One of the best efforts to show this premise -- a defense lawyer in a seemingly open and shut case -- is 1961's Town Without Pity, more proof you should scour TV listings. Basically completely forgotten over the last 50 years, director Gottfried Reinhardt's film questions the struggles and inner turmoils a lawyer goes through. How far do you go to help save your clients? At what cost do you do so? When is it too far, or is there a limit?
A lawyer in the U.S. Army serving as part of the occupation forces in Germany, Major Steve Garrett (Kirk Douglas) has been called in for a particularly touchy case. A 16-year old German girl, Karin (Christine Kaufmann), has been raped by four U.S. Army soldiers (Robert Blake, Richard Jaeckel, Frank Sutton and Mal Sondock). With the German people calling for a brutal response, the Army High Command wants an example to be made of these four soldiers. In other words, Garrett's work is cut out for him. Prosecuting counsel (E.G. Marshall is Douglas' courtroom rival/opponent) is seeking the death penalty, putting Garrett in a spot. He has a way to ensure long prison sentences will be the judgment, not the death penalty, but it is a morally questionable strategy, one Garrett desperately wants to avoid.
This movie surprised me in a lot of ways, most of them positive. I thought it would be one thing, and it ends up being something completely different. This isn't a movie about guilt or why the soldiers did what they did. That's all but established right off the bat. Without being pretentious or condescending, 'Town' explores mob mentality and its roots in the individual. Why do people do what they do? Why do they revel in other people's pain and discomfort? As Douglas' Garrett investigates his case, he finds a town ready and willing to turn on one of their own. There's his opening. A case study? Maybe not, it is after all a movie. It goes deeper than I thought it would, but in a good way. The heart of the movie is Douglas though, and he doesn't disappoint.
Playing defense counsel Maj. Steve Garrett, Douglas' performance will no doubt decide if this movie sinks or swims for most viewers. He's defending rapists of a 16-year old girl, and their guilt is never truly in question. Garrett has to decide what his limit is. The law states that if the key witness can't complete their testimony, the death penalty cannot be enact. For Garrett? That means taking apart on the witness stand a 16-year old girl a few weeks removed from a vicious, brutal rape at the hands of four men. At what point does it become too much? He clearly doesn't want to do it, but his job almost requires him to do it. Intense in a way few actors can be, Douglas hits a home run with the part, wrestling inside with what he should do. Can he live with his decision once the trial is said and done? Only he knows for sure.
Douglas holds the movie together, key supporting parts revolving around him as the case and trial develops. The four soldiers are kept in the background surprisingly enough. Blake is the possible nut, Sutton the weasel trying to convince everyone of his innocence, Jaeckel the decorated vet who's come to terms with his actions, and Sondock the possibly slow soldier. Marshall is good in a thankless role as the prosecuting attorney, doing his best to keep up with Douglas. Kauffmann too is an eye opener as the possibly not so innocent Karin. Barbara Rutting is solid as Inge Koerner, a reporter looking for all sides of the story. Hans Nielsen plays Karl, Karin's father who believes his daughter is an innocent angel capable of nothing but good.
When I saw composer Dimitri Tiomkin's name listed in the cast/crew listing, I was encouraged, but this score is a doozy, a whopper of a badly inappropriate score. An odd mix of jazz and various other genres/samples, it just isn't the right choice for this dark, cynical story. It drives the action like the story of a thriller, not a story surrounding a rape case. Out of place doesn't begin to describe it. The theme song by Gene Pitney -- listen HERE -- will get stuck in your head. Guaranteed, no doubt about it, but it only plays at the beginning and end of the movie so it isn't as noticeably bad as the musical score.
This is a movie that had me wondering about halfway through how things would be wrapped up. I assumed no happy ending -- correct with that guess -- but not in the way Reinhardt's movie goes. The trial becomes an afterthought, just what it caused sending vibrations through the community that are felt everywhere. A moving ending to a wrongly forgotten courtroom drama.
Town Without Pity <---trailer (1961): ***/****
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