Town Without Pity
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''Town Without Pity'' ( German: ''Stadt ohne Mitleid'') is a 1961 American/Swiss/West German
international co-production A co-production is a joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint vent ...
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by
Gottfried Reinhardt Gottfried Reinhardt (20 March 1913 – 19 July 1994) was an Austrian-born American film director and producer. Biography Reinhardt was born in Berlin, the son of the Austrian theater director Max Reinhardt (until 1904: Max Goldmann), mana ...
. Produced by The Mirisch Corporation, the film stars
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
, Barbara Rütting, Christine Kaufmann, and E. G. Marshall. The film was based on the 1960 novel ''Das Urteil'' (''The Verdict'') by German writer Gregor Dorfmeister, who wrote under the pen name Manfred Gregor. At Kirk Douglas' suggestion, the film was rewritten without credit by Dalton Trumbo.p. 136 Mirisch, Walter ''I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History'' University of Wisconsin Press, 2008


Plot

In occupied West Germany in 1960, four drunk American soldiers leave Florida Bar, where "Town Without Pity" is playing on the jukebox, and head to a river in the nearby countryside. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old local
Fräulein ( , ) is the German honorifics, German language honorific for unmarried women, comparable to Miss in English and in French. Description ''Fräulein'' is the diminutive form of ''Frau'', which was previously reserved only for married women. ...
Karin Steinhof ( Christine Kaufmann) has a quarrel with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Frank Borgmann (Gerhart Lippert), on the banks of the same river. She swims back to her starting point, lights up a cigarette and strips out of her wet bikini when she is confronted by Sergeant Chuck Snyder ( Frank Sutton) and gang-raped by him, Corporal Birdwell Scott ( Richard Jaeckel), Private Joey Haines (Mal Sondock), and Corporal Jim Larkin ( Robert Blake). Borgmann hears her screams for help and swims across the river to help her, but he is knocked out by Snyder. After three of the men start to leave the scene, the guilt-ridden Larkin lingers behind; he covers Steinhof with his shirt before he finally flees with the other three men. The men are quickly apprehended. To appease the anger and outrage of the Germans, Major General Stafford, the division commanding general, orders that their
court martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the mili ...
be held in public in the local high school gymnasium. The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Pakenham ( E. G. Marshall), seeks the death penalty. Major Steve Garrett (
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
) is assigned to defend the accused rapists. After interviewing his clients, Garrett tries to
plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...
for long sentences at hard labor, but Pakenham feels he has a strong case. Garrett starts investigating, questioning the residents. He is followed by Inge Koerner ( Barbara Rütting), a hostile German reporter from what Garrett considers to be a scandal-seeking newspaper. At the start of the trial, three of the men plead not guilty. Larkin tries to enter a plea of guilty but is overruled by Garrett. Garrett produces an army psychiatrist who had been treating Larkin before the incident. The witness testifies that Larkin is impotent for psychological reasons. Larkin violently denies it and has to be forcibly removed from the courtroom. After the first day, Garrett pleads with Karin's bank manager father, Karl Steinhof ( Hans Nielsen), to withdraw her from the trial before it is too late, stating that he will have to break her down on the stand to save his clients. He advises Herr Steinhof to take his family and leave town, but Steinhof refuses. As the lead defense counsel, Garrett has no choice but to show that Karin is not as innocent as she first appeared, nor is she well liked. He also destroys the credibility of Steinhof and Borgmann by catching them in pointless little lies. As Garrett continues his cross-examination of Karin, she eventually collapses under the strain. Her father withdraws her from the trial; this action ensures that the defendants cannot be executed. The four men are convicted of rape. Three are sentenced to long terms at hard labor, and Larkin is given a shorter sentence of six years. The damage has been done, however, and the townsfolk turn against Karin. Though Frank Borgmann attacks him with a whip, Garrett tells him to take Karin and leave town forever. The young man takes his advice, but to raise money, he forges his mother's signature on a check. Determined to keep her son under her control, she sends the police after the couple. While Borgmann argues with the policemen, Karin runs away. Koerner, the reporter, later informs Garrett that Karin drowned herself in the river near where she had been violated. The last line of the title song is, "It isn't very pretty what a town without pity can do."


Cast

*
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
as Major Garrett * Barbara Rütting as Inge Koerner * Christine Kaufmann as Karin Steinhof * E. G. Marshall as Lieutenant Colonel Pakenham * Hans Nielsen as Karl Steinhof * Ingrid van Bergen as Trude, a prostitute who provides Garrett with information * Robert Blake as Corporal Jim Larkin * Richard Jaeckel as Corporal Birdwell Scott * Frank Sutton as Staff Sergeant Chuck Snyder * Mal Sondock as Private Joey Haines * Karin Hardt as Frau Steinhof, Karin's mother * Gerhart Lippert as Frank Borgmann * Alan Gifford as Major General Stafford * Max Haufler as Doctor Urban, called to testify about Larkin * Rose Renée Roth as Frau Kulig, a town gossip * Eleonore von Hoogstraten as Frau Borgmann, Frank's mother * Egon von Jordan as Bürgermeister * Philo Hauser as Herr Schmidt


Production

The film's score is by Dimitri Tiomkin. Tiomkin also wrote the music for the song " Town Without Pity", with lyrics by Ned Washington. It was performed by
Gene Pitney Gene Francis Alan Pitney (February 17, 1940 – April 5, 2006) was an American pop and country singer, songwriter, and musician. Pitney charted 16 top-40 hits in the United States, four in the top ten. In the United Kingdom, he had 22 top-40 h ...
. The song became an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
nominee and Pitney's first top 40 single. Filming took place in the towns of Bamberg and Forchheim in Bavaria, Germany, with some scenes shot at the Sievering Studios in the
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
n capital
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. The film's sets were designed by the
art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...
Rolf Zehetbauer. Kirk Douglas, who claimed that he broke the
Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist was the mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from working in the United States entertainment industry. The blacklisting, blacklist began at the onset of the Cold War and Red Scare#Second Red Scare (1947–1957 ...
by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write
Spartacus Spartacus (; ) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator (Thraex) who was one of the Slavery in ancient Rome, escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major Slave rebellion, slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Historical accounts o ...
, denied Trumbo's request for a credit on the film as he feared that his continued association with the communist screenwriter would hurt his career.


See also

* List of American films of 1961 * Trial movies


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Town Without Pity 1961 films 1961 drama films American black-and-white films American drama films American legal drama films English-language German films English-language Swiss films Films about capital punishment Films based on German novels Films directed by Gottfried Reinhardt Films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin Films set in West Germany Films shot in Bavaria Films shot in Vienna 1960s German-language films Military courtroom films Films about rape German drama films Swiss drama films West German films Gloria Film films United Artists films Films shot at Sievering Studios 1960s American films 1960s German films Films with screenplays by Dalton Trumbo