Intruder in the Dust

Clarence Brown's 1949 film is adapted from William Faulkner's novel and set in Mississippi. Lucas Beauchamp is a Black farmer disliked for not bowing to white people; he is found standing over a murdered white man with a recently fired pistol and is arrested at once. Preparations for a lynching begin in the town. He says he is innocent and asks the young Chick and an elderly woman for help, and the two set about opening a grave to find the truth. The film shows racism not as an individual evil but as a habit spread through the whole town. That Lucas begs mercy from nobody was unusual in the Hollywood films of the period. It was shot in Faulkner's own town. Who it's for: viewers who like classic Hollywood and social drama. Who it's not for: anyone who will be disturbed by the language of the period and the lynching scenes.