***SPOILERS**** Shocking and brutally honest film about the crime of rape and how it stigmatizes its victims to the point of them being treated worse then those who raped them.
Frollecking by the river outside the little German town of Neustadt pretty 16 year old Kerin Steinhof, Christine Kaufmann,leaves her boyfriend 19 year old Frank Borgmann, Gerheart Lippert, because he,in feeling it's not right, declines to have sex with her. All by herself in the woods Karin disrobes her skimpy bikini and is suddenly grabbed from behind by drunken GI Sgt. Chuck Snyder, Frank Sutton, who together with three other fellow and drunk GI's, played by Robert Blake Richard Jeackle & Mal Sondock, brutally gang rape the helpless young woman.
Frank sensing something is wrong comes to Karin's aid only to be cold cocked and knocked unconscious by the guerrilla-like Sgt. Snyder. It's later in the movie that the distraught young man is humiliatingly slapped around by Karin's outraged father the town banker Karl Steinhof, Hans Nielsen, for allowing his daughter to be raped! As if the slim and very non-violent Frank had a chance to fight off Karin's four burly rapists which in fact he tried to do.
You would expect that Karin would get all the sympathy from the townspeople in Neustadt for the unspeakable ordeal she went through! But instead she's held up to ridicule for, what almost everyone in town feels, allowing or even inviting her attackers to gang rape her!
With the town's elders including Karin's father Herr Steinhof demanding the death penalty it's now up to the accused GI's US Army defender Maj. Steve Garrett, Kirk Douglas, to put Karin on the stand. It's there under Maj. Garrett's brutal and embarrassing cross-examination that Karin undergoes a far more, and in public, humiliation then she even suffered at the hands of her rapists.
The film "Town Without Pity" is without a doubt the best movie ever to come out from a Hollywood studio about the ugly subject of rape and its even uglier consequences in how it not only effects its victim but those who know her. Karin is driven to almost insanity afraid to even leave her home in fear of being sat upon by her neighbors in calling her a whore or even worse.
Just about disowned by her parents Karin and Frank, who stuck by her during the whole movie, decides to leave Neustadt and begin a new life but even that isn't in cards for the two young lovers. The very tragic ending is far too honest then you would expect in a Hollywood movie back then, in 1961, when feel good endings were a must in order not to disturb audiences who want escapism not realism in films. And it's that very tragic ending that make the film "Town Without Pity" the landmark movie that it is today.
Powerhouse performance by Kirk Douglas as the reluctant Army defender Maj. Steve Barrett who sees what's coming, in Karin's father demanding the death penalty for her rapists, but is totally helpless to prevent it. Pleading with Herr Steinhof to not let his daughter Karin to be forced to take the stand Maj. Barrett is then forced to bring out Karin's tendencies in exposing herself in public. This leads to Karin breaking down on the witness stand and having her attackers given long prison sentences not the death penalty that her father so much wanted.
I for one could not believe that Karin's father was so naive about her flaunting her body to perfect strangers that he would let her go through the unbearable cross-examination that she was subjected to by Maj. Barrett. It was also sad on Herr Steinhof's, as well as Frank's widowed mother, part to also persecute Karin's boyfriend Frank who by far was more considerate and sympathetic toward his daughter and the horrible ordeal she was going through then anyone else, even Maj. Barrett, in the film. And it was his-Herr Steinhof's-actions that eventually lead to Karin's death at the end of the movie.
***SPOILER ALERT*** "Town Without Pity" pulls no punches by packing a wallop in its story about rape and how it destroys not only physically but emotionally its victims. The film also shows the cold indifference towards the rape victim by, what later turns out in the movie, even her parents who treat her as an outcast because she, instead of dying, survives her terrible ordeal. Karin all alone, with only Frank standing by her side, had no other choice but to end it all which also ended her suffering. Karin in doing what she did also showed those, besides her rapists, who had so cold heartedly treated her and dove Karin to her death what unfeeling monsters they really are.
