Intruder in the Dust (1949)

Hollywood began to develop a conscience about racism in the 1940s, when our World War II fight against fascism began to raise consciousness about prejudice at home. As the decade drew to a close, 1949 brought four major American films that dealt with racial prejudice; while Pinky and Home of the Brave received more attention in the press and at the box office, and Lost Boundaries developed something of a cult following, Intruder in the Dust was at once the best and most underrated of this cycle about "the Negro Problem." Based on a novel by William Faulkner and shot in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Mississippi with a primarily non-professional cast, the film possesses a strikingly dry, gravelly naturalism that owes more than a passing debt to the Italian neo-realist movement (it's all the more remarkable that director Clarence Brown was able to achieve such realism under the sponsorship of Hollywood's House of Glamour, MGM). It is anchored by a superb performance from Juano Hernandez as Lucas Beauchamp, a singular African-American character of the period: displaying pride and self-knowledge without a baseless arrogance, Beauchamp was a black man who refused to "act black," deferring to no one and seemingly secure in the knowledge that he is no better and no worse than any other man. Beauchamp's stubborn refusal to be beholden to anyone, even after he's accused of murder, would make him an unusual character regardless of race; for a black man in 1949, Beauchamp was just short of revolutionary, and Hernandez brought him to life with an uncommon strength and intelligence. Hernandez had only appeared in two other films (the previous one, an Oscar Micheaux cheapie called Lying Lips, was released ten years earlier) and, like many African-American performers, he had trouble finding the roles he deserved; but his turn in this film made clear that he was as strong a character actor as anyone in Hollywood. While the film's attempt at a "feel-good" ending doesn't ring true, Intruder in the Dust is otherwise a rarity of its period, a "message movie" that's tough, unsentimental, and affecting, making its points without speechifying or mounting a soapbox. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide