Derived from the classic 1951 Japanese film
Rashomon, director
Martin Ritt's The Outrage attempts to modernize the original story of rape and murder, transporting from medieval Japan to the American Southwest of the 1870's. The story is told within the framework of three men waiting at a railway station. A con-man (Edward G. Robinson) listens to the account of a trial held recently in the town as told by a prospector (
Howard Da Silva) and a preacher (
William Shatner) suffering from a crisis of faith in humanity. Three witnesses at the trial of a Mexican outlaw give conflicting testimony. Each version is shown in flashback. The outlaw, Juan Carrasco (
Paul Newman), confesses that he bound the husband (
Laurence Harvey), raped the wife, and killed the husband in a duel of honor. The wife (
Claire Bloom) claims that the outlaw raped her, and then she stabbed her husband when he contemptuously blamed her for inviting the assault. The third witness, an old Indian (
Paul Fix), declares that he found the dying husband who stated that he stabbed himself because he couldn't live with the humiliation. As the story continues to unfold, the validity of each of the stories is questioned before the truth is finally revealed. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide