The Intruder (1962 film)

1962 American film directed by Roger Corman

The Intruder

American film poster, bearing the re-release title of Shame

Directed by| Roger Corman
Screenplay by| Charles Beaumont
Based on| The Intruder
1959 novel
by Charles Beaumont
Produced by| Roger Corman
Starring|

* William Shatner
* Frank Maxwell
* Jeanne Cooper
* Beverly Lunsford
* Robert Emhardt
* Charles Beaumont

Cinematography| Taylor Byars
Edited by| Ronald Sinclair
Music by| Herman Stein

Production
company

Los Altos Productions

Distributed by|

* Pathé-America Distribution Company
* Cinema Distributors of America

Release date

* May 16, 1962 (1962-05-16) (New York City)

Running time

| 84 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $90,000-100,000[1][2]

The Intruder, also known as I Hate Your Guts, Shame and The Stranger (British title), is a 1962 American drama film directed and co-produced by Roger Corman and starring William Shatner.[3] The story, adapted by Charles Beaumont from his own 1959 novel of the same title, depicts the machinations of a racist named Adam Cramer (portrayed by Shatner), who arrives in the fictitious small Southern town of Caxton in order to incite White townspeople to racial violence against Black townspeople and court-ordered school integration.

## Plot

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In the early 1960s, Adam Cramer arrives in the small Southern town of Caxton with an agenda that soon becomes clear. Caxton's "Whites only" high school is about to undergo forced desegregation and admit Black students due to a court order, and the racist Cramer, purportedly working on behalf of an organization called The Patrick Henry Society, is working to incite the White townspeople to strongly and possibly violently resist the desegregation. Although Cramer is not from the area or even from the South (shown by his lack of a Southern accent), he quickly charms most of the people he meets, presenting himself as a confident, smooth-talking, well-mannered gentleman. He quickly convinces wealthy landowner Verne Shipman to back him, and seduces Ella, the pretty teenage daughter of the local newspaper editor Tom McDaniel.

The White locals are not happy about having Black students attend the "White school", but prior to Cramer's arrival, most were prepared to grudgingly comply with the law. However, after Cramer, with Shipman's help, makes an inflammatory speech in front of the town hall and organizes a cross burning in the Black neighborhood, the Whites are moved to violence, first threatening a Black family who happen to be driving through town after Cramer's speech, and then blowing up the local Black church, killing the preacher. After the church bombing, Cramer is jailed, but the locals join together to get him quickly released.

Apart from his racist rabblerousing, Cramer also seduces Vi, the emotionally unstable wife of traveling salesman Sam Griffin, Cramer's next door neighbor at the Caxton hotel. Vi, ashamed of her lapse, leaves Griffin, who figures out what happened and comes after Cramer with Cramer's own gun. The terrified Cramer's confident facade crumbles for the first time; when he manages to get the gun and point it back at Griffin, he is too weak to pull the trigger, and Griffin reveals that he had removed the bullets from the gun before the confrontation. Griffin states that he will remain in town to keep an eye on Cramer, and predicts that he will soon lose control of the racially charged tensions that he has ignited in the town.

McDaniel, after seeing Cramer in action, realizes that his own sympathies are with the Black residents and feels compelled to stand with them against the racists. After the preacher is killed, the families of the Black students hesitate to send their children back to the White high school for fear of more violence, but McDaniel encourages them, and walks the students to school himself through the town past the disapproving glares of other White townspeople. After the students enter the school, several townspeople confront and severely beat McDaniel, causing him to be hospitalized with broken ribs, internal injuries and the loss of an eye. Cramer secretly meets with Ella, who is upset and worried about her father, and convinces her that the townspeople are planning to kill her father and that the only way to save him is for Ella to do what Cramer says.

