Down With... Rape (Victims)


 As I have discussed before, the New York Times has described Cancel Culture as "The public shaming of those deemed moral transgressors". 

"Public Shaming" can take many forms. It can be a social media campaign to boycott JK Rowling because of her perceived opinions about transgender issues, or it can be the dismissal of a music professor because he screened the wrong version of Othello. It can be the blacklisting of suspected Communists, or it can be the condemnation of a film director because he allowed others to be blacklisted.


One of the ugliest manifestations of this type of public shaming has to be the phenomenon politely known as victim-blaming.


Our next film takes place in post-war Germany, and tells the story of a group of off-duty American soldiers who brutally rape a 16-year-old girl.

Although they are quickly caught and charged, the local townsfolk are (understandably) outraged by the atrocity and demand swift and brutal justice. The American Army is anxious to prove that they neither tolerate nor condone this type of behaviour, and decide to seek the death penalty. In a further effort to placate the German people, they stage a (very) public Court-Martial of the four soldiers in the local high school.


At the centre of this film is Kirk Douglas, as the soldiers' court-appointed defence council. He is the only one who understands that putting the victim on the stand in a public trial would effectively mean raping her all over again.


Town Without Pity is an International co-production, and certainly would never have been made had it been exclusively an American film. Not only does it deal frankly and powerfully with a very difficult and controversial subject, but the screenplay was re-written by an uncredited Dalton Trumbo, who was of course one of the original victims of the Hollywood blacklist. For the decade before this, he had been working under various false names (or without credit of any kind) turning out script after script (and winning the occasional unclaimed Oscar).

Kirk Douglas and Dalton Trumbo had jointly finally broken the Hollywood blacklist when Douglas insisted on giving Trumbo full screen credit for Spartacus, a year before Town Without Pity.

Town Without Pity may not have been a high profile film, but it stands as a striking example of the impossible dilemma faced by rape victims when they are asked to face their accusers in court. This film is over sixty years old, but the situation has barely changed today. In 2021, only 1.3% of rapes reported to the police led to formal charges being filed (and of course the number of successful convictions is even lower). When you consider that the overwhelming majority of rapes are never reported in the first place, it's clear that rape is almost literally a crime with no penalty.

The only penalties are those faced by the victims.

We will be screening Town Without Pity at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 2nd of March, at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

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