Outrage
*Kino Lorber’s new Blu-Ray of “Outrage” was released on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. It includes an audio commentary by film historian Imogen Sara Smith.
**This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
73 years after its initial release, I don’t think a better film exists with rape or sexual assault as a central part of the story than Ida Lupino’s “Outrage.” Part of that is because it doesn’t show the assault, but the build-up and aftermath for Ann Walton, not that it could have in the age of the Production Code. Part of that is because it’s entire perspective is that of the victim, and Lupino and her co-writers, husband Collier Young and Malvin Ward, have profound empathy for Walton, played by Mala Powers in a harrowing psychological performance.
One of the things that takes some getting used to in Lupino’s melodramas is the moralizing that comes with the Code era. It always has a thematic purpose to films like “Not Wanted” or “The Bigamist,” but in “Outrage,” we are confronted with the possibility that society failed not just Ann, but her attacker, in a scene that comes from a natural narrative place, but also feels kind of like it is letting her attacker, who stalked her on her way home one night, seem like a victim of the the system that is looking to force Ann into jail for her actions. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though, and whatever happens at the end doesn’t impact the power of Lupino’s film.
When the film begins, Ann is a secretary in love with Jim (Robert Clarke), a local guy who was once a student of her father’s, and has just gotten a raise. They hope to get married, and everyone is happy for them. One night, after work, Ann is followed by a man with a scar on his throat. He catches up with the ever-frightened Ann, and rapes her. She manages to get home, but she is changed. She can only help the police so much, and cannot think too much about marriage when even a sympathetic touch on the shoulders from a co-worker causes her to be hysterical. She leaves town, intending never to return, but when a news report reminders her of what she’s running away from, she runs away from the bus, and gets injured. A local preacher, Rev. Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews), is one of the ones to take her in, and someone who makes her feel comfortable for the first time in months, at least until someone just trying to be nice to her triggers her memories of what she ran away from.
It’s always exciting to see how filmmakers working in low-budget productions use sound and images to enhance the tension. The use of a car horn, accidentally pushed, before Ann’s attacker catches up with her, and the rape occurs, is a great way to illustrate the anxiety of the situation- and hide her screams- without relying on a traditional score. (Also, having a man shut his window to try and drown out the sound gets to how the film puts society on blast for ignoring women.) The use of flashbacks and visual tricks to get into Ann’s psyche works to the film’s advantage when she’s approached by a man at her new town’s celebration at the end. To us, his behavior is way over the line, even more so considering the visible discomfort Ann is exhibiting. In this film from 1950, Lupino is exploring the inability in a man to understand that, for a woman, “no means no” decades before that would be a significant part of our cinematic landscape. Even the good men in the film, Jim and Rev. Bruce, sometimes aren’t thinking about the impacts their words and feelings have on Ann; “Outrage” is a great, important film that men should probably watch to see that their actions and words, however well-intentioned, need to be more considerate of women, even if it’s just intended in friendship.
The finale of this film feels very straightforward, like films such as “Psycho,” at getting to a particular moral point. Here, people make the point that society has failed not just Ann, but also her rapist. Yes, in the larger sense, the criminal justice system did fail to rehabilitate her rapist, but as we’ve learned in people like Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Johnny Depp, not every criminal has it in them to be rehabilitated, or take responsibility for their actions and be better on the other side. It’s the one moment where the film’s gaze gets off of Ann’s struggle, and it rings a false note, even if it’s not an incorrect note. Having said that, Lupino’s film holds tremendous power as an examination on the pain women experience after being raped, and how the world doesn’t always allow for their feelings as they try to heal. For that reason alone, it is a film well worth watching.