Ella, following Cramer's directions, lures her Black classmate Joey Green to a storage room on the pretext of helping her get some heavy boxes from a high shelf. She then screams and falsely accuses him of attempting to rape her. Joey denies it, and the principal believes him, but also knows that most people will believe Ella. An angry mob led by Cramer and Shipman forms in front of the school. Joey, rather than escape out the back door with the principal and attempt to reach the safety of the sheriff's office, insists on going out to confront the mob. Shipman beats Joey and the mob begins to lynch him on the school playground swing set. Suddenly Griffin appears with Ella, who confesses that she lied at Cramer's instigation in order to save her father's life. In front of the mob, Ella apologizes to Joey, telling him that Cramer said he would not be harmed and would only be expelled from the White school. Griffin tells the crowd that they are probably now pretending to themselves that they were just going to take Joey to jail, but that they will know for the rest of their lives that they were going to murder him. Realizing that they have been manipulated by Cramer, the townspeople slowly walk away, ignoring Cramer's exhortations, until only he and Griffin are left on the empty playground. Griffin tells Cramer that his "work" in Caxton is finished and that he should catch the next bus out of town.

## Cast

[edit]

* William Shatner as Adam Cramer
* Frank Maxwell as Tom McDaniel
* Beverly Lunsford as Ella McDaniel
* Robert Emhardt as Verne Shipman
* Leo Gordon as Sam Griffin
* Charles Barnes as Joey Greene
* Charles Beaumont as Mr. Paton
* Katherine Smith as Ruth McDaniel
* George Clayton Johnson as Phil West
* William F. Nolan as Bart Carey
* Jeanne Cooper as Vi Griffin
* Phoebe Rowe as Mrs. Lambert

The film's cast features a number of writers. Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson and William F. Nolan were all working screenwriters and novelists; all three of them make their only acting appearance in a feature film in The Intruder. Leo Gordon was also an established screenwriter, writing several novels and films, and over 50 teleplays for various shows, while maintaining a concurrent acting career. Star William Shatner would, years later, also write numerous novels and memoirs.

## Production

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### Development

[edit]

In 1958, inspired by real-life events in Tennessee involving a Northern bigot going into town and inciting racial conflict (most notably John Kasper and his intrusion into Clinton, Tennessee), Charles Beaumont wrote a novel called The Intruder.[4] Not long after its publication, the film rights were optioned by Seven Arts.[5][6] They were unable to get the project off the ground, and Corman bought the rights in 1960.[7] He tried to get the film made with producer Edward Small for United Artists but Small pulled out.[5] He then envisioned the film costing $500,000 and starring Tony Randall.[8] However, he was unable to raise enough money, with the movie being turned down by UA, Allied Artists and AIP. Corman managed to raise some funds from Pathé Labs, with Corman and his brother Gene putting in the balance.[9] Gene Corman later said:

> We put our hearts, our souls – and what few people do – our money into this picture. Everybody asked us 'Why would you make this picture?' as if to say why try to do something you believe in when everything else is so profitable. Obviously, we did it because we wanted to, and we think it's a damn good job.[1]

### Shooting

[edit]

It was shot in black-and-white over three and a half weeks on location in southeast Missouri. Some of the production took place in East Prairie, Charleston and Sikeston. Corman presented a watered-down version of the script to the townspeople, but they still did not like it. Before it was finished, local people objected to the film's portrayal of racism and segregation.[10]

In an interview in 2006, Roger Corman explained how he filmed William Shatner's racist speech with a crowd of townspeople present:

> "When we did this scene we needed a crowd, so we announced on the local radio station that we were going to shoot a meeting at the town hall. And I knew from experience that people come out to see a picture shoot, because they’re interested, but then they find out how long it takes to set up the camera between shots and so forth and then they start drifting away. So my first shots were the big reaction shots, because I knew we would have a smaller crowd later on. Bill was doing the speech, but not every single line. It wasn’t until three or four in the morning that we reversed the camera on Bill and he did his whole speech. By that time his voice had become a little bit hoarse, but I thought it actually added something to his performance."[11]

According to Filmink Gene Corman's contribution to the film was crucial and often overlooked.[12]

## Reception

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The movie received some good reviews but encountered difficulty obtaining release. Pathé released it in New York, but eventually pulled out and the Corman brothers took over distributing the movie themselves.[1] It had a budget of only $90,000.[2]

The New York Times' Bosley Crowther published a somewhat negative review of The Intruder in May, 1962, describing it as "an angry little film", that "...spews so much anti-Negro venom and so many ugly epithets that it makes one squirm with distaste and uneasiness..." Crowther criticized the movie as being "...crudely fashioned from obvious clichés and stereotypes..." However, Crowther included a few favorable comments about the film as well, adding: "... it does break fertile ground in the area of integration that has not yet been opened on the screen. And it does so with obvious good intentions and a great deal of raw, arresting power in many of its individual details and in the aspects of several characters."[13]

Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic, after praising the film's camerawork, editing, and most its performances wrote: "The Intruder forcefully reports a contemporary ugliness, but that report is no longer news. Its lack of context, its irrelevant sexual excursions, its final falseness, its air of a daring descent into moral slums, insure that it will have little helpful effect on the appalling situation it depicts so vividly".[14]

Corman sold the film to Mike Ripps who ran Cinema Distributors of America which had recently reissued the film Bayou under the title Poor White Trash.[15]

In an interview, Roger Corman explained why he thinks the movie failed to find an audience:

> "I think it failed for two reasons. One: the audience at that time, the early sixties, simply didn’t want to see a picture about racial integration. Two: it was more of a lecture. From that moment on I thought my films should be entertainment on the surface and I should deliver any theme or idea or concept beneath the surface."[11]

Filmink magazine later theorized "white American audiences...generally prefer to confront racism either via allegory or through period pieces as opposed to stories set in the present day… This was too raw."[16]

## See also

[edit]

* Civil rights movement in popular culture

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c Seidenbaum, Art (March 23, 1963). "Chained By Timidity: 'The Intruder' Seeks Release". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 168300813.
2. ^ a b Dixon, Wheeler Winston (August 2005). "Roger Corman". Senses of Cinema. Archived from the original on August 28, 2006.
3. ^ "The Intruder". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved 24 October 2024.
4. ^ Kotsonis, Stefano; Chakrabarti, Meghna (June 28, 2023). "'A most tolerant little town': The forgotten story of desegregation in Clinton, Tennessee". WBUR. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
5. ^ a b McGee, Mark (1996). "'Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures". McFarland. pp. 187–189.187-189&rft.date=1996&rft.aulast=McGee&rft.aufirst=Mark&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:The+Intruder+(1962+film)" class="Z3988">
6. ^ "Briefs from the lots". Variety. 23 December 1958. p. 21.
7. ^ "FILMLAND EVENTS: Corman Has Acquired Rights to 'Intruder'". Los Angeles Times. January 4, 1960. p. C15.
8. ^ McCarthy, Todd (February 5, 1978). "Movies: A Swarm of B's From Roger Corman Corman Festival". Los Angeles Times. p. m31.
9. ^ Corman, Roger; Jerome, Jim (1990). How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never lost a Dime. Muller. p. 98.
10. ^ The Intruder (DVD) ("Remembering The Intruder" featurette). Buena Vista Home Entertainment. 2007.
11. ^ a b "Roger Corman interview (2)". The Flashback Files. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
12. ^ Vagg, Stephen (18 May 2024). "Top Ten Corman – Part Five, Gene Corman". Filmink.
13. ^ Crowther, Bosley (15 May 1962). "Screen: 'The Intruder':Drama About School Integration Opens". The New York Times.
14. ^ "Stanley Kauffmann on films". The New Republic. 1962-05-28.
15. ^ "Let-Rips-With-Race-Bally". Variety. 19 December 1962. p. 5.
16. ^ Vagg, Stephen (19 May 2024). "Top Ten Corman – Part Six, Arty Efforts". Filmink. Retrieved 21 January 2025.

## External links

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* The Intruder on YouTube
* The Intruder at IMDb
* The Intruder at the TCM Movie Database
* The Intruder at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
* The Intruder at Rotten Tomatoes
* Shame is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
* Sam Hamm on The Intruder at Trailers From Hell
* Original soundtrack of The Intruder

