This was almost the first example of American Neo-Realism, according to Pauline Kael, since it was filmed completely on location, with no overt production qualities or technical polish, no music score, and performers found locally or cast without prior experience.
This final component resulted in some lovely, though not spectacular, performances. One of the few professional faces is David Brian, a B-western actor, and his sententious portrayal as John Stevens, the lawyer, is completely incorrect. It does, however, star Juano Hernandez as Lucas Beauchamp, a land-owning black farmer suspected of murder who is well cast with his aristocratic figure and haunting gaze.
The depth of Faulkner’s writing, frequently splashed with the ridiculous, the surreal, and the funny, comes through in such masterfully farcical moments as when the two adolescents and a tiny old woman (Elizabeth Patterson) find themselves tasked with digging up a body in the middle of the night.
Patterson also does an excellent job; when she’s asked to put herself in danger, she takes a little swallow and then jumps right in. The story’s Faulknerian embellishment – such memorable elements as a lynch-mob being held off by an indomitable grandmother, and a sensibility for both type and opposition to type – elevates it beyond the typical redneck melodrama.
With one fearsome sorrowful eye and corner of his mouth visible through the cell door grate, director Clarence Brown, a figure associated with MGM and Greta Garbo, does a fine job out in the wilds, managing such memorable moments as when Hernandez communicates urgently with the only person likely to help him – Claude Jarman Jr as Chick Mallison, whom Brown also directed in The Yearling – with a Picasso-esque vision of entrapment. It is not to be missed.
