Town Without Pity
| Town Without Pity | |
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Original German theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Gottfried Reinhardt |
| Produced by | Eberhard Meichsner Gottfried Reinhardt |
| Screenplay by |
George Hurdalek Jan Lustig Silvia Reinhardt Dalton Trumbo |
| Based on |
Das Urteil by Manfred Gregor |
| Starring |
Kirk Douglas Christine Kaufmann E. G. Marshall |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Cinematography | Kurt Hasse |
| Edited by | Werner Preuss |
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Production
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | United States Switzerland West Germany |
| Language | English German |
Town Without Pity (German: Stadt ohne Mitleid) is a 1961 American, Swiss and West German international co-production drama film directed by Gottfried Reinhardt. Produced by The Mirisch Corporation, the film stars Kirk Douglas, Christine Kaufmann, and E. G. Marshall. Coincidentally, this movie came out the same year that John A. Bennett, to this day the last man executed by the U.S. Army, was hanged for raping an 11-year-old girl.
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.
In occupied Germany fifteen years after the end of World War II, four somewhat drunk American G.I.s leave a bar where "Town Without Pity" is playing on the jukebox and head to a river in the countryside. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old local fraulein Karin Steinhof (Christine Kaufmann) has a quarrel with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Frank Borgmann, on the banks of the same river. She swims back to her starting point 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). When Frank hears her screams for help, he swims across the river to help her, but he is knocked out by one of the rapists. After the four men are finished with the girl, the guilt-ridden Larkin lingers behind; he covers the victim with his shirt before fleeing with the other three men.
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