movies like Smokey And The Bandit and The Longest Yard. Of course, it also helped that the Deliverance movie itself was praised upon release for John Boorman’s taut direction and its excellent cast.

Deliverance was based on the novel by author James Dickey (To The White Sea) that sees four friends decide to do a little bonding on a canoe trip in Georgia. Things take a horrific turn when two mountain men kidnap Ed (Jon Voight) and Bobby (Ned Beatty), and after a shocking sexual assault that features the now infamous line “Squeal like a pig,” Burt Reynolds’ Lewis kills one of the attackers and the four decide to hide the killing from authorities. They then have to survive the harsh elements while being stalked by the other mountain man.

Related: The Coen Brothers Unmade To The White Sea Could Have Been Another Classic

The Deliverance movie banjo scene is also iconic, where Ronny Cox’s Drew plays “Dueling Banjos” with a local boy (Billy Redden). The adventure is set in Georgia and was fittingly shot on location in Rabun County, Georgia. The fictional river in the story is dubbed the Cahulawassee River, with the canoe sequences mostly shot at Georgia’s Chattooga River. Later scenes were filmed at the Tallulah Gorge located near Tugaloo Lake, which also features Jon Voight climbing up a cliff to attack a sniper — a climb Voight did on his own in the film with no stunt doubles, just like Tom Cruise would do years later.

The Town In Deliverance Is In North Carolina, Not Georgia

The rundown town seen in Deliverance was filmed in Sylva, North Carolina, while the movie also filmed at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church. This site was flooded by Lake Jocassee shortly after filming, with the dam seen under construction being the Jocassee Dam, which forms the lake. While the ending of the film, where Ed has a nightmare of a hand slowly rising out of the river, has become iconic, another ending was shot.

The Deliverance movie alternate ending was another dream that featured Ed, Bobby, and Lewis being summoned by the sheriff (played by author Dickey) after their wild outing to look at a body recovered from the river. The sheriff lifts the sheet, but while three men can see who it is, Ed wakes up before the movie shows who it’s supposed to be. While Deliverance seems like a problematic tourist film given the fate that befalls the main characters, it did lead to a rise in tourists canoeing down the same stretch of the Chattooga River seen in the film. Tragically, this led to many deaths for those unprepared for its ferocity and in 1974 it was declared a Wild and Scenic River.

The Cast Had To Navigate Deliverance’s Dangerous Locations Without Stuntmen

Not only did Deliverance film on-location, but the actors also did their own stunts due to the film’s shoestring budget and the script’s demand for intense nature scenes. The studio had attempted to kill Deliverance by slashing its budget (meaning no funds for stunt doubles or safety equipment), but, it being the 1970s, the cast and crew decided to give it a shot anyway. While admirable in some ways, this decision led to lots of on-scene accidents, and it’s lucky that none of the actors or crew were killed. Famously, Burt Reynolds did get sent to the ER after going over a waterfall, thinking it would be more authentic than using a double. Whether the Deliverance stunt was worth it is heavily debatable, as Reynolds himself has said he “looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall” for all his physical efforts (via CinemaBlend).