* v
* t
* e

Roger Corman

Filmography

Director|

* Five Guns West (1955)
* Apache Woman (1955)
* Day the World Ended (1955)
* The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955, uncredited)
* Swamp Women (1956)
* The Oklahoma Woman (1956)
* Gunslinger (1956)
* It Conquered the World (1956)
* Naked Paradise (1957)
* Carnival Rock (1957)
* Not of This Earth (1957)
* Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
* The Undead (1957)
* Rock All Night (1957)
* Teenage Doll (1957)
* Sorority Girl (1957)
* The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957)
* I Mobster (1958)
* War of the Satellites (1958)
* Machine-Gun Kelly (1958)
* Teenage Caveman (1958)
* She Gods of Shark Reef (1958)
* A Bucket of Blood (1959)
* The Wasp Woman (1959)
* Ski Troop Attack (1960)
* House of Usher (1960)
* The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
* Last Woman on Earth (1960)
* Atlas (1961)
* Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)
* The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
* The Premature Burial (1962)
* The Intruder (1962)
* Tales of Terror (1962)
* Tower of London (1962)
* The Young Racers (1963)
* The Raven (1963)
* The Terror (1963)
* The Haunted Palace (1963)
* X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963)
* The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
* The Secret Invasion (1964)
* The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
* The Wild Angels (1966)
* The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
* The Trip (1967)
* A Time for Killing (1967, uncredited)
* The Wild Racers (1968, uncredited)
* Target: Harry (1969)
* De Sade (1969, uncredited)
* Bloody Mama (1970)
* Gas-s-s-s (1970)
* Von Richthofen and Brown (1971)
* Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Producer only|

* Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954)
* The Fast and the Furious (1954)
* Dementia 13 (1963)
* Devil's Angels (1967)
* Boxcar Bertha (1972)
* Unholy Rollers (1972)
* I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973)
* Cockfighter (1974)
* Big Bad Mama (1974)
* Capone (1975)
* Death Race 2000 (1975)
* Fighting Mad (1976)
* Eat My Dust! (1976)
* Thunder and Lightning (1977)
* Deathsport (1978)
* Avalanche (1978)
* Saint Jack (1979)
* Fast Charlie... the Moonbeam Rider (1979)
* Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
* Smokey Bites the Dust (1981)
* Galaxy of Terror (1981)
* Forbidden World (1982)
* Space Raiders (1983)
* Love Letters (1984)
* Cocaine Wars (1985)
* Big Bad Mama II (1987)
* Munchies (1987)
* The Terror Within (1989)
* Two to Tango (1989)
* Bloodfist (1989)
* Lords of the Deep (1989)
* Time Trackers (1989)
* Overexposed (1990)
* Watchers II (1990)
* Immortal Sins (1991)
* Kill Zone (1993)
* Dracula Rising (1993)
* Hellfire (1995)
* Scene of the Crime (1996)
* Black Scorpion II (1997)
* A Very Unlucky Leprechaun (1998)
* Running Woman (1998)
* The Haunting of Hell House (1999)
* White Pony (1999)
* Enemy Action (1999)
* The Suicide Club (2000)
* Stray Bullet II (2000)
* Moving Target (2000)
* Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time (2000)
* Nightfall (2000)
* Raptor (2001)
* When Eagles Strike (2003)
* The Hunt for Eagle One (2006)
* The Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point (2006)
* Saurian (2006)
* Cyclops (2008)
* Splatter (2009)
* Dinoshark (2010)
* Sharktopus (2010)
* Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader (2012)
* Palace of the Damned (2013)
* Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (2014)
* Fist of the Dragon (2014)
* Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (2015)
* Death Race 2050 (2017)

Related|

* Julie Corman (wife)
* Gene Corman (brother)
* Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
* Roger Corman Presents
* New World Pictures
* The Filmgroup
* New Concorde
* American International Pictures
* Millennium
* Concorde Anois
* New Hollywood

* v
* t
* e

Charles Beaumont

Short story collections|

* The Hunger and Other Stories (1957)
* Yonder (1958)
* Night Ride and Other Journeys (1960)

Teleplays|

* "Perchance to Dream"
* "Elegy"
* "Long Live Walter Jameson"
* "A Nice Place to Visit"
* "The Howling Man"
* "Static"
* "The Prime Mover"
* "Long Distance Call"
* "Shadow Play"
* "The Jungle"
* "Dead Man's Shoes"
* "The Fugitive"
* "Person or Persons Unknown"
* "In His Image"
* "Valley of the Shadow"
* "Miniature"
* "Printer's Devil"
* "The New Exhibit"
* "Passage on the Lady Anne"
* "Living Doll"
* "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"
* "Queen of the Nile"

Screenplays|

* Queen of Outer Space (1958)
* Night of the Eagle (1962)
* Premature Burial (1962)
* The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
* The Intruder (1962)
* The Haunted Palace (1963)
* 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
* The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
* Brain Dead (1990)

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