L'outrage

This remarkable 1964 film has many virtues, among them a strong script, fine photography, and a pre-Kirk William Shatner (whose idiosyncratic acting style is already well-developed, however).

The story is a Westernization of "Rashomon", the story of a rape and murder told from the points of view of three participants and an outsider. The contrast between the subjective stories (told by the bandit, the husband, and the wife) and the story told by the miner who witnesses what really happens is both hilarious and thought provoking.

Everyone is in fine form, but DaSilva's miner and Edward G. Robinson's snake oil salesman are especially fine. Newman's portrayal of the Mexican bandit is often over-the-top, but always interesting.

This is one of those movies that makes one wonder if Mr. Maltin saw the same thing. I think that it is one of the better films of the 60's, a decade that produced a great many of the best movies ever made.

Directed by Martin Ritt, The Outrage is a remake of the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon, that in turn is based on stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, but Ritt has reformulated it in a Western setting. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Howard Da Silva & William Shatner. The story remains the same as four people give contradictory accounts of a rape and murder during the trial of Mexican bandit Juan Carrasco (Newman). The story is told within a flashback framework of three men waiting for a train at a rain soaked Southwestern station-a prospector (Da Silva), a con man (Robinson) and a preacher now struggling with his faith in humanity (Shatner). As each story is told the validity of each account comes under scrutiny, could it be there was a gross miscarriage of justice at the trial?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this remake of a well regarded classic was a commercial flop, with many front line critics particularly savage in their reviews. Which while acknowledging it's a long way away from style and tone of Kurosawa's movie, it's hardly the devil's spawn either. Solidly constructed by Ritt and potently shot in black & white by James Wong Howe (vistas however are in short supply), the story is strong enough to make for an interesting social conscious Oater. There's some misplaced humour in the final third, and a charge of overacting from the talented cast is fair enough (especially Bloom); but maybe, just maybe, Ritt and his team deserve a little leeway for trying a different approach? I mean at least it's not a shot for shot remake eh?

Certainly Newman could never be accused of not being bold or daring with his role selections, one only has to look at his Western film's to see that. Especially the three he did with Ritt: Hud (1963), The Outrage (1964) & Hombre (1967), three very different roles, and each of a different ethnicity too. Throw in his intense turn as Billy The Kid in Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun, and it makes a mockery of those people who pop up from time to time proclaiming Newman had limited range! Is he miscast as Bandido Carrasco in The Outrage? No not really, he throws himself into the role and without prior knowledge of whose under the hat, it's not overtly evident it's the great blue eyed man performing. Sure a Mexican actor would have been better for the role, and definitely Rashomon wasn't in need of a remake. But for Western fans, and especially for fans of Newman, The Outrage still has enough to warrant spending a pie and a pint of beer with. Not particularly great, but not exactly bad either. 6.5/10

"The Outrage" is a re-make of the Akira Kurosawa classic "Rashomon." It's a very faithful adaptation but does not improve upon the original. It would have been better served not to have been as faithful as it was. The cinematography of "Rashomon," for instance, is groundbreaking and an all-time great. Martin Ritt's remake is slicker and more modern but not better. "Outrage" is set in the old west, where the original was set in feudal Japan. Four years before "Outrage," director John Sturges remade Kurosawa's `Seven Samurai' into "The Magnificent Seven." Both are classics. Ritt's stab at Kurosawa (a slightly older film) has been swept up into the sands of film history and is little-remembered. This despite an all-star cast that includes Edward G. Robinson, Laurence Harvey, William Shatner, and Paul Newman as (agh!) a Mexican outlaw.

The source material for "Magnificent Seven" is a story and a script written for film. The source material for "Outrage" technically is a short story written in the early 20th century by Ryunosuke Akutagawa called "In A Grove," from which "Rashomon" was also adapted. Oddly, `Rashomon' is another story altogether, by the same author. The Rashomon Gate is the largest entrance to the walled, then-capital of Japan, Kyoto. Having chosen this the setting for the telling of the film's story, as the three souls take refuge from a storm under this giant gate, Kurosawa re-named the film after it. Instead of going back to the original source, Ritt remakes Kurosawa's film. In doing so, Ritt walks into a trap many filmmakers do when trying to faithfully remake a much-loved piece of work. To remake a film seems to convey that the original lacked something or was somehow flawed. "Rashomon" clearly did not need to be re-made. But once the decision was made to make another version, whether Ritt used the film or the Akutagawa story as his source, it's a no-win situation. Even if he'd based it on the original story, he would have spent his time and energy trying NOT to make another version of "Rashomon."

