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Chuck Mallison (Claude Jarmison Jr.) waits around in a crowd in the small Southern town where he lives as the sheriff brings in Lucas Beauchamp (Juano Hernandez) for shooting VInson Gowrie in the back. Lucas, before entering the jail, yells out to Chuck and tells him to get his uncle, an attorney.

Chuck tells his uncle John Stevens (David Brian) that he is troubled by his confusion over his attitude towards Lucas. Lucas is not like the other black men in the town. He doesn't show deference or fear to the white men who live there. In Chuck's only encounter with Lucas, when Chuck fell into an iced up pond on Lucas' property, it wasn't that Lucas behaved wrongly towards him - in fact he was quite hospitable. It was the fact that Lucas treated Chuck as an equal who happened to be a guest in his home. This recognition of the roots of racism growing inside of him seems to be what bothers Chuck more than anything since Chuck is simply not accustomed to a black man who feels free to be unlikeable and haughty with white people.

Chuck goes with his uncle when he talks to his new client, Lucas, that night in the jail. But Lucas won't help himself that much when talking to his attorney past the point of saying that he did not kill Gowrie. Part of the reason for that is probably the fact that Lucas' lawyer thinks that the best Lucas can hope for is a fair trial followed by a hanging versus a hanging with no trial. Initially he won't entertain the idea that Lucas could be innocent. Slowly it is revealed - to Chuck, to his uncle, and to an older woman who is a client of Chuck's uncle (Elizabeth Patterson), that Lucas could not have committed this crime. But they need not only very hard evidence of Lucas' innocence, they need evidence of the guilt of whoever did commit the murder. The criminal justice system, at this point, is pretty much a rubber stamp for conviction when it comes to black men, especially black men accused of killing a white man. Lucas' advocates don't need a reasonable doubt, they need a shadow of a doubt. And there is the threat of lynching until this trio gets that shadow of a doubt.

This was an excellent very early film on racism and the criminal justice system in the south, beating out To Kill a Mockingbird by more than a decade. Juano Hernandez is the heart of this film as Lucas Beauchamp. He displays an enigmatic dignity - you never know where he is coming from with his lack of explanation of what happened until the end. I'd highly recommend this one.

No movie could ever do justice to Faulkner's command of the English language. but they did a pretty good job here. Lucas Beauchamp is exactly the way I pictured him in the book, as is Chick. What the movie couldn't really go into was how Beauchamp wasn't liked by the Negro people either, because he was equally as stubborn. Not that it is a bad thing, but from my take on the book that was his attitude toward the world (yet, I got the feeling it was white society's racism that started it and it spilled over into Negro society, until that became his attitude toward everyone).

the best part of the movie is that you get to see Yoknapatawpha county (actually, Oxford, Mississippi) exactly as Faulkner wrote about it (the film was made when Faulkner was alive and writing). It doesn't look that much different today. Because of this alone, the movie is worth a watch considering it is filmed in Faulkner's backyard. A true must see for Faulkner fans.

Juano Hernandez plays Lucas Beauchamp, a black farmer with a ten acre spread, who is facing a lynching at the hands of hundreds of poor and destitute looking whites who have come into the small Southern town by the busload, as he is locked away in the town's aging jail. His only hope is to prove his innocence of the crime of murdering one of the Gowrie boys, a family klan of five sons led by a father who lost an arm a long time ago as well as his wife. The back story of Lucas, the Gowries, and the assembling of whites who look more the part of poverty than any other film I've ever seen, give this film a heightened sense of realism, which is added to by super intelligent overall development. While there is a certain amount of overt racism in the film, the real story seems to lie in the faces of all the people the camera catches, whether they (the people) speak any lines or not. The crowd never really turns into the mob that you expect it to, which actually makes this movie more interesting and exciting. The film masterfully avoids that drama in order to get at the underlying decency of all the people. This is a must see for Will Geer fans, as he plays the skeptical sheriff who brings Beauchamp in near the film's beginning, with a crowd already gathering. Set amidst dirt roads, rundown farmhouses, with an intriguing batch of quicksand that is under a bridge, all of which now has probably been paved over, Intruder In The Dust is a real look at a life that doesn't exist anymore.

