Intruder in the dust1/14/2024 ![]() Taking his cast and his cameras down to Oxford, Miss., itself-the town frankly acknowledged as the "Jefferson" of Mr. It is a drama of fateful decisions by a young lawyer in the town, a drama of the quiet determination of an old lady who believes in doing "right." And particularly, it is the drama of a proud, noble, arrogant Negro man who would rather be lynched in fiery torture than surrender his stolid dignity.If these sound like large illuminations to be accomplished upon the screen in the course of a ninety-minute picture that is also action-crammed, you may find the attesting explanation in Mr. It is a drama of the torturing tensions within a 16-year-old white boy who hates, yet admires, the doughty Negro whose innocent life is at stake. And it is also, strictly on the surface, a story of shrewd detective work by a young Southern lawyer and a Sheriff in tracing a callous murderer.But, essentially, this is a drama of the merciless wrench and strain of attitudes and emotions in a handful of people in a Southern town who react to the terrible dilemma that the crisis of the Negro presents. On the surface, it is a story of a desperate and courageous attempt to save an innocent Negro from lynching at the hands of a mob-a story of how three people, an old lady and two frightened boys, open a grave at midnight and find the evidence that helps to save the man. Brown has put upon the screen is as solemn and spooky a mystery as you'll ever want to see, powerfully pieced together out of incidents of the most electric sort. As a matter of fact, the deeper meanings might be utterly missed by some who should still find this film a creeping "thriller" that will turn them, temporarily, to stone.And this is because the story Ben Maddow has expertly derived from Mr. And without one moment's hesitation, this corner, still shaking, proclaims that it is probably this year's pre-eminent picture and one of the great cinema dramas of our times.For here, at last, is a picture that slashes right down to the core of the complex of racial resentments and social divisions in the South-which cosmically mocks the hollow pretense of "white supremacy"-and does it in terms of visual action and realistic drama at its best. Under the title of the novel, it opened at the Mayfair yesterday. Out of the mordant material of William Faulkner's "Intruder in the Dust," which told a savage story of an averted lynching in a sleepy Southern town, Producer-Director Clarence Brown has made a brilliant stirring film.
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