Dalton Trumbo did the final rewrite on the script (uncredited). I assumed it would be better than it was. But now I can see why I never heard of it before.
Kirk Douglas plays a sanctimonious defense attorney defending four rapists in the US Army in 1960 Germany. First he tells his "clients" how much he hates them because they raped a teenage girl. Then he defends them by ripping the girl apart for things that have nothing to do with the crime. She was alone in the woods changing out of her two piece swimsuit. She was bare naked. No wonder they raped her.
He pleads with the girl's father not to let her testify so he won't have to humiliate her on the witness stand. What a nice guy.
Wikipedia gave away the ending, so I turned it off before I got to the end. It was kind of a nice looking movie, black and white. We see the little German town.
Part of a movie genre about military trials where the defense isn't supposed to win, usually for political reasons. In Breaker Morant and A Few Good Men, the defendants were war criminals and murderers but we were supposed to side with them because they were only following orders. In Paths of Glory and Conduct Unbecoming, the defendants were innocent. In The Winston Affair, the defendant was criminally insane.
In this movie, I guess we were supposed to side with the defendants because they shouldn't be hanged just for gang raping a schoolgirl. Oh, and Robert Blake was impotent, blubbed during the crime and Frank Sutton was mean to him.
It seemed to be intent on making the U.S. Army officers look good. You'd think Dalton Trumbo would have known better.
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