Outrage (1950)

In director/writer Ida Lupino's, ground-breaking, B-level crime-related, film-noirish drama - one of the first films to address the taboo subject of rape in the 50s, that wasn't even explicitly named, but called a 'criminal attack/assault' - the film's tagline asked: "Is Any Girl SAFE?":

• under the opening title credits sequence, an overhead view of a young woman staggering through urban streets, as she glanced warily over her shoulder - a foreshadowing of the film's pivotal event
• the memorable 'rape' scene of young naive plant secretary-bookkeeper Ann Walton (Mala Powers) who left work late one night at 9:45 pm from the Bradshaw Mill Company (Capitol City), obliviously whistling the tune "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" to herself; her neck-scarred rapist-assailant (Albert Mellen) (the waiter-counterman in an on-site food lunch-stand just outside the lumber mill factory) spotted her from across the street and called out: "Hey beautiful!", but she didn't hear him; with alternating quick high and low-angled camera shots, her ordeal was documented as she began to hear loud and ominous approaching footsteps, and was pursued through a maze of dark, shadowy and deserted streets and industrial alleyways for over five minutes
• one memorable image was of a wall of pasted circus bills or grotesque posters with evil giant clown faces leering behind her

Ann Up Against Wall of Grotesque Circus Posters	Under Streetlight	Ann's Fetal Position Before Attack

• she screamed for help, and blared the horn of a parked truck (that was busted and kept sounding), but to no avail; at the end of the sequence, she slipped running up some steps, hit her head, and was left defenseless, curled up into a fetal position on the wooden porch of a building; she awaited her fate as the attacker approached; she noted the scar on his neck and the man's leather jacket as the image unfocused; the camera pulled back behind the building and avoided showing the act
• the final image of the sequence was an old man in a second floor apartment of the wooden building, just around the corner, who was awakened by the truck horn - he looked annoyed as he peered out of his bedroom window, saw nothing, and then slammed it shut
• without much evidence to go on, the police - in a suspenseful sequence - called for a suspect line-up in an open theater setting, although Ann was not protected by one-way glass or a soundproof room, and unable to clearly identify her attacker (none of the four were the actual perpetrator)
• the devastating aftermath (and "dark times") for the traumatized victim (who subsequently felt "dirty" and the subject of endless judgment and gossip); feeling alienated from her family and community; she decided to flee and board a bus to Los Angeles; via a radio report at a rest stop, Ann learned that she was being searched for as "a victim of a criminal attack" or "vicious assault" by her parents, and she feared discovery

Ann's Sprained Ankle	Found by Side of Road and Picked Up	Aided by Bruce Ferguson

• Ann fled from the rest stop and after walking for miles, she became exhausted, sprained her ankle and collapsed on a dark roadside where she was picked up by an anonymous male who loaded her into the backseat of his car; ultimately, she learned she had been rescued by kindly and understanding Rev. Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews); she was brought to live and then work (first as a crate packer and then as an office bookkeeper) with the Harrisons - a family that owned SPLENDOR, an orange grove packing plant in Santa Paula - where she adopted the name Ann Blake
• then came a post-traumatic incident at an annual harvest festival with an outdoor dance and picnic, when Ann self-defensively bludgeoned fellow plant worker Frank Marini (Jerry Paris) in the head with a large wrench when he forcefully and persistently kept demanding a kiss (and asked: "We'd all like to know where you came from and why"); she flashbacked to the night of the rape and imagined him to be her attacker - experiencing a short bout of "temporary insanity"

Frank Marini's 'Assault' on Ann

• after she fled, she was found by Bruce in a field, who encouraged her to return; she was promptly arrested by police for assault and jailed; however, with Bruce's assistance and due to the extenuating circumstances, criminal charges were dismissed when she agreed to seek psychiatric therapy and treatment for one year, before she nervously decided to return to her parents, her previous life, and her fiancée Jim Owens (Robert Clarke)