POOR WHITE TRASH

Martin, a self-effacing and insecure architect from the North, comes to the Bayou Country to plug his plans for a New Orleans municipal building. He falls in love with Cajun queen Marie, the attractive daughter of a shiftless fisherman, becomes embroiled in the violent affairs of the local Cajun French colony and takes up competition with sadistic Ulysses, who also is in love with Marie. Will he fight Ulysses for Maria's hand, or will the Cajun bully prove him a coward and claim the girl for himself?
In 1957, director Harold Daniels was hired by producer Michael A. Ripps to oversee Bayou, a cheaply made, overly melodramatic tale of swamp life. The low budget film stared a pre Mission Impossible Peter Graves, Corman regular Jonathan Haze and the effortlessly bizarre Timothy Carey. But despite this eclectic cast, Bayou was a major flop at the box office. So Ripps recut the film, adding an off-camera rape scene and a new, bloody conclusion to its climatic fight. Of even greater importance was Ripp's new title: Poor White Trash.