Cast:
William Shatner (Adam Cramer), Frank Maxwell (Tom McDaniel), Beverly Lunsford (Ella McDaniel), Robert Emhardt (Verne Shipman), Leo Gordon (Sam Griffin), Charles Barnes (Joey Greene), Charles Beaumont (Mr. Paton), Katherine Smith (Ruth McDaniel), George Clayton Johnson (Phil West), and William F. Nolan (Bart Carey)
Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip, and #2113 - The Undead)
Review:
You don't need me to express the vast talent of Roger Corman in getting films out and done for audiences to see in their time, because the obituaries that have followed in the wake of his passing have pretty much stated as much. Whether as director, writer, producer, distributor, or as a mentor to aspiring filmmakers, the man had an eye more often than not for what worked best for an audience. One can't simply say he managed to have at least one film released in theaters from 1955 to 1964. Let us put it this way: The Intruder, released in the month of May in 1962, was released in the middle of his directorial career...after having done thirty features. But I think this one seemed most interesting to cover because of how it stands out among the ones that he oversaw in the days where one really could make a film in the span of a few days or weeks. As opposed to simply filming it around Hollywood, Corman aimed to film in Missouri (mostly in Sikeston) on a budget of roughly $80,000 that was based on a book by Charles Beaumont (a writer best known for film screenplays and several episodes of The Twilight Zone) that had been written in 1958. Apparently, Beaumont had written the book based on an incident that had occurred in Tennessee involving a Northerner stirring the populace of a small town into furor (the Tennessee incident is likely inspired by the story of Clinton, Tennessee, in which the town was among the first to hear from segregation defender John Kasper when it came to a visitior of the North traveling south in an attempt to get a Southern town inflamed against the integration of their local high school - this happened in the fall of 1956). For filming in town, the screenplay (as done by Beaumont) was only seen in full by Corman and Shatner in a move that Corman said was "watered-down for local consumption". It didn't help matters when it came to having time to film certain scenes on location, where at one point a sheriff told them to leave town and called them "communists". In addition to various townspeople being used as extras, you might notice that a handful of writers also appear in small parts (those three are with Beaumont, Johnson, and Nolan; incidentally, while only Johnson ever appeared in a film again, Leo Gordon was also a writer on several TV programs and films, and, well, Shatner became a novelist in his later years). Even using alternate titles for re-releases such as "Shame" and "I Hate Your Guts" did not result in a hit, and Corman tabbed it as his greatest disappointment in his career that taught him a lesson about audiences (apparently, a combination of a re-release in England by the British Film Institute and release on home video decades after its release got the film to "break even").
It isn't often you get a movie where someone utters the n-word in the first five minutes. Really this is the story of a person who thinks they are a man but ultimately is as small as they come. There are a handful of hucksters out there that think they can make their voice heard from beyond the sewer it came from just because they can. The "intruder" depicted here is merely a reflection of the pond of sludge that brings that brand of seething hatred out into the surface. Sure, you could go with Corman's later idea that the film could have been a bit less "black and white". But screw it, this is the kind of movie that has staying power precisely because of how it looks upon this town in the horrific timelessness that comes with seething anger for "the other" in whatever form it takes. The enemy can be anything and anywhere when it comes to a town needing some sort of contempt for whatever perverted thing they don't like (like not being called "sir", maybe). The battle for wanting things to stay the same when it comes to color in school, as evidenced by the riots that occurred at the University of Mississippi in the fall of 1962 (incidentally, the only journalist to be killed in the civil rights era in Paul Guihard was shot and killed during the riots). At the time, Shatner had done a handful of television and supporting film roles over the past ten years to go with turns on Broadway, which Corman knew about when wanting a fine unknown actor, but he had exactly one leading film role to his name with The Explosive Generation (released in 1961, the same year as a supporting role in Judgement at Nuremberg) prior to what we see here. It was the only time he was directed by Corman, although it wasn't his last Corman production, since he later starred in the Corman-produced Big Bad Mama (1974). There is something in this performance that might be among of Shatner's best as a film actor when it comes to bubbling intensity that could only come from someone trying to pull a fast one in gripping a town under his finger. Just watch the sequence of Shatner speaking to a crowd (to a varying crowd of people, as planned by Corman) has such a powerful effect in hellraising with all of the tricks pulled in the playbook in insidious messaging (emphasizing certain words like "literally" or playing to the idea of a mass conspiracy involving certain "other" groups). The longer the film goes, the less that his grip on using the town starts to turn into a rope around him rather than one to hold, which only leads to desperation fit for basically a travelling racist. I particularly like the scene in the middle of things with Shatner and Gordon as a exchange that goes from initial huckstering by Shatner to one of tension (naturally this is a scene that happens as Gordon's on-screen wife has left him after being swayed by Shatner) that eventually ends with an observation that pretty much makes the whole film tick: a salesman seeing the mistakes of the pitchman in his midst that couldn't pull the trigger on him if his life depended on it for all of his "cleverness" and technique. Maxwell and Lunsford sell the sides of the family coin that come from where the touch of Shatner effects their thinking of the town around them (whether as a newspaperman or as a youth under one's grip). The film doesn't have any one hero but instead goes with the idea that among a town of bubbling ooze, there has to be at least one with the idea of decency to present opposition even in the face of scorn regardless of how much of it isn't washed away. While I can't say I've seen every Corman film, I think I can safely say this is among the top tier of his features as a filmmaker, as it is a film made with tremendous conviction in telling a clear-cut story of the dangers in allowing an agitator to wreak havoc in a town just bubbling for anger. Publicly available on the Internet, this is one worth recommending for those with the time (84 minutes) to make for both a showcase in its lead actor and in its director in clear-cut worthwhile filmmaking.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
Rest in peace, Roger Corman.
