There's a lot going for this film about prejudice.
First of all, it begins with the status quo approach. The director has William Shatner enter a town, presumably as a protagonist, though he quickly changes into an antagonist.
This may be copied from "Women of Dolwyn", where Richard Burton enters the same way, except his character was nowhere near as vile as the one Shatner portrays.
There is a unique twist of casting. We expect Shatner to be the open minded one and Leo Gordon to be the closed mind of prejudice, but we get the reversal here.
And that is the real charm of this film. I'm not sure people will get that charm a hundred years from now. However, I think they will get that feeling, because I think the director purposely chose Shatner and Gordon for their "presences" so to speak, to throw the audience off guard.