 Patterson continued to perform frequently in the 1940s, when she was cast in more than 30 additional films.Among her notable roles is her 1949 portrayal of the heroic character Eunice Habersham in the groundbreaking racial crime drama "Intruder in the Dust", a film based on the William Faulkner novel of the same name and set in the Deep South.Although she would appear in a few more feature films in the 1950s, such as "Washington Story" and "Pal Joey", Patterson by then began to focus her work increasingly on roles in the rapidly expanding medium of television.