Gene Pitney – Town Without Pity (1961-62), „American narrative“ version

Originally published at YouTube on July 31, 2016.

Forward (4/15/21): In May 29, 2019 I finally got around to doing a video of this song that was also a damned great tribute to the film of the same name it appeared in. I still consider that as one of my best videos and you can find it here on Vimeo. Prior to May 2019, this video I made back in July 2016 was all I had on YouTube … and it was often attacked on YouTube for not being a faithful „trailer“ for the movie starring Kirk Douglas. Like I said, if you want to see that one it’s on here. In my original description below I explain my reasoning for doing Gene’s song as a remix using Centron educational docu-drama shorts. The idea was the song was also American, not just West German (as the setting in the film). American young people listened to this song on the radio, many never even saw the film. How did American kids respond to this song? I put together a false narrative (something that looks like a narrative using remixing ideas) that kind of told the story of the song’s lyrics from an American perspective, from the perspective of young, school-aged or college-aged American kids who might be living in troubled community. The world was far from perfect even in those days and there were many problems for society. That was the basis of doing „Town Without Pity“ as an American story before doing the film version.

Below is the original description:

I was 8 years old when I saw the film, Town Without Pity, at the drive-in with my parents. It was December 1961, 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 my first Gene Pitney hit single, „Town Without Pity,“ as the film opened up. A great film set in West Germany starring Kirk Douglas, and, although What happened in the movie was probably more than applicable to the lyrics, when I hear it I think of it more as a song about young lovers in America facing the adversity and violence in their own small community. It was apparently getting a lot of radio play and still moving up the charts when I heard it watching the film as it didn’t peak until late January 1962.

I never forgot that song and it became one of my favorite oldies. It was among the earliest oldies acquisitions I purchased on vinyl by the great Gene Pitney. I say great, yes. 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.

Putting together this video to dramatize the lyrics was not an easy job and required working with a lot of footage from many Centron Productions short films shot by Carnival Of Souls director Herk Harvey from 1955 to 1965. Of course the young actors were all local school kids and acting students from Lawrence, Kansas … the center of Centron Productions, one of the leading educational and social issues short film companies in the entire United States in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

So here is Gene Pitney singing one of his most famous hit songs. It reached #10 in Canada and #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and #11 on Cash Box on January 27, 1962. The video may be a bit uneasy to watch … because this time around the Town Without Pity is Lawrence, Kansas!