"For all intents and purposes, The Intruder is a lost film: only one print seems to exist, and that not really in distribution. Ironically, The Intruder is also Corman's favorite, most deeply-felt, personal picture. It was his one attempt to satisfy himself, to make a picture he really wanted to make. It is quite possibly the best thing he ever did - and nobody went to see it. Apparently based on a real incident, The Intruder concerns an arch segregationist named William Kasper who went down south in the '50s and stirred up a great deal of trouble. Charles Beaumont wrote the script, Corman filmed on location. It opened in New York (with a very arty ad campaign) to respectable reviews - and not a soul came.

"Until he made The Intruder, Corman had never lost money on a picture. Some of his close associates feel that if The Intruder had been successful, Corman might have gone on to a conventional career as a 'serious' filmmaker; instead, he retitled it I Hate Your Guts, tried to sell it as an exploitation picture, and returned to a proven commercial track with The Premature Burial. As recently as several years ago, when a well known critic screened the film and told Corman it was terrific, Corman's only response was, 'It didn't make a dime.'"