The Defiant Ones

The Defiant Ones is a 1958 black and white film noir film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must cooperate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams, Charles McGraw, and Lon Chaney, Jr. Ivan Dixon was a stunt double for Sidney Poitier.

The film starts with a truck driving at night. It swerves to miss another truck and crashes through a barrier. The rescuers clear up the debris and cover the people killed... mainly prisoners in the back. It is revealed that two are missing a black man shackled to a white man, because the warden had a sense of humor. They are told not to look too hard as they will probably kill each other in the first five miles. Nevertheless a large posse and many bloodhounds are dispatched the next morning to find them.The setting is in the American South, the men are the black Noah Cullen Poitier and the white John Joker Jackson Curtis. Despite their mutual loathing, they are forced to cooperate, as they are chained together. At first their cooperation is motivated by selfpreservation but gradually, they begin to respect and like each other. ........

Source: Wikipedia