Gene Pitney - Town Without Pity (1961-62), Film Tribute

Possibly the most famous song recorded by the great Gene Pitney and one of the most memorable and haunting themes from a film in the history of cinema. May 29, 2019: Three years ago when I last made a music video set to the immortal classic, “Town Without Pity,“ the film itself was not available for download. A few trailers and film clips from the movie were available, most in poor quality or else seriously deficient in scenes. But the song, as a hit single, had a life of its own in America, and I adapted the song for a video I made about the problems of young people growing up in a small community in the United States during the early 1960’s. Now, at last, I have been able to make a video using scenes from the actual film Town Without Pity in which Gene Pitney’s famous vocal originally appeared. I have watched the film again in its entirety, probably for the first time in twenty or twenty-five years. As wonderfully acted and topically relevant as it has remained these last 58 years, it has always been a difficult movie to find and watch, broadcasts on VHF, UHF, and eventually cable TV having been few and far between. I was 8 years old when I first saw the film at the drive-in with my parents in December 1961. There was some snow on the ground, and it was cold. Car heaters were in use along with the old sound speakers. That’s when I heard the hit single, “Town Without Pity,“ as the opening part of the film score composed by another great of the time, Dimitri Tiomkin. It had been playing on the radio for a few months, but now I was hearing it in its intended setting and for its intended audience. Directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, the film stars Kirk Douglas, Barbara Rütting, Christine Kaufmann, and E. G. Marshall. Set in occupied West Germany, it is a frank and ugly account of the reaction of members of a small community to the gang rape of a somewhat promiscuous 16-year-old local girl by four American GIs put on public court martial for their lives. It is one of the first films dealing with the right of an actual rape victim, regardless of reputation, to not be raped all over again when forced to confront her attacker(s) in an open court. A precarious right, however, if the charges happen to be false. In the case of this film, for example, one of the four GIs turned out to be innocent. The film, of course, was a bit too abstract for an 8-year-old in the early 60’s to fully comprehend. That opportunity would come some 16 years later when I happened to catch it on late night TV in one of those rare occasions it was broadcast by a local television affiliate of one of the three major networks. Some parts I remembered, although they had been scattered about in childhood memory, otherwise it was a new viewing experience. After watching I came away with the belief I had seen one of the best films ever produced. It would be another twenty years before I would see the film again. A reminder that there are many classic films rarely ever shown. Sometimes they are deliberately held from public screening after their theatrical release for decades as was the case with The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Vertigo (1958). In other cases the reasons are more mysterious or perhaps simply due to bad timing. Aside from a handful of film clips on the Internet, I have not seen Walk On The Wild Side (1962) televised in its entirety since I saw it broadcast on ABC in 1968 (when I was 14). I never forgot the theme song for Town Without Pity and it became one of my favorite oldies. Gene Pitney’s classic was among the earliest oldies acquisitions I purchased on vinyl. Along with a few others like Bobby Rydell, Del Shannon, Lou Christie, and Bobby Vee, Gene was a giant. His singing personified the romantic music of youth during the Kennedy and early Johnson years in America like few other male vocalists could ever accomplish. He was also extremely versatile and sang in many other genres besides pop and rock n’ roll. He had many hits, all great like “Town Without Pity.“ When I was a disk jockey, that song got played at the club every oldies night. You could count on it. It was also one of the most frequently requested oldies in my collection. So here is one of Gene Pitney’s most famous hit songs along with a tribute to the film it appeared in as well. The song reached #10 in Canada and #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and #11 on Cash Box on January 27, 1962.