Intruder in the Dust (film)

Intruder in the Dust

DVD cover
Directed by Clarence Brown
Produced by Clarence Brown
Written by Ben Maddow
Starring David Brian
Claude Jarman, Jr.
Juano Hernández
Cinematography Robert Surtees
Edited by Robert Kern
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • November 22, 1949 (United States)
Running time
87 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $988,000[1][2]
Box office $837,000[1]

Intruder in the Dust is a 1949 crime drama film produced and directed by Clarence Brown and starring David Brian, Claude Jarman, Jr. and Juano Hernández. The film is based on the novel Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner.

Plot

The film closely follows the plot line of the Faulkner novel. It tells the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a poor Mississippi farmer unjustly accused of the murder of a white man.

Cast

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $643,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $194,000 elsewhere, for a worldwide box office of $837,000.[2][1]

The film earned Juano Hernández a Golden Globe nomination for "New Star of the Year".[3] The film was listed as one of the ten best of the year by the New York Times. Faulkner said of the film: "I'm not much of a moviegoer, but I did see that one. I thought it was a fine job. That Juano Hernández is a fine actor--and man, too."[4]

More than 50 years later, in 2001, film historian Donald Bogle wrote that Intruder in the Dust broke new ground in the cinematic portrayal of blacks, and Hernández's "performance and extraordinary presence still rank above that of almost any other black actor to appear in an American movie."[5]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Scott Eyman, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer, Robson, 2005 p 431
  3. "Early Black Cinema", True West Magazine, August 2005, p. 22
  4. "Faulkner's Home, Family and Heritage Were Genesis of Yoknapatawpha County". The New York Times. 7 July 1962. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
  5. Bogle, Donald (2001). Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks: an interpretive history of Blacks in American films (Fourth ed.). London: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-1267-X.

External links