The Lawless

Race and class take center stage in Joseph Losey’s The Lawless, in which a California agricultural town is torn apart by an escalating feud between the Hispanic “fruit tramps” and the white boys of the country club set. New Yorker Larry Wilder (Macdonald Carey with the demeanor of Gregory Peck) arrives in town to take the new editor job at the local paper just before a car accident triggers a race riot at a local dance; after fruit picker Paul Rodriguez (Lalo Rios) is arrested, the police car transporting him crashes and he escapes to a local house where a teen-aged girl falsely accuses him of assault, only to be hunted down by a posse of townsfolk and thrown in jail. As Wilder learns more about the local community from fellow journalist Sunny Garcia (a very likable and confident Gail Russell), he begins to take the boy’s side and publishes his skepticism in the paper, which doesn’t go over well with the locals. (His printing press isn’t long for this world.) Losey exposes the underbelly of smalltown America in the 1950’s, highlighting the divisions and illustrating just how violent, bigoted, impulsive, and irrational a mob mentality can be.