There are humorous moments in both films. More times than not, I could not tell the difference between what was funny intentionally or unintentionally in "Outrage." One possible improvement that is made by the remake is that the fourth and final re-telling of the trial by the thief, distinguishes itself much more from the first telling, by the bandit. It comes off more comically, which I believe was intended in Kurosawa's version, but doesn't quite come across. The sequence, taken by itself, is the high point of "Outrage."

All things considered, "The Outrage" is an exercise in futility. It's a curiosity for those wondering how yet another Kurosawa film could be overhauled and made into a western. I'd guess the idea was to bring the same story to America, with a more familiar setting, in English. Maybe someday directors will quit wasting their time trying to re-make films that are already masterpieces. If you really feel you need to do a re-make, find a bad film and rise to the challenge of improving upon it (example: Christopher Nolan's "Insomnia"). With "Rashomon," there was nowhere to go but down.

The one exception is the aforementioned "Magnificent Seven." By Kurosawa's own admission, the inspiration for his "Seven Samurai" came from the American western genre. It's for this reason that Sturges' remake works so well.

If you're going to do a movie with multiple flashbacks told from different points of view, the ground covered in those flashbacks better be damned interesting. Such is not the case here. Each witness' version of the events in question becomes progressively more pedestrian until the final one is played for laughs. This is the movie's point, of course, that people would rather believe well-spun myths which confirm their own preconceived notions about human nature than a banal truth that won't conform. All fine and good, but it's a danged self-destructive way to tell a story. Especially when James Wong Howe's apocalyptic visuals (those rain-drenched scenes at the isolated train station are almost Blade Runner-ish in their darkness and despair) are gearing you up from the first moment for some grimly powerful examination of evil.

The sad fact is that Laurence Harvey and Claire Bloom, as the victimized husband and wife at the heart of the film, do not come across as terribly noteworthy or distinctive. You keep waiting for some explosive revelation that might account for the idealistic Parson (played by William Shatner - young and fresh-faced but overly-mannered even then) to be so shattered by the incident that he loses his faith, but no luck. Edward G. Robinson is excellent as the old con artist with no illusions about mankind, while a close to unrecognizable Paul Newman does an entertaining Anthony Quinn impression as the dastardly bandito.

The train station segments are sensational, film-making at its best, but the endless flashbacks are flat and tedious as hell, making this film a uniquely disappointing experience.

Having never seen Rashomon I'm at bit of a disadvantage in writing about The Outrage. Nevertheless it's an attempt at something a little more unusual than the average western.

As even the beating of Rodney King caught on videotape was successfully challenged in a court of law, what does that say about eye witness testimony? The Outrage is the story of an incident on a western trail that left a traveler dead and his wife ravaged by a bandit on the run.

Rashomon the film is only the grandfather of The Outrage. It was first adapted as a Broadway play with Rod Steiger and Noel Willman playing the roles that Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey have on screen. It ran for 159 performances in the 1959 season and Claire Bloom who was Mrs. Rod Steiger at the time was the only one to repeat her role. Rod Steiger would have been a far better choice to repeat for the screen and he certainly has the screen name recognition. Newman was better box office, but Steiger was far better at playing all kinds of ethnic types.

Added to the screen are the characters of Edward G. Robinson and William Shatner playing a conman and a disillusioned minister whose conversations with prospector Howard DaSilva provide a kind of narrative framework for the proceedings. DaSilva provides one of four versions of the events.

All we know for certain is that Claire Bloom got violated by Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey wound up dead. At Newman's trial, he and Bloom provide differing accounts of what happened. An old Indian medicine man played by Paul Fix came upon a dying Laurence Harvey and Fix repeats it for the court. And then DaSilva tells Shatner and Robinson yet another version of the same events.

Bloom is a southern belle, not quite of the upper crust, she married well and she does her best to imitate the behavior of one of the upper crust, no doubt taking Scarlett O'Hara as her model. Laurence Harvey is Ashley Wilkes had he married a road show version of Scarlett instead of Melanie Hamilton. Repeating her performance from Broadway, I'd say Claire was the best one in this film.

The conclusion was most unsatisfactory in my humble opinion, the focus could have and should have stayed on the three protagonists not on the witnesses. Still The Outrage is definitely a most adult western.