Outrage

After the introduction of the Code in 1934, certain topics just couldn't be talked about. An interesting movie that tries to broach one of those untouchable subjects is Outrage, which will be on TCM tomorrow (November 7) at 2:45 PM.

Mala Powers plays nice working girl Ann Walton who, being single, still lives with her loving parents. However, she's not going to be single much longer, as she's got a boyfriend in Jim (Robert Clarke). Unfortunately, at work she has to deal with a creep who mans the food stand at the facility where Ann works. He seems interested in her, but she's not interested in him. Things go well for Ann until one night when she works late. On her way home, that guy from the stand starts following her until he traps her in a corner and....

Well, you can probably guess that Ann was raped, although of course movies of that time couldn't talk about it. Johnny Belinda was probably slightly more open, but only because she ended up pregnant. Everybody tries to be supportive of Ann, but she doesn't want to be around a man so she thinks there's no way she can marry Jim. And she just knows that everybody's looking at her as though there's something fundamentally and irrevocably flawed with her.

So Ann decides to run away by hopping on a bus for the big city. However, at one of the stops, Ann hears a radio report that her parents are looking for her, a report that goes into too much detail about what happened to her. Now everybody is going to know the dirty truth about her. So she flees the bus and just starts walking, until she collapses from exhaustion.

She's found in that state by the kindly Reverend Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews), who obviously knows that there's something wrong with her, but takes an interest in her well-being. Or is he possibly interested in her -- he's not Catholic, so he could have a girlfriend if he wanted. The good reverend helps Ann get a job in the local agribusiness, and even gets Ann a place to stay. Ann, for her part, seems to be doing her best to make herself a part of the community.

Until, that is, the big local party when one of the partygoers shows a decided interest in her. Nobody in this little town knows Ann's true past, and while this guy is probably sincere, he's also way too forward for Ann, who knowing nothing better to do, clubs the guy with a wrench in self-defense! Of course, she's going to have to stand trial for that, and the whole sordid past may come out....

Outrage isn't a bad movie, although the dirty little fingers of the Production Code cause some serious problems. Everything is way too guarded, and the ending is a bit too pat even if it isn't a straightforward happy Hollywood ending. The whole movie felt to me like it was better suited to be a TV movie of the week. Not that anybody's bad in it, but everything feels ever so slightly off.

Direction was handled by Ida Lupino, one of the rare women directors at that time. She shows some interesting ideas with camera movement, and also handles the material (which she co-wrote) about as well as one can considering the constraints of the Production Code.

The movie doesn't seem to be available at all on DVD, which I'd guess is because it was independently produced with distribution handled by RKO. If it were a full RKO movie, it probably would have gotten a Warner Archive release by now.