|
After
the U.S.S. Enterprise passes through a time warp, Captain
Kirk beams down to 1960s Earth to infiltrate an anti-civil
rights organization in the American south... Well, not really.
Five years before strapping on a phaser as everyone's favorite
space cowboy the then-unknown William Shatner had the starring
role in Roger Corman's bold, controversial and least commercial
film, The Intruder. As rabble-rousing
hatemonger Adam Cramer, Shatner essays perhaps his finest
screen performance. The Intruder
is also the most important film B-movie impresario Corman
ever directed. It's a fascinating fictional document of the
most shameful, turbulent period in 20th Century American history.
Corman had real balls to make this picture when he did.
On the eve of court-ordered school desegregation,
slick young northerner Cramer arrives in Caxton, a small sleepy
town in an unidentified southern state. He's a representative
of the "Patrick Henry Society", a right wing organization
based in Washington D.C., come to foment white rebellion against
the civil rights movement. Ingratiating himself to rednecks
and prominent citizens alike, Cramer delivers a blistering
speech to Caxton's white residents on the steps of the local
courthouse. He blames the "commie" NAACP and their
"Jew" allies for integration of blacks into white
society, appealing to the people's patriotism. To cheers,
applause and rebel yells, Cramer vows a fight to keep the
country "free, white, and American." He's found
a powerful ally in Mr. Shipman (Robert Emhardt), the richest
man in the county, and now has the common folk eating out
of his hand. But this agent provocateur has other agendas:
chiefly, getting into the pants of a teenage high school girl
— daughter of the town's pro-integration
newspaper editor — and Vi (Jeanne Cooper), the nympho
wife of the traveling salesman staying in the hotel room down
the hall.
At first Cramer's
"extracurricular" activities don't interfere with his political
mission. Still, things swiftly get out of control; the clever
agitator has opened a Pandora's box he doesn't quite know
how to close. After Cramer leads the local KKK chapter in
a cross burning in Caxton's black section, two rednecks throw
dynamite through the window of a black church, killing the
pastor. While it seems that Cramer doesn't want the situation
to escalate into violence (not yet, anyway), he's not entirely
displeased with the incident. His being thrown into jail —
only to be bailed out by indignant white townsfolk — would
indicate that his plan is working only too well. But Cramer's
seamy sexual dalliances begin to unravel things. Ultimately,
it is the courage of the blacks and few whites willing to
stand up to the racist mob that will prove his undoing.
The Intruder
is an important film, uncommonly frank for its day. The script
by Twilight Zone scribe Charles Beaumont, based on
his controversial novel, pulls no punches. The fact that it
was shot on location in rural Missouri, using many local non-actors
in the cast, adds a startling "you are there" documentary
feel to the narrative. The stark black and white photography
also lends great realism, more than any color film could evoke
—
is not that era of American history, some 40 years on, now
recalled only in black and white images of the March on Selma,
or the confrontation on Birmingham's Pettus Bridge?
Shatner is electric as Cramer; the rest of the small cast
of professional actors is also terrific, particularly Frank
Maxwell as the conflicted editor who stands up for justice
and pays a heavy price. Veteran character actor Leo Gordon,
as the traveling salesman whose wife sleeps with Cramer, will
surprise you with the complex turn his character takes.
While a fictional tale, Corman's The
Intruder daringly and dramatically captures a moment
in time when America stood at a profound moral crossroads.
The B-movie king takes great pride in the film even though
it was his first endeavor to ever lose money at the boxoffice.
His pride is not misplaced.
|
