The Intruder (Roger Corman, 1962)

[Mr Sausage]

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[knives]

Here’s my review from the ‘60s thread.

Corman takes his familiarity with monster movies and transcribes it to the most human of monsters for a film that even sixty years later took me off guard and left me scared. It really shows that when push comes to shove Corman could have made a serious horror film and simply chose to occupy camp.

There’s many fascinating things the film does to ensure we take Shatner’s point of view in the same way you do some kaiju. We’re fascinated by him because we always know the potential of his destruction and wonder how he will be defeated. There’s even this big subplot to setup how the film will break him which also serves to ensure that no one in the audience will nod along and think the film serves as an endorsement.

The almost alien humanity of Shatner is emphasized directly and indirectly. The original title pushes him away. He’s not someone who should be involved. He’s an intruder. This framing makes him unpredictable in his danger, but what makes him a great villain is that he didn’t even need to show up. This town was prepared to lynch somebody in any case.

How the town is portrayed is what disturbed me the most because of how real the motives felt especially from the default heroes whose motivation is unpleasant. Every white in town agrees that integration is wrong. Our eventual hero is a newspaper man the film makes clear has been rallying against integration for years. What they can’t agree on is if the law saying they need to integrate actually settles this business. Shatner’s repeated, “whose law,” is a potent question for the townsfolk who wonder if they are being dictated to. For most it seems they affirm the question. There’s this incredible scene where the newsman has just helped walk some African American students to school and his wife says she doesn’t understand him, but will try because she loves him.

Love, in a harsh light, seems to be the center of Corman’s message. The problem he’s addressing is one we’re still feeling as the film argues that the only way to have the millions of casual racists in the country accept changes in law and custom which benefit minorities is to have them trust the law. Trust can be born out of respect, love, or experience but it is a hard earned thing especially when the politics of Shatner’s small minded grievance allow one to lazily affirm pre-existing points of view. Change is hard and even though our nasty little kaiju is defeated what he was stirring is still on the fire.

It’s a bit sad that this failed commercially as it highlights all the right lessons Corman had learned in his first decade of filmmaking and it’s success could have re-enforced the potential to make serious or personal cinema without a gimmick. Of course as even my discomfort shows this message of integration being necessary, but probably only those with the worst motivations being able to make it a success was always guaranteed to fail. A monster that is mindlessly evil or represents a abstract fear is fine, but one that forces you to confront your feelings on all sides of the aisle when successful hurts.

[therewillbeblus]

On the surface this is baldfaced didacticism but not trying to be anything else, and I found these elements to be effectively cutting punctures at humans’ dexterity to descend from introverted racism into actionable mob mentality with a mobility of slippery ease. The most interesting aspect of the film, however, was in musing on Corman’s perceived relationship to the Shatner character, which was very much not on the surface level. Shatner’s fears and insecurities are driving his actions manifesting as false pride and confidence, like most people, and this is a point that's hit upon with a sledgehammer by the script. Whether his anxiety is sourced in fear-based loss of dominant status as a white man, or even taking race out of the equation to present the common malady of culture-less whites' existential vacancy that needs filling (magnetism to 'hate' is an easy tangible connotation for the secondary emotion of anger sourced in aching vulnerability), who’s to say. He inspires action but can’t commit them himself- using persuasive speech as a tool to lead others to engage in actionable behavior that he is too afraid to touch with anything other than half-measures, diffusing responsibility when real consequences begin to cement.

Counter to Shatler’s racist, Corman mirrors him by using language via cinema (and the half-measured action of creating it, just like Shatner acts by directing others) to hopefully inspire front-lines action from the consumers of the film. Corman sees both the value in being the verbal leader of a flock, including the allure of that power and the weight of that responsibility, but he also understands the limitations, the impotence involved, and the admission of anxiety around doing ‘more’ and humbling oneself to be just like any other guy on either side of the picket line. In some ways, it’s a meditation on powerlessness, and power within restrictions.