An unjustly neglected classic, "Intruder in the Dust" is one of the great films of the 1940's which has unfortunately slipped into obscurity. Based on a story by William Faulker, and shot in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, "Intruder" tells the story of Lucas Beauchamp (played with great dignity by Juano Hernandez), a black man unjustly accused of the murder of a local white man, and a white boy (Claude Jarman, Jr.) who uses this situation as an opportunity to pay a previous debt to Beauchamp. Terrific acting, especially by two great character actors, Porter Hall (as the dead man's father) and Elizabeth Patterson (best known as Mrs. Trumbull on "I Love Lucy") as an old woman willing to stand against the townspeople to see that right is done. This straightforward, tense and sincere study of racial bigotry deserves to be seen more.

"Intruder in the dust" is unfairly forgotten today.Nowadays almost every movie involving racism,murder,lawyer and infuriated crowd ends up in the court,in an endless trial .This one does not,everything happens in a small south town,or in the country around.It features intriguing scenes ,particularly the one when two teenagers and an old lady open a grave at night to exhume a dead body;even stronger is the scene when the same lady keeps the crowd from entering the jail,without a gun, sitting on her chair while a brute is pouring gas around her.Juano Hernandez is equally efficient in his part of an innocent black man-I've rarely seen so much dignity in this kind of role-.

Also remarkable is the almost complete absence of music,which gives the movie a modern feel.Excellent dialog,with brilliant lines ,towards the end of the movie,between the lawyer and his nephew .This young lad plays a prominent part in the story,which is not surprising,coming from Clarence Brown,who perfectly directed young actors ("the yearling" and "National Velvet")

This is easily the best cinematic version of William Faulkner's fiction that I've ever seen, and I've seen several of the most prominent ones. Filmed in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, it really captures the feeling of Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County. Intruder in the Dust is not one of Faulkner's best novel, but, even if it is a cliché to say this, it would be the crown jewel in any one else's career. It beats Harper Lee's good but simplistic To Kill a Mockingbird fifty feet into the ground (I read that one in ninth grade, and that's exactly where it belongs). Two of Faulkner's most prominent characters play major parts in the film, Gavin Stevens and Lucas Beauchamp. Stevens is probably the single most common character in all of Faulkner's fiction. He's a lawyer and he works easily as a narrator, because, unlike many of his other characters, Stevens is a man of logic, not emotion (at least when he's older). Lucas Beauchamp may be the most prominent of all of Faulkner's black characters (he plays a major part in one of Faulkner's out-and-out masterpieces, Go Down, Moses); unlike all of the other black folks in Yoknapatawpha, he refuses to bow down to any white man. He has pride, and many in the white population find that an execrable quality in a black man. One day, Lucas is found standing over a dead white man with a recently-fired pistol in his possession. Most of Jefferson and the surrounding areas don't see the need for a trial, and everyone's pretty sure that Beauchamp will be lynched before the evening's over, or at least the next day, as the murder and arrest occurred on a Sunday. Beauchamp, on the other hand, declares his innocence and tries to get Stevens to help him. Stevens refuses; the case seems open and shut. But his young nephew, Chick Mallison, because Lucas had helped him in the past, is willing to help him now.

As far as I know, no Hollywood film of this period deals with racism as overtly as this one. Hollywood films rarely persecute the black population, but instead prefer to relegate them to servant roles. If you're an African American actor, you might as well give up and accept that role as either the mammy, the maid, the servant, or the porter, because that's the only way you'll work. In Intruder in the Dust, there is to be found one of the most memorable non-porter roles a black actor ever had, Lucas Beauchamp. And Beauchamp, as I described above, is no stereotypical character, and might have been hard for audiences to accept. Even today, black characters are usually simple, magical, and kind. The recent arthouse hit Far from Heaven is a great example of that. Beauchamp is kind of a jerk, and he's very stubborn. Although he's perhaps a little less so here than he is in the novel, he's not any kind of stereotype. He's a complex human being. Juano Hernandez plays Beauchamp extraordinarily well. I haven't seen the film in a while, but he also appears in Robert Aldrich's 1955 film, Kiss Me Deadly, as well as the cinematic adaptation of Faulkner's final novel, The Reivers.

