In 1940s Mississippi, two teenage boys and an elderly woman combine forces to prevent a miscarriage of justice and clear a black man of a murder charge.In 1940s Mississippi, two teenage boys and an elderly woman combine forces to prevent a miscarriage of justice and clear a black man of a murder charge.In 1940s Mississippi, two teenage boys and an elderly woman combine forces to prevent a miscarriage of justice and clear a black man of a murder charge.
- Won 1 BAFTA Award
- 3 wins & 8 nominations total
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
- Child with Yo-Yo
- (uncredited)
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
- Man in Crowd
- (uncredited)
- Customer
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film is generally considered as breaking new ground in its depiction of blacks on screen. In 1949 it was certainly highly progressive in the way it portrayed African-Americans.
- GoofsWhen Chick comes out of the water, his hair is dry even though he had been completely underwater. Then he goes to Lucas's cabin and takes off his wet clothes, and his hair is wet.
- Quotes
John Gavin Stevens: Lucas, has it ever occurred to you if you just said "mister" to white people and said it like you meant it, you might not be sitting here now?
Lucas Beauchamp: So I'm to commence now? I can start off by saying "mister" to the folks that drag me outta here and builds a fire under me.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Some of the Best: Twenty-Five Years of Motion Picture Leadership (1949)
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.
- zetes
- Jan 20, 2003
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $988,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 27 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1