The ending to the film -where Shatner fruitlessly cries out, his one superpower now futile, falling on deaf ears- is contextually poignant in hindsight… Is this how Corman felt after this film failed to garner enthusiasm, as he defended himself against accusations of communism or the inane charge that he was taking Shatner’s side, or is this merely a personification of his exhaustion as this film didn’t manage to change the world like he wanted it to? I think it’s the latter, but not that diluted, for surely Corman predicted as much of an outcome, that he knew his constrictions as an artist didn’t mesh with his overachieving and fantastical plans as a director who can reach the world… a split between unwanted humility and frustrations of ego-curbing, externalized into a lonely exclamation and rejection to end the film.

Can ‘manipulation’ be justified when it’s used by a raw exploitation filmmaker for moral reasons toward social harmony? Action is what matters, but we can only do so much, and the shades of what constitutes authentic vs protective, passive action is subtly at the heart of the film. It's easier to direct than to do. One could even argue that those who direct and pretend like they're 'doing', or who come into a community to stir up events that only others will have to endure, are intruders. While he does not perpetuate harm, Corman may see himself as a kind of intruder as well, concocting a didactic 90 minute art project on the faux-'front lines' of Missouri, and then returning to the safety of L.A. to cut it and live comfortably while the black and white people who are actually members in the community he left must engage in the real fight.

I'd be very interested to read diary entries from Corman's experience editing the film after filming... I wonder how much of this mirroring was inserted or emphasized based on his feelings of guilt, restlessness, dissatisfaction, or general philosophical discomfort finishing off such an Important and Passionate work from a studio in sunny California. For such a deeply introspective, intelligent, and socially and psychologically conscious filmmaker- as demonstrated throughout his 50s work alone- I would wager at least some peripheral projective experiences occurred like this and bled into the final product. It would be out-of-character if they didn't.

[knives]

The Corman’s World doc has some interesting things on the film which supports and clarifies several of your ideas. He and brother Gene put their houses on mortgage for the film and basically went into bankruptcy making it. At first Corman did genuinely think with Godard like naivety that the film would be a big success and lead to genuine change.

During filming they actually did risk death and had to run in the middle of the night as production site after production site was closed down by local authorities when they found out what the film was really about. A lot of the extras in the final scene for example were listening to Shatner live and genuinely reacting to it.

It wasn’t until that first screening that the mirror to Shatner’s weakness seems to have come clear, at least according to the doc, as Corman realized no one wanted to listen to him talk this way. Corman claims this taught him the importance of integrated messaging, though as you’ve seen he’s featured that in previous movies, and blames the didacticism for the film’s failure.

It does show, to me, the difficulty of artists to intrude for change. The film paints this well by having Shatner’s early success being only in expanding what was already there. It almost makes me think of alchemy. Hydrating things can expand them easily, but it can’t convert earth to gold.

[therewillbeblus]

Very illuminating, knives, thanks for sharing!

[swo17]

A few months ago my parents were interested to see William Shatner in something besides Star Trek, and my mom is really interested in Black history and the civil rights movement so I recommended this. I only remembered that it dealt with a struggle over integration, and that Shatner was an outsider that comes to town either as a good guy or a bad guy--I couldn't remember which. Revisiting it recently, I am surprised that detail didn't stick with me! Also, I'd remembered the film as "well acted," "daring," and "important" but had forgotten just how raw and audacious it is. (It's telling that even the racist mob wants nothing to do with Shatner's character by the film's end!) It doesn't surprise me to hear that Corman risked death filming it, because that quality certainly comes through in the final product. Perhaps a modern analogue would be some of Sacha Baron Cohen's work, though this feels like it's getting at something...truer, and using less cheap shots. Does it being a hard film to watch make it good? I'm not sure, but it's certainly stayed with me over the years, even if my memory sheathed its blade as a matter of self-defense