All the actors are great in the film. I should also praise quickly Claude Jarman Jr., who has the great role of Chick Mallison. The novel takes place from his point of view, and he is the conventional hero of the picture. Jarman is quite an actor; he captures the character (who also appears elsewhere in Faulkner's fiction, narrating, for example, events that happened a decade or more before he was born in the 1957 novel The Town) perfectly. He would appear in another great role the next year in the underrated John Ford film Rio Grande. The only other film of Clarence Brown's that I've seen is National Velvet, quite a different picture than Intruder in the Dust. His job here is exceptional; I really have to credit him with capturing Faulkner perfectly. Other famous Faulkner adaptations are too melodramatic (The Long Hot Summer, filmed in 1958, which I really like despite that) or too cold (Tomorrow, filmed in 1972, which I do not like; that coldness is a complete misunderstanding of Faulkner). The only other one that really does well according to its source material is Douglas Sirk's great 1958 filming of Pylon (really a different sort of Faulkner novel altogether), Tarnished Angels. 10/10.

At the beginning of the film Juan Hernandez (Lucas) is taken from a police car and put into a small town jail. His fate is sealed - he's going to get lynched and it's only a matter of time. There is a crowd who are ready to be led by the brother of the man he is accused of killing. That man is Charles Kemper (Crawford) and he is not a nice person. Hernandez asks young man Claude Jarman (Chick) to help him out by getting a specific lawyer - David Brian (Stevens) - to defend him. Luckily, he has been arrested on a Sunday and the townsfolk like to respect a bit of religion so Hernandez only has 24 hours before the mob gets to him.

It's a film that depicts the racism of the times. I thought the film was set in a previous era but no, it is set currently in a real town in the present. The story keeps you watching as snippets of information are gradually revealed and we learn the back-story through flashbacks. The cast do well, and thankfully, Hernandez isn't portrayed as a mightier than thou type who acts smugly and holier than everyone else. He's an awkward so-and-so and is stubborn. He has flaws.

I did find the lawyer's character rather irritating in parts and this is a combination of both the crass dialogue he is given to narrate and his delivery. He gets preachy and is obviously making points for the viewer to go away and think about. Only trouble is, these points are so blatantly obvious that it's like being sat in a class being lectured to by an idiot teacher.

The film is enjoyable and contains dialogue that probably wouldn't be allowed today due to the politically correct brigade who seem to be currently holding back any kind of progression for mankind. It's interesting to see how the film ends with people just going about their business as usual - this incident hasn't really affected anyone's behaviour. That is up to the next generation and Jarman to do something about.

As a fan of Wm. Faulkner since college, I was especially pleased to see Intruder In the Dust and for other reasons. My grandfather, also named Clarence Brown as was the director, grew up in the Oxford area having been born near there in 1888. We attended a week long family reunion at Oxford in July, 1964 a mere 15 years after filming the movie. It still looked mostly like it does in the film but was going thru a period of civil rights upheaval then as the site of Ole Miss. My recollection is of its being a nice little college town that summer but I was just an 18 year old college sophomore and white. I was just then beginning to see the injustice of segregation and prejudice but still had a long way to go. Anyhow, the movie is well worth watching but the filmmakers must have had to walk a tight rope to get it done there and I would love to know more about that story.

Now days, Oxford is a larger, more modern college town with all the ills that go along with such things and I hope to return again to see how it must have changed socially in the last 40 plus years. Juano Hernandez should certainly have been nominated for an Oscar that year but Hollywood was still to bigoted itself to let that happen. Other Faulkner stories have been filmed so look for them and compare. One of the best was a PBS treatment of The Barn Burner from about 1985 or so starring Tommy Lee Jones. It really captured the intensity of rural Southern whites that Faulkner wrote so incisively about so often.

Yes, he took on the case and yes he won. But everything else about him was arrogant, rude, know-it-all. He only suspicioned that there was more to the story after the Nephew dug up the body. The lawyer did even give Lucas a chance to talk at first. Then, at the very end, he was still an arrogant, rude, know-it-all. The was absolutely nothing to like in this character. This in itself is very unusual for a story line like this, and made me feel uneasy about the lawyers future in dealing with clients. As far as the rest of the cast, they were right for their parts and story line. Most did a pretty good job. But I also felt that I was watching a WWII propaganda film in respect with all the dialog concerning "people" and how they should act VS how they do act.

I usually don't like movies based on famous and well-established authors, "sure bets". They seem to be telling the public "You can't POSSIBLY dislike this!!!" I tend to prefer movies that take chances with unknown authors or actors, movies that care for art, not money. But this one is so well-made. Everything works: the photography, the acting, the pacing, and it has that documentary beauty of real life that so few movies have (love those window shots where you see small town downtown traffic!). It's historic interest also makes it enjoyable. A kind of poetry pervades this movie that makes it far more effective than the similar "To Kill a Mockingbird". Hernandez is pure dignity - character and actor - and Jarman is a most refreshing contrast to today's smart-alecky youth. He has a humility that is touching. It is hard to imagine another actor in that role. Is this movie on the side of the angels? Sure. And the black and white poetry saves it.

