Last Sunday in the Roxie screening room, the Midcentury Madness presentation of THE INTRUDER provided a reminder of just how incendiary the 1962 Roger Corman film really is. William Shatner, often the butt of jokes for his increasingly mannered acting style, demonstrated a fearsome, authentic intensity as provocateur Adam Cramer, the "man in the white suit" whose mission in the film is to stop integration in its tracks.



You're invited to read my Substack essay on THE INTRUDER and its companion film, NOTHING BUT A MAN, which formed the "McMadness" program dealing with race in 1960s American cinema, at the link provided below.

I definitely think that THE INTRUDER would have been the right call for a double feature dealing with race issues as they're portrayed in film noir. The FNF's current foray into "social justice noir" has kept its focus in the narrower range of films made in the 1947-51 period (with the exception of ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW), which limits the level of discourse possible on social issues as they percolate through cinema. One can only hope that if they continue with this programming in subsequent festivals during 2022, they will consider giving THE INTRUDER a slot in such a lineup and demonstrate that social issues were not ignored by those who made film noir in the U.S. during the 1960s.