INTRUDER IN THE DUST (1949)

Clarence Brown was the most naturally gifted of M-G-M’s top ‘house directors.’  (Robert Z. Leonard, Sidney Franklin, T.S. Van Dyke the others; contenders like Jack Conway a full tier lower.)  But how much is that saying at producer-oriented M-G-M, film factory of L.B. Mayer & Irving Thalberg?  In Brown’s case, more than he gets credit for.  A bit like Henry King over at 20th/Fox, his critical rep held down by dud prestige assignments he couldn’t refuse and wasn’t right for.*  But give Brown something in his element, like kids or Americana, and he was a director to reckon with.  This daring adaptation of a recent William Faulkner novel (script by Ben Maddow a year before he wrote THE ASPHALT JUNGLE with John Huston) is Brown’s last substantial work, and a great one.  Yards ahead of other racially progressive films starting to come out, and, unlike so many progressive films, not dating faster then last night's talk show.  Shot on location in Mississippi (what a difference that makes!), its racially motivated story of a stubborn, independent Black man charged with a White man’s murder in a town heaving with lynch-anticipation still powerful, and not afraid to be off-putting or amusing.  The scenes of the whole town buzzing with carnival-like excitement at the possibility for violence still astonishing.  As if the build-up to the desegregation riots of a decade later were being caught in advance.  Whatever did the hundreds of local Moms/Pops/Kids used as extras, think when they saw the pic?  Did it play at the town bijou?  As the man charged with murder, .Juano Hernandez isn’t anything like the noble, worthy victims usually put in these roles.  But then, much could be said for the whole cast, catching the sophisticated, complicated treatment you’d imagine from Faulkner.  Will Geer as a neighboring sheriff you expect the worst from, particularly fine here.  So too the few Hollywood supporting players (Elizabeth Patterson, Porter Hall) getting a rare chance to sink their teeth in something other than their default character personae.  Superbly caught locations & atmosphere in Robert Surtees’ lensing, just a speck of process work; hardly any score either.  The film ought to be better known and celebrated; perhaps the tough dialogue is too uncomfortably accurate to pass nowadays.  

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  *Brown’s rep still based on dull, slow moving early Garbo Talkies, so his best known titles are some of his worst.  Instead, try something as thrillingly rough as THE TRAIL OF ‘98/’28; as sexy as A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS/’28; as fully lived in as POSSESSED/’31 or as warmly humane & funny as AH, WILDERNESS/’35.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-trail-of-98-1928.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/03/possessed-1931.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/04/ah-wilderness-1935.html