A white man is killed in 1940s small town Mississippi. Proud black man Lucas Beauchamp (Juano Hernández) is arrested for the murder. He asks young Chick Mallison to get his uncle local lawyer John Gavin Stevens (David Brian) to defend him. Stevens would rather stay out of the case which everybody assumes Lucas' guilt. Lucas had helped Chick when he fell into a frozen creek and taught him about something. After a short interview, Stevens is certain of Lucas' guilt but Chick returns to hear him out. Lucas directs Chick to his own gun which is different from the murder weapon. Elderly Eunice Habersham (Elizabeth Patterson) just happens to be in Stevens' office as Chick tries to convince his uncle. Stevens is unconvinced. Chick, black servant boy Aleck and Eunice set out to prove Lucas' innocence.

Chick's relationship with Lucas is one of those big lessons like Scout in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. He doesn't know that he's learning even while he's learning it. I love the Habersham character. The story also gives a slice of small town Deep South pre-civil rights era. The racism turns a bit more towards a murder mystery later on.

Intruder in the Dust (1949) was directed by Clarence Brown The plot was adapted for the screen from a novel by William Faulkner. The scene is Oxford, Mississippi, which was Faulkner's home town. He knew what he was writing about, and what he was writing about was terrible.

Juano Hernandez portrays Lucas Beauchamp, a proud Black landowner who lives in a society where Black people aren't supposed to be proud. Beauchamp is accused of murdering a white man. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that he did, indeed, commit the murder. This portrayal of a black man who refused to bow down to prejudice is absolutely brilliant. It was certainly progressive for its time. Very few theaters in the south would even screen it..

In situations like this, no one expects a trial. Everyone knows that Beauchamp will be lynched.

John Gavin Stevens (David Brian) is Beauchamp's lawyer. Even he thinks Beauchamp is guilty. The best he can hope for is a change of venue. Then, if Beauchamp pleads guilty, he probably won't be executed. Of course, in Oxford, that trial may never happen.

Claude Jarman Jr. portrays Chick Mallison, Stevens' nephew, who is determined to save Beauchamp. This isn't a "kid detective" piece. Chick is brave and intelligent, but he can't stand up against a whole town.

Elizabeth Patterson plays Miss Eunice Habersham. Miss Habersham is an elderly upper class white woman. She is the bravest person in the movie. A scene in which she confronts the murdered man's brother was the highlight of the film for me.

We saw this movie at Rochester's wonderful Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum. It was shown as part of the "Reinventing Hollywood" series. We were able to see it in 35mm, but it will work very well on the small screen.

This film was considered very important in its time, but it's rarely screened now. It has a very high IMDb rating of 7.7. I think it's even better than that. Find it and see it!

In Mississippi men like Lucas Beauchamp (Juano Hernandez) are a rarity. A black landowner in a depressed southern town his pride and refusal to bow before the white man rankles many. When one of the Gowrie clan is found dead with Lucas standing over him the townsfolk figure the chicken has come home to roost and plan a Monday neck tie party, given Sunday is a day of worship. A young boy (Claude Jarman) once rescued by Lucas implores a reluctant lawyer (David Brian) to take his case but the mob growing impatient feels there will be no need for that.

Director Clarence Brown's sober telling is a tense tale of bigotry and injustice in which he substitutes raging fury with percolating hatred, the desire for revenge no way lost in the subtlety. The faces of hate read like a book.

Juano Hernandez gives a towering performance as a man in full in the most dire of situations. He's not free of his own petty pride but he does retain an admirable, stoic dignity in contrast to all those around him. Brian and Jarman offer interestingly conflicted performances while Will Geer, Porter Hall and Elizabeth Patterson (who threatens to steal the picture in a Mother Courage moment credibly flesh out the community.

In 1949 MGM was making a drastic transition from Louis Mayer Andy Hardy pics to Dore Schary's more serious and socially conscious films like Battleground and Intruder. Dust lost money at the box office but continues to pay off nobly to this day with its powerful message.

