White Terror (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | White terror |
| Original title | The intruder |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1962 |
| length | 83 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Roger Corman |
| script |
Charles Beaumont , Roger Corman |
| production | Roger Corman, Gene Corman |
| music | Herman Stein |
| camera | Taylor Byars |
| cut | Ronald Sinclair |
| occupation | |
| |
White Terror (in the original The Intruder ) is a film by Roger Corman from 1962. As one of the first American theatrical films, it relentlessly problematized the social unrest surrounding the lifting of segregation in the USA in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well the racism of many whites against blacks.
The plot is based on a 1959 novel by Charles Beaumont , who also worked on the script and took on a supporting role. The black-and-white film has a special place in Roger Corman's oeuvre. The exploitation specialist's first dramatic and serious production was his only commercial failure, while the film was well received by contemporary critics, and was later hailed as groundbreaking.
action
The young, handsome and charming Adam Cramer takes a room in a small town deep in the southern United States . After he had inconspicuously assured himself of the expected negative opinion of the citizens regarding the state-ordered desegregation at the local high school , he announced to the influential city father Verne Shipman that he wanted to give a speech to call for resistance to this measure.
In the agitational speech in front of the town's Town Hall , Cramer claims that communists and Jews influenced politics and the judiciary in Washington to bring the south under black rule. After the speech, a roaring and heated mob roamed the streets of the city, stopping the car of a black family and threatening to lynch the occupants. The editor-in-chief of the local newspaper, Tom McDaniel, brings the angry crowd to their senses at the last minute. However, he cannot prevent Ku Klux Klan-style citizens, including Cramer, from terrorizing the town's black population in the next few days . The black pastor is killed in a bomb attack on the church.
Adam Cramer meanwhile has fun with the opposite sex. After he has already wrapped McDaniel's underage daughter around his finger and seduced it into intimacy, he does the same with a roommate, the emotionally unstable wife of the squat salesman Sam Griffin. Feeling safe, Sam is waiting for him in his boarding house after a busy day of incitement. This furiously confronts him with his deception. Cramer tries to evade and make Griffin's wife appear as a notorious cheater who seduced him. Griffin, however, realizes the true character of Cramer. When Cramer pulls out a revolver and threatens to shoot Griffin, Griffin laughs at him and tells him on the head that he doesn't have the guts. He is right, and Cramer remains humiliated.
McDaniel has gone from being a skeptic about the lifting of segregation to a strong advocate in the wake of recent events, personally leading the black students who run the gauntlet through town on their way to school. When the work is done, he is intercepted by a group of whites and brutally beaten. In the hospital, in the presence of his daughter and his wife, he learns that he has lost his right eye. Cramer, who got wind of this, now presses McDaniel's daughter to testify that one of the black students, the intrepid Joey, raped her. Otherwise, he will make sure that the thugs attack their injured father again and give him the rest.
The daughter intimidated in this way initially plays along. While a new mob fueled by Cramer forms and moves to school to bring the alleged perpetrator to justice, the headmaster is convinced of Joey's innocence and wants to protect him, even if that should result in the school being violently stormed. However, Joey bravely steps outside and faces the agitated crowd. After Verne Shipman put him in a suggestive cross-examination, the mob wants to hang Joey on a swing frame in a playground. But then Sam Griffin enters the scene with the broken up daughter McDaniels. She tearfully admits that she invented rape and that Cramer blackmailed her. He sees his skins swim away and gives one last, desolate speech, which, however, cannot prevent the citizens of the small town from gradually turning away confused and ashamed and leaving the scene. The disaffected Shipman finally ends Cramer's hysterical speech with a cracking slap, Cramer's face ends up in the dirt.
background
According to Corman, the motivation for the film came from the international coverage of the Little Rock Nine , whose school attendance in Arkansas had triggered unrest and political entanglement, which Corman deeply embarrassed. He decided to make a film about it and chose a story by author friend Charles Beaumont, who had already written several episodes for the series Twilight Zone , as a template for the script .
Financing the project turned out to be extremely difficult. The topic was too sensitive for many production companies, and they also anticipated that it would flop at the box office. The Pathe Society finally agreed to take on part of the production costs. Corman contributed a considerable part out of his own pocket. For reasons of cost, the originally planned drama crew was dispensed with. Instead of Ray Milland , whom Corman had initially envisaged for the lead role, the then largely unknown, later world-famous William Shatner was hired , and minor supporting roles were given to amateur actors.
Since no film studio was rented for cost reasons, the film crew traveled to authentic places in the south, where the film crew had to work under adverse circumstances. Several times she was expelled from a location by the police after it became known what the strip was about. Once in the can, problems followed in post-production. The MPAA initially did not approve the cinema on the flimsy grounds that the officially outlawed term nigger was used excessively in the films . Roger Corman publicly replied that he had been making immoral exploitation films with great success for years, especially now that he was following the wish of MPAA President Eric Johnston to show more courage and conviction , and one politically I shot an explosive film, got over-fried. He also referred to various films that were current at the time, in which the word was also mentioned and which had received approval. The MPAA eventually bowed to public pressure.
The German film title should not be confused with the German term white terror .
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created at Accord Film GmbH in Berlin under the direction of Roland Dunkel .
| role | actor | German Dubbing voice |
|---|---|---|
| Adam Cramer | William Shatner | Rainer Brandt |
| Tom McDaniel | Frank Maxwell | Kurt Waitzmann |
| Sam Griffin | Leo Gordon | Benno Hoffmann |
| Verne Shipman | Robert Emhardt | Curt Ackermann |
| Ella McDaniel | Beverly Lunsford | Marianne Lutz |
| Joey Greene | Charles Barnes | Wolfgang Draeger |
| Mr. Paton, teacher | Charles Beaumont | Heinz Petruo |
reception
White Terror was initially only included in the program of a few cinemas (it premiered in New York in May 1962) and was only rarely visited there. The contemporary fear of contact with the topic was too great. This was disappointing for a film by the hugely popular director Corman. The contemporary criticism, however, was almost exclusively positive. The New York Times wrote that although the film was very suggestive and predictable in its course, it had set a milestone in the debate about integration that had not yet been dared. The Saturday Review said that Corman broke away from his characteristic, fictional monsters and behemoths in order to show a real, human monster in all its ugliness. Perhaps it took an unsuspecting entertainment director to direct an overdue, socially critical film. The lexicon of the international film writes: "A routinely staged melodrama that may have turned out to be too willing to compromise on the bottom line, but is definitely captivating in its haunting problem."
Web links
- White Terror in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for White Terror . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2012 (PDF; test number: 30 126 V).
- ^ Ed Naha: The Films of Roger Corman, Arco Publishing, New York 1982, pp. 157ff.
- ^ Ed Naha: The Films of Roger Corman, Arco Publishing, New York 1982, pp. 157ff.
- ^ Mark Thomas McGee: The best of the cheap acts . McFarland Classics 1988, p. 39
- ↑ White terror in the German synchronous files
- ^ Mark Thomas McGee: The best of the cheap acts . McFarland Classics 1988, pp. 33ff.
- ^ Lexicon of International Films