Shot in Faulkner country--Oxford, Mississippi--this remarkably faithful adaptation of his novel was one of the first films to break the Hollywood taboo on subjects of racism. "Box-office poison" being the usual cry, it is to MGM's credit that the film was made, and with a cast of relatively unknown actors in the lead roles. The story of a black man, Lucas, who incurs a town's wrath by refusing to act like a "nigger," and of Chick, a young white boy who finds his own dignity in helping save Lucas from a lynch mob, is itself rescued from melodrama by the extraordinary performances of Juano Hernandez and Claude Jarman, Jr., and the use of much of Faulkner's original dialogue. Director Clarence Brown's location-shot films such as this one and The Yearling, are often overshadowed by his years as a master of MGM glossies. Critic David Thomson has written, "As if scenting an arty film, MGM chose to make (Intruder in the Dust) in black-and-white. The result is a South of more romantic sadness and languor than color could have rendered, a South as if seen by Walker Evans on a dusty, slow afternoon."