The Intruder (1962) on Netflix
Adam Cramer comes to Caxton, a small Southern town where a court order will soon desegregate the White high school. He means to turn the townspeople against it.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.5/104,707 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Caxton's high school is due, under a court order, to admit Black students for the first time. The town's White residents object to the order, yet most of them seem ready to live with it. Adam Cramer arrives from outside the South and presents himself as a social reformer, though his real purpose is to stir the town into resisting the change. He works for an organization called the Patrick Henry Society, and his confident, genial manner wins over almost everyone he meets. The wealthy landowner Verne Shipman agrees to back him, and he seduces Ella, the teenage daughter of Tom McDaniel, who edits the town newspaper.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Intruder (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Corman showed local townspeople a diluted version of the script, but they disapproved of it and objected to the film's portrayal of racism and segregation. On the last day of filming, the National Guard, policemen and firemen were summoned to keep the peace, and afterwards the Cormans funded actor Charles Barnes' relocation to the North to ensure his safety.
- Charles Beaumont's novel The Intruder, which he adapted into the film, was inspired by real-life events in Tennessee involving John Kasper, a Northern bigot who incited racial conflict in Clinton, Tennessee.
- Corman needed a crowd for William Shatner's racist speech, so he announced on local radio that a town-hall meeting would be filmed. Knowing that onlookers drift away during long camera setups, he shot the big reaction shots first, while the crowd was still large.
- Roger Corman said audiences in the early 1960s simply did not want to see a picture about racial integration, and that from that moment on he decided his films should be entertainment on the surface, with any theme or idea delivered beneath it.
- Corman envisioned The Intruder as a $500,000 film starring Tony Randall, but he was unable to raise enough money: the project was declined by United Artists, Allied Artists and AIP.
- Three working screenwriters, Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan, appear in the cast of The Intruder, each making his only acting appearance in a feature film.