P.S The film's haunting and right on target theme song "Town Without Pity" is preformed by the late Gene Pitney.
Frollecking by the river outside the little German town of Neustadt pretty 16 year old Kerin Steinhof, Christine Kaufmann,leaves her boyfriend 19 year old Frank Borgmann, Gerheart Lippert, because he,in feeling it's not right, declines to have sex with her. All by herself in the woods Karin disrobes her skimpy bikini and is suddenly grabbed from behind by drunken GI Sgt. Chuck Snyder, Frank Sutton, who together with three other fellow and drunk GI's, played by Robert Blake Richard Jeackle & Mal Sondock, brutally gang rape the helpless young woman.
Frank sensing something is wrong comes to Karin's aid only to be cold cocked and knocked unconscious by the guerrilla-like Sgt. Snyder. It's later in the movie that the distraught young man is humiliatingly slapped around by Karin's outraged father the town banker Karl Steinhof, Hans Nielsen, for allowing his daughter to be raped! As if the slim and very non-violent Frank had a chance to fight off Karin's four burly rapists which in fact he tried to do.
You would expect that Karin would get all the sympathy from the townspeople in Neustadt for the unspeakable ordeal she went through! But instead she's held up to ridicule for, what almost everyone in town feels, allowing or even inviting her attackers to gang rape her!
With the town's elders including Karin's father Herr Steinhof demanding the death penalty it's now up to the accused GI's US Army defender Maj. Steve Garrett, Kirk Douglas, to put Karin on the stand. It's there under Maj. Garrett's brutal and embarrassing cross-examination that Karin undergoes a far more, and in public, humiliation then she even suffered at the hands of her rapists.
The film "Town Without Pity" is without a doubt the best movie ever to come out from a Hollywood studio about the ugly subject of rape and its even uglier consequences in how it not only effects its victim but those who know her. Karin is driven to almost insanity afraid to even leave her home in fear of being sat upon by her neighbors in calling her a whore or even worse.
Just about disowned by her parents Karin and Frank, who stuck by her during the whole movie, decides to leave Neustadt and begin a new life but even that isn't in cards for the two young lovers. The very tragic ending is far too honest then you would expect in a Hollywood movie back then, in 1961, when feel good endings were a must in order not to disturb audiences who want escapism not realism in films. And it's that very tragic ending that make the film "Town Without Pity" the landmark movie that it is today.
Powerhouse performance by Kirk Douglas as the reluctant Army defender Maj. Steve Barrett who sees what's coming, in Karin's father demanding the death penalty for her rapists, but is totally helpless to prevent it. Pleading with Herr Steinhof to not let his daughter Karin to be forced to take the stand Maj. Barrett is then forced to bring out Karin's tendencies in exposing herself in public. This leads to Karin breaking down on the witness stand and having her attackers given long prison sentences not the death penalty that her father so much wanted.
I for one could not believe that Karin's father was so naive about her flaunting her body to perfect strangers that he would let her go through the unbearable cross-examination that she was subjected to by Maj. Barrett. It was also sad on Herr Steinhof's, as well as Frank's widowed mother, part to also persecute Karin's boyfriend Frank who by far was more considerate and sympathetic toward his daughter and the horrible ordeal she was going through then anyone else, even Maj. Barrett, in the film. And it was his-Herr Steinhof's-actions that eventually lead to Karin's death at the end of the movie.
***SPOILER ALERT*** "Town Without Pity" pulls no punches by packing a wallop in its story about rape and how it destroys not only physically but emotionally its victims. The film also shows the cold indifference towards the rape victim by, what later turns out in the movie, even her parents who treat her as an outcast because she, instead of dying, survives her terrible ordeal. Karin all alone, with only Frank standing by her side, had no other choice but to end it all which also ended her suffering. Karin in doing what she did also showed those, besides her rapists, who had so cold heartedly treated her and dove Karin to her death what unfeeling monsters they really are.
P.S The film's haunting and right on target theme song "Town Without Pity" is preformed by the late Gene Pitney.