Part 50 (1/2)
Introduction to
THE INTRUDER.
by Roger Corman
I first met Chuck Beaumont when I read his novel, _The Intruder_, and decided to make a picture of it. His novel concerned the integration of a school in a small southern town, and was criticallyhailed as a penetrating social study. I contacted Chuck and we discussed it, agreeing as to what we were trying to do. Chuck wanted to see his book brought to the screen exactly as he had written it: ”No toning down of the events.., no glossing over the basic att.i.tudes of southern bigots, no whitewas.h.i.+ng of the antipathetic Negro who calls himself 'n.i.g.g.e.r' A deal was signed and Chuck wrote the screenplay.
I had never believed in any picture as much as I believed in this one. We shot it on location and Chuck came along to help as production a.s.sistant and to play the part of the high school princ.i.p.al; he'd never acted before but was quite good.
The picture was done on a very low budget. I had enough money to shoot the film in three weeks on location in Missouri, in 1961, when the situation in the south was considerably different than what it is now, and the racial situation was still very explosive. We chose a town on what is called the ”boot-heel”
of Missouri, a place which dips down between Arkansas and Kentucky, a town that had a southern look. For the bit parts, I would get local citizens with southern accents but, being in Missouri, the film crew would still be protected by the laws of a midwestern state. The schools in our chosen town had been integrated for six years--but it was token integration. In other schools in the area there was no integration at all and not likely to be any as long as it could be avoided.
Arrangements were quickly made with the superintendent of one local school for the rental of facilities, with no mention made of the subject matter of the film. It didn't work out. Some of the people were very friendly, but there was a great deal of opposition; during the climax of the film, when people started to catch on what the movie was really about, we began to have problems.
We were to shoot the climax for two days in front of a high school in East Prairie, Missouri. After the first day, the sheriff called us and said we weren't going to be allowed back. I told him we had a contract with the East Prairie school district. He said he didn't care anything about it, that we were communists and we were trying to promote equality between whites and blacks, and that was not going to be allowed in East Prairie; and if anybody came back, they would be immediately arrested. We then started shooting matching shots in a public park in Charleston, Missouri, but after a single morning, the chief of police told us to get out. We were in the middle of shooting one sequence and I said to my brother, Gene, who was working as co-producer, ”Talk to him while I finish this sequence.” I was shooting as fast as I could and Gene was saying, ”Now officer, we don't really understand. Is there anything we can do? Can't we go to the mayor?” The officer was saying, ”No. Get the h.e.l.l out of here.”
Gene: ”Well, there must be some way--” ”Get outta here, or I'm running you all in!” And Gene was just talking. Making up conversation. He later told Chuck and me he didn't know what he was saying. He was just talking until I got the last shot--not of the sequence, but of the pattern I had to finish.
Toward the end, we were getting threatening phone calls and letters; and so I had to hold a Klu Klux Klan parade until the last night of shooting. Then we left. We didn't even return to the hotel. We had it arranged to leave after shooting, because the threats were very heavy, and we drove in the middle of the night up to St. Louis.
Critically, the film was extremely successful; but it was not successful financially.
Chuck went on to write more scripts for me. He was intelligent and creative and very sensitive, and, at the same time, highly enthusiastic. He did not get blase after a number of years in Hollywood, as it is easy for a writer to do. Had he lived, he probably would have become a very respected and established screenwriter, who would have written an occasional novel or short story.
It's hard to say.
THE INTRUDER.
(Chapter 10) by Charles Beaumont--------------------------- When the bell in the steeple rang to mark the half hour that had pa.s.sed since six P.M., Caxton wore the same tired face that it always wore in the summer. The heat of the afternoon throbbed on. Cars moved up and down George Street like painted turtles, and the people moved slowly, too: all afraid of the motion that would send the perspiration coursing, the heart flying.
Adam Cramer sat in the far booth at Joan's Cafe, feeling grateful for the heat, trying to eat the soggy ham sandwich he had ordered. He knew the effect of heat on the emotions of people: Summer had a magic to it, a magic way of frying the nerve ends, boiling the blood, drying the brain. Perhaps it made no sense logically but it was true, nonetheless. Crimes of violence occurred with far greater frequency in hot climates than in cold. You would find more murders, more robberies, more kidnapings, more unrest in the summer than at any other time.
It was the season of mischief, the season of slow movements and sudden explosions, the season of violence.
Adam looked out at the street, then at the thermometer that hung behind the cash register. He could see the line of red reaching almost to the top.
How would The Man on Horseback have fared, he wondered, if it had been twenty below zero?
How would Gerald L.K. go over in Alaska?
He pulled his sweat-stained s.h.i.+rt away from his body and smiled. Even the weather was helping him!
He forced the last of the sandwich down, slid a quarter beneath the plate, and paid for his meal; then he went outside.
It was a furnace.
A dark, quiet furnace.
He started for the courthouse, regretting only that Max Blake could not be there. Seeing his old teacher in the crowd, those dark eyes snapping with angry pleasure, that cynical mouth twitching at the edges--d.a.m.n!
Well, I'll write you about it, he thought. That'll be almost as good.
The picture of the man who had set his mind free blurred and vanished and Adam walked faster.
The Reverend Lorenzo Niesen was the first to arrive. His felt hat was sodden, the inner band caked with filth; his suspenders hung loosely over his two-dollar striped s.h.i.+rt; his trousers were shapeless--yet he was proud of his appearance, and it was a vicious, thrusting pride. Were someone to hand him a check for five thousand dollars, he would not alter any part of his attire. It was country-honest, as he himself was. Whoever despised dirt despised likewise the common people. G.o.d's favorites.
Was there soap in Bethlehem?
Did the Apostles have nail files and lotions?
He sat down on the gra.s.s, glared at the bright lights of the Reo motion picture theatre across the street, and began to fan himself with his hat. Little strands of silver hair lifted and fell, lifted and fell, as he fanned.
At six thirty-five, Bart Carey and Phillip Dongen appeared. They nodded at Lorenzo and sat down near him.
”_Well, it's hot_.”
Others drifted into the area, some singly, some in groups.
”_Hot!_”
By six forty, over one hundred and fifty residents of Caxton were standing on the cement walk or sitting on the gra.s.s, waiting.”_You see 'em this morning?_”
Fifty more showed up in the next ten minutes.
”_Christ, yes_.”
At seven a bell was struck and a number of cars screeched, halted, discharging teenage children.
They crowded at the steps of the courthouse.
It was quiet.
Ten minutes pa.s.sed. Then, a young man in a dark suit walked across the empty street. He nodded at the people, made his way through the aisle that parted for him, and climbed to the top step.
He stood there with his back to the courthouse door.
”That's him?” Phil Dongen whispered.
Bart Carey said, ”Yeah.”
Lorenzo Niesen was silent. He studied the young man, trying to decide whether or not he approved. Awful green, he thought. Too good of a clothes on him. Like as not a Northerner.
I don't know.