Search - Town Without Pity on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Rape & Sexual Abuse, Not For Children Movie Release: 1961 DVD Release: 02/05/2002 Format: DVD - Black and White - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 43 mins Studio: MGM Members Wishing: 0 Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Courtroom Drama

Gene Pitney's hit title song for this courtroom drama became a bigger and more enduring success than the film in which it was repeatedly sung. The story takes place in postwar Germany in the village of Neustadt. A group of four drunken American soldiers come upon a teenage girl, Karin Steinhof (Christine Kaufmann), in the woods outside town. She had been trying to seduce her boyfriend, Frank Borgmann (Gerhart Lippert), but the inexperienced young man got flustered and left. The soldiers take advantage of the situation and are charged with rape. Karin's father Herr Steinhof (Hans Nielsen) wants the death penalty. Major Steve Garrett (Kirk Douglas), the attorney whom the military brings in to handle the defense, bullies Karin's parents, warning that he will put her on the stand. He also talks to townspeople and finds out that Karin has a reputation for standing undressed in front of windows as people pass by. Garrett builds a strong case, leading to a dramatic trial and a shocking conclusion. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Kirk Douglas - Maj. Steve Garrett
E.G. Marshall - Col. Pakenham
Robert Blake - Jim
Richard Jaeckel - Bidie
Christine Kaufmann - Karin Steinhof
Frank Sutton - Chuck

Gottfried Reinhardt's Town Without Pity looks every bit as gritty as it did in 1961, telling the tale of four American G.I.'s on trial for raping a teenaged girl in a small German town, circa 1960. Despite its having been an international production, and dealing with a difficult subject matter for its time, the movie has always had strong resonances with American audiences, partly because of the presence of Kirk Douglas in the starring role and by virtue of its title song (co-authored by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington), which was sung by Gene Pitney, and which became a major chart hit. The film-to-video transfer on the DVD is about as perfect as one could hope for, with barely a blemish in the source and all manner of detail that was never clear on the old TV presentations of the movie. United Artists must have kept the negative to this picture in great condition, because even the scenes in near darkness -- in the army barracks, the dimly lit prison compound corridors, and the home of the victim in the penultimate segment -- are beautifully rich in their tones, while the daylight exterior shots portray the drabness of the postwar German setting in vivid detail. There may be some minor flaws in either the source or the transfer for a few seconds just ahead of 19 minutes into the movie, but it will take a fairly sharp-eyed viewer to be bothered by that -- the film overall is so well represented here, that it has regained much of its 40-year-old potency. The disc opens on the menu automatically, and the selections include a French-dialogue track and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish, along with the original trailer, which is far more overheated than the movie itself. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide