Okay, I messed up… I had a couple of Frankenstein movies, one by Corman, so I thought I’d hold a weekend SHOCKtober triple-feature along with his William Shatner Esperanto demon movie. But I was thinking of Incubus (not by Corman), while Intruder is a social issues drama with Shatner as a rabble-rousing outsider trying to convince a Southern town to reject racial integration in schools.

Filmed in Missouri… where’d Corman find all these extras?

When Shatner arrives, he’s very pleasant to the locals, except for frequent, casual use of the n-word. Frank Maxwell (of the more seasonally appropriate The Haunted Palace) is the Only Good White Man, breaking up mobs with peaceful logic, while Shatner runs around making out with Frank’s teenage daughter and sleeping with the salesman’s wife next door. Accusations, setbacks, bombing and murder. I guess it all seems realistic until the townsfolk discover their sense of decency. Most interesting to me was that Shatner claims to represent “The Patrick Henry Society” since I’m staying in Patrick’s old neighborhood.

Embracing neighbor / church-burning:

A nice shock for Trek fans if this ever played on TV in the late 60’s:

Salesman next door was Leo Gordon of Riot in Cell Block 11, his wife from The Boston Strangler, the teenage daughter was in The Crawling Hand, and the rich guy who supports our intruder is from It’s Alive. Written by a Twilight Zone regular who also worked on Corman’s great Masque of the Red Death.