The Intruder

Roger Corman is most famous for making cheap movies that turned in a big profit. As you might expect, therefore, a vast number of these were absolute rubbish that made you wonder how they ever managed to make a penny, let alone a profit. It is highly ironic therefore that The Intruder is both Corman's first non-profit making film, and one of his very best. Most of Corman's films, while at times entertaining and fun to watch, don't have much in terms of substance; but this is not the case with The Intruder - a film which both entertains and makes you think. The film focuses on Adam Cramer - public speaker and devout racist, dedicated to turning small towns across America against the idea of social integration. The courts have ordered the policy, and so Cramer sets out about inspiring hatred to create a mob to put an end to social integration by brute force. All is going well for the man and his hateful agenda, but when events start to escalate, he finds that the mob he has created is stronger than its leader.

I know that this film didn't cost much to make because it was directed by Roger Corman, but if you didn't know that; you'd never have guessed. There are no big stunts in the film, but the production values are surprisingly high and the acting surprisingly good. The Intruder is bolstered by an excellent performance from William Shatner. Corman apparently blamed the poor box office run on Shatner - but I have no idea why! Shatner does a great job of providing a great portrait of his character - suitably slimy, yet obviously cowardly beneath his confidant public persona. Perhaps the best thing about this film is its simplicity. Bigger films such as American History X have attempted to make a point about racism with not as much success as Corman has here. The scenes that show the crowds really getting behind Cramer's words of hatred are poignant indeed, and the conclusion to the tale both makes a point about bigots and provides a suitable conclusion to Adam Cramer's character arc. Overall, The Intruder is one of the best and most though-provoking films on the tentative subject of racism that I have ever seen, and it comes highly recommended to all!

I watched this for free at YouTube. I was expecting cardboard characters and clichés from the mouth of a virtually unknown William Shatner.William Shatner is brilliant. Charleton Heston or Burt Lancaster or Gregory Peck could not have done better.

In a confrontation scene between Shatner and Leo Gordon the tension builds to a magnificent and believable ending. Each actor and actress is wonderful. The local townsfolk come across as the real thing.

This is a movie about racism that does not have a filter. Nothing is corrected to protect the ears of the viewer and listener. Not all white folks are bad or stupid or anything. This was an era. These are the kinds of people we might find dealing with a national issue. Some of the people black and white wanted integration and some were opposed and some were violently opposed.

I don't think there is a more accurate movie about the times represented here. There are bigger budget movies.

This one is too bold for TV. Maybe the internet will bring it back to some top ten lists. Well worth watching.

I wholeheartedly agree with pjmuck's review. The movie does deal with racism. The plot is delivered in a "far from contrived" manner. The movie is believable and makes (not meant to offend) the movie To Kill a Mockingbird's delivery as tame as a Disney short.

What you are not being told is the history behind this movie. It has been released and released under many names including it's original name "I Hate Your Guts" and then "Shame". The reason for this is because the movie is so realistic, it is taboo and is disturbing.

Please note: It's not gory disturbing, it's people disturbing; you can actually believe that a small community of individuals will react as this community does to the suggestions of an outsider, William Shatner.

And the performance from Shatner, my lord!, you will not believe it's William Shatner!

If you are a film buff, buy the DVD, don't even bother renting. The VHS went Out Of Print Quickly, I am not going to miss owning this on DVD. Great viewing!

The Intruder (1962)

Daring, bare bones, raw, insensitive, necessary, superb. And flawed. And terrific.

It's what a good movie strives to be--saying something, sucking you in, chewing you up, leaving you impressed and interested and glad.

Where to start? Rather than mention the main actor, it's better to say that here is a rare film, a low-budget black and white drama, that deals with racism in the early days of de-segregation directly. It mostly shows the bigoted South--the map on the wall implied Missouri, so it's not even the deep South of Alabama. When ten black children are told by Federal law to attend the white school, the town has largely and bitterly gone along. It's the law. But a troublemaker comes in to stir things up, and we see a caricatured but not so wrong impression of the worst sides of ordinary people who grew up thinking segregation was normal and good.

That actor? William Shatner, of Star Trek legend (beginning in 1966). Here he shows he can pretty much act. I say pretty much as a kind of compliment to the movie makers, especially the big force behind the film, its look and its theme, Roger Corman. Because this is no Brando or Newman coming in to really command the town, the movie, the racial injustice. That would be too impressive, and with Shatner we have something is almost what you picture really happening. The rest of the movie is no documentary, for sure, and so the need to be cinematic and theatrical is met. The cast is a gritty, drawling bunch of regular folk, and my guess is that Southerners didn't appreciate the typecasting. But I've lived in a small Southern town much like this one, and it is not so far from the truth. Simplified for the movie, but the general drift is there.

The themes (segregation, racism, etc.) are clichés, kind of, and a little uncomplicated, but if you think of when the movie came out you can appreciate how it might have resonated then. It's not a masterpiece of slick filmmaking, not at all, but it's a masterpiece in some other sense of high drama, fast editing, and pertinent material. It was shot in several locations in Missouri. To compare them even briefly to the high profile films about race and racism, many of them starring Sidney Poitier, you can see how polite and restrained those films are, and how really afraid they are. This one is above all fearless. It hams, it exaggerates, it uses stereotypes, it ignores human complexity. But it works. Very much. See it.

As a white Northerner at 15, I had no idea in 1960 of what rude realities awaited me as I hitchhiked through the South that summer. In Birmingham I was thrown into the two worlds of black/white; I was escorted out of the black's bathroom at the bus station, kindly - gently - but firmly. I witnessed prayer-sayers at street corners extolling salvation and gateways leading away from oppression, people coerced to sit in the crowded back of the bus... whites throwing epitaphs at anyone black who happened to pass by... By the time I reached New Orleans, I had had a complete education in racial prejudice and hate. I was stunned.

So forty years later I watched the Intruder. It left me cold and I begin remembering that trip to the South so long ago. Sitting here in my easy chair in South Carolina today, I can say that some things have changed and some things haven't.

The movie, at least from my experience, presents a milieu that is faithfully true of the South in the early '60's. Of course, it descends from that point into the murky depths of the manipulation of fear and hatred within the human spirit. It is a raw, dramatic expose - hard to watch at times. And I can't respect enough that this movie is so cutting edge and so truly represents the attitudes and motivations of folks during those days.

For the adventurer who has a curiosity of how life was in that period, and for the psychology buff who is interested in the roots of human nature, this movie is a must.

dnk