TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning is Clarence Brown's Intruder in the Dust (1949) with David Brian, Claude Jarman, Juano Hernandez.
Not on the Film Noir list, chosen by Eddie Muller. A black man (Hernandez) is falsely accused of the murder of a member of the most prominent family in a small Mississippi town. In the movies, every black man is "falsely accused." A lawyer (Brian) reluctantly takes the case, assisted by his nephew (Jarman).
Filmed in Oxford, Mississippi, this is better IMO than the much-praised To Kill a Mockingbird.
Two boxing films precede Noir Alley on Saturday Night. Killer's Kiss (1955) at 8 p.n. ET, and the classic The Harder They Fall (1956) at 9:30 p.m. ET. The latter was Humphrey Bogart's last film.
Friday, July 18, 2025
Big Movie Night, Saturday into Sunday at TCM: Kubrick's Killer's Kiss (8 p.m.), Bogey's last, the classic The Harder They Fall (9:30 p.m.), and Faulkner and Brown's masterpiece, Intruder in the Dust (12 midnight and 10 a.m.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I recall INTRUDER IN THE DUST as being extremely well-made, but it's something I wouldn't watch again because I can't take that kind of propaganda any more. I recently read an article about Faulkner where he called slavery "a curse" and said "racism haunts the South." Funny that slavery is only a "curse" for the USA, and not for any other country where slaves were held (or are still held, even today). Do the Arabs, the biggest enslavers, lie awake at night fretting over slavery? Or the Indians (oh excuse me, "Native Americans"), who enslaved whites, Mexicans, and members of enemy tribes? What about the British, who kidnapped people off the streets- including children!- and shipped them off to the colonies to work as indentured servants?
We had the greatest country in the world, the one that did the most for people of all kinds, everywhere- and we were targeted for destruction.
-RM
Here's an unhappy story: I started to watch LOST HORIZON, which I hadn't seen for a while but always liked. It begins with a group of Americans in China fleeing a violent local uprising. When they're safely aboard the plane, the Ronald Colman character, after having a few drinks, starts pontificating about how they should be ashamed that they, as WHITE people, managed to escape, while leaving the natives behind to their fate! (Yes, he specifically uses "white" in a denigrating manner.) If that isn't bad enough, he then spouts his idea for ending war: just throw away your weapons, and when the enemy comes, they'll see that you're nice, harmless people, and leave you alone! No doubt the novel had a pacifist slant, but it's unlikely it was expressed in such a clumsy manner. Since much of the early scenes were originally cut from the movie after a disastrous preview, it's POSSIBLE that audiences reacted negatively to this offensive nonsense! (The screenwriter, of course, was Capra's standard guy, Robert Riskin.)
I was in a bad mood to begin with- I turned it off! Another time...
-RM
A curse for Whites--especially post 1954ish. If they had to do it over again--knowing the future--would our forefathers have brought blacks over?Probably,we're piling up the debt today,not worrying about the future.
--GRA
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 and 10 a.m. ET is Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955) with Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Robert Manuel, Jules Dassin (credited as Perlo Vita), Magali Noel, Robert Hossein.
Film Noir Guide: "Ex-con Servais, released after serving a five-year prison sentence, masterminds a jewelry store heist in Paris. Servais and his gang (Mohner, Dassin, and Manuel) meticulously plan and execute the daring caper, walking away with nearly a quarter of a million francs."
"Convinced they've gotten away with it, the gang relaxes, but Dassin's weakness for a beautiful nightclub singer (Noel) results in a series of noirish mishaps. A rival gangster (Marcel Lupocovi) and his drug addict brother (Hussein) want the stolen jewels and will stop at nothing to get them, including kidnapping and murder."
"Servais is excellent as the tubercular ex-con, and director Dassin does a surprisingly good job as the Italian safecracker who pays a big price for breaking 'the rules.' Hailed as the progenitor of all heist films by those who must have forgotten about 1950's The Asphalt Jungle, Rififi (French gangster slang for 'trouble') is known for its ingenous 30-minute long silent heist--no talking, no background music."
David In TN: Red Eddie Muller will undoubtedly moan about Edward Dmytryk's "naming" Dassin as a Communist. There will be no Noir Alley during August as Muller takes a vacation.
Post a Comment