A very potent drama of Faulkner's small town south dealing with an innocent black man's murder of local ne'er do wll. Striking cinematography and good narrative (via flashback) take us through the uneasy relationship between the suspect and the son of his lawyer. A still powerful story that predates the Sidney Poitier films of racial prejudice. Porter Hall has a great role as the murdered man's father. Trivia: this was actually filmed in Faulkner's home town of Oxford, Miss. with many of the residents used as extras.

Powerful, intelligent film adapted from the William Faulkner novel. Lucas Beauchamp (Juano Hernandez) is accused of shooting a white man in the back and killing him. He's arrested but it's just a matter of time, as everyone in the film seems to acknowledge, before he is lynched. Lucas turns to the closest thing he has to a friend: a young white boy named Chick Mallison (Claude Jarman, Jr). Chick, together with a friend named Aleck (Elzie Emanuel) and elderly Miss Eunice Habersham (Elizabeth Patterson), tries to find out what really happened and save Lucas before he is lynched.

Truly wonderful cast. Subtle, excellent work from Hernandez. Jarman, who had won an Academy Award in his film debut The Yearling, is very good here. The real star who steals the show is Elizabeth Patterson as Miss Habersham. I was most familiar with Mrs. Patterson from her work as Mrs. Trumbull, the Ricardos' friend and neighbor on I Love Lucy. I don't know how proud she was of this film but she should have been. She gave a terrific performance. Will Geer is also fine as the Sheriff. The only flaw in the cast is David Brian as the loquacious lawyer Uncle John. It's not entirely his fault, as his character is written that way. Still, over half of the film's speechifying comes from him. Towards the end, he was getting on my nerves a little.

Thoughtful and effective drama with a surprisingly frank depiction of racism in a time such a topic was rarely addressed in film. When it was, it was usually sanitized for public consumption or so as to not alienate Southern moviegoers. It's definitely a film I would recommend everybody check out.

Directed by Clarence Brown. Starring David Brian, Juano Hernández, Claude Jarman Jr, Will Geer, Elizabeth Patterson, Porter Hall, Charles Kemper, Elzie Emanuel.

Race relations drama was daring (if not even groundbreaking) at the time of its release, but is as subtle as a brick to the face. Black man Hernández is accused of murder in Mississippi; young Jarman is determined to investigate and prove the man's innocence while his attorney uncle (Brian) reluctantly agrees to defend the suspect. Brown's pedestrian direction is aided by Robert Surtees' persuasive location photography and cautious restraint on the music cues; Ben Maddow's adaptation of William Faulkner's novel has good intentions and a decent murder mystery, but is heavy on moralizing speeches, especially toward the end. Hernández gives a fine performance, but most of his co-stars fall short; Brian's featureless pontifications get old fast, and Jarman is utterly woeful. May play better with audiences who haven't watched the surface-similar and more successful film adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

66/100

A racial melodrama from 1949. Beating similar story-lines found in To Kill a Mockingbird by 13 years, this tale of a wrongly accused black man of murder is a potent bromide on the South's notion of justice. In flashback, we meet a lawyer's nephew who befriends the man during simpler times. Not giving an inch to the way the youth sizes him up (there's a delicious sequence where he drops some coins on the ground & yells at the much older man to pick them up which he doesn't, just staring the boy down in submission) & gradually gains enough respect for him that he engages his uncle to defend the man from a white mob inching to lynch him as he sits in jail. As much as a polemic on the racial divide, this film also works as a great procedural (a body has to be disinterred to gain evidence to exonerate the accused) where the truth trumps any preconceived ideas of prejudice sending all our players on a path of discovery which had even me floored. Not too many known actors here but a special mention must go to Juano Hernandez (probably the earliest known Puerto Rican actor of note) who plays his role w/quiet dignity & a smouldering sense of pride.

Twelve years before the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and thirteen years before the release of the movie based on Harper Lee's novel, William Faulkner's book was adapted by Ben Maddow and produced and directed by Clarence Brown. David Brian plays a pipe-wielding attorney before Gregory Peck played a bespectacled attorney, but both can philosophize and set a good example for younger people, who, hopefully, will live in a South that has relegated racism as public policy to the past. Will Geer, facing his upcoming blacklisting, does a fine job as a small town sheriff and Robert Surtees's black & white cinematography is excellent. Juano Hernandez well represents a black middle class and Elizabeth Patterson is an amusing tough guy.