The Intruder is a 1962 Roger Corman film based on the 1959 novel by Charles Beaumont, who also wrote the screenplay.
Jewish Canadian actor William Shatner stars as Adam Cramer, charming cross-burner and zealously patriotic American anti-Semite, who has come to the fictional Southern town of Caxton intending to help its residents fight school desegregation, which is essentially indistinguishable from turning the racism up to eleven.
No relation to the 2019 film of the same name.
The Intruder contains the following tropes:
- The Casanova: Albeit the creepy, lecherous kind.
- Gun Nut: Cramer, as well as Joey’s younger brother. Unfortunately, Cramer actually has a gun and can treat us to a little bit of reckless gun usage as well.
- Large Ham: Justified, as Cramer is a self-righteous blowhard with a rapt audience.
- Only Sane Man: No one but Tom McDaniel is bothered enough by the idea of attacking a family for Driving While Black to say something about it.
- Playing Sick: Or maybe Vi was a lot more perceptive than her husband and Cramer actually did make her sick.
- Pompous Political Pundit: Guess who.
- Southern Gothic Satan: Adam Cramer is a mundane example — a charming, zealously patriotic cross-burner who comes to the fictional Southern town of Caxton intending to help its residents fight school desegregation, amplifying the townsfolk's already-present racism to a peak of violent white supremacism.
