The Outrage (1964)

Derived from Rashomon, the classic 1951 Japanese film, The Outrage attempts to modernize the original story of rape and murder, transporting from medieval Japan to the American Southwest of the 1870's. The story is told within the framework of three men waiting at a railway station. A con-man (Edward G. Robinson) listens to the account of a trial held recently in the town as told by a prospector (Howard Da Silva) and a preacher (William Shatner) suffering from a crisis of faith in humanity. Three witnesses at the trial of a Mexican outlaw give conflicting testimony. Each version is shown in flashback. The outlaw, Juan Carrasco (Paul Newman), confesses that he bound the husband (Laurence Harvey), raped the wife, and killed the husband in a duel of honor. The wife (Claire Bloom) claims that the outlaw raped her, and then she stabbed her husband when he contemptuously blamed her for inviting the assault. The third witness, an old Indian (Paul Fix), declares that he found the dying husband who stated that he stabbed himself because he couldn't live with the humiliation. At this point, the narrative is interrupted by an abandoned baby's cry. The child has gold hidden in his clothing which the con-man attempts to appropriate. Then the discussion of the trial continues, turning brusquely from drama to parody. The prospector admits that he witnessed the rape, but that the wife nagged the two men into fighting over her. The husband tripped and fell on his own knife. The prospector, who stole the jeweled knife from the dead body, chose not to appear in court. Possibly out of some desire for redemption, the prospector decided to care for the abandoned baby, and the preacher regains faith from the supposed altruistic action. The eerily deserted train station and the strong black-and-white cinematography contribute a mild surreal quality to the film, but can do little to save the story from its flaws. The changes in the characters necessary to accommodate the new setting cause them to lose important symbolic significance in the translation. Despite a star cast and strong acting, the new version is mediocre at best. The Outrage falls woefully short of the acclaimed Japanese original.