Also known as “I Hate Your Guts,” “Shame,” and “The Stranger,” Corman’s 1962 race drama “The Intruder” is perhaps the most biting of his entire filmography. Shockingly debuting the same year as “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a pre-“Star Trek” William Shatner stars as Adam Cramer, a white supremacist who infiltrates a small town intending to incite a race war once he hears that the school district will be integrating.
Corman was intentionally pushing back against the “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Andy Griffith Show” presentation of American life in the 1960s, and there’s a brutal layer of “saying the quiet part out loud” lingering over the film. Given the lack of time given to Black characters on screen, it’s important to recognize that this isn’t a movie about racial injustice so much as it’s a movie about racists and the way racism is ingrained in America and permitted because white people are too passive and too comfortable with the status quo of white supremacy to fight for change.
Shatner is downright diabolical in his performance, and it’s nauseating to see how relevant this ahead-of-its-time story still remains today. At the time of release, “The Intruder” struggled to find distribution, inspiring Corman to release the film independently, and it was the first film where he ever lost money. Black audiences don’t need to watch this film to understand the realities of America’s white supremacist society because they live with it every day, but for white folks who fancy themselves “progressive” or “beyond race,” Corman’s “The Intruder” is a reminder that unless you’re actively fighting for an anti-racist society, you’re susceptible to perpetuate hate. You’ll never see Shatner the same way again.
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