Shot in Faulkner country—Oxford, Mississippi—this adaptation of his novel was one of the first films to break the Hollywood taboo on the subject of racism; today it shows how Faulkner is more relevant than ever. The story of a black man, Lucas, who incurs a town’s wrath by refusing to act like a “n***er,” and of Chick, a white boy who finds his own dignity in helping save Lucas from a lynch mob, is rescued from melodrama by the extraordinary performances of Juano Hernandez and Claude Jarman, Jr., and the use of much of Faulkner’s original dialogue.