Plot
In 1937 Hawaii, four native Hawaiian men find a white woman, beaten nearly to death, and take her to a hospital—only to be charged later with her rape and assault. During their trial, the woman's husband, a lieutenant in the US Navy, fatally shoots one of them and later stands trial himself. The trial brings into stark relief the racial tensions that tear at the social fabric of Territorial Hawaii in the years prior to World War II.
Socialite Hester Ashley Murdoch (Madeleine Stowe) leaves an officers' dinner party at the US Naval base in Honolulu in the company of a man who is not her husband (Lieutenant Lloyd Murdoch, played by William Russ), but rather Lt. Murdoch's best friend. The friend coldly announces that he is terminating their relationship, though Hester is carrying his child. Outraged, she announces that she will tell her husband and the commanding admiral on the station. In retaliation, the friend beats her savagely and leaves her bloodied and battered where she lies.
Four young Hawaiian men find her and take her to a hospital, although they fear being blamed for the condition she is in because she is haole (white) and they are native Hawaiian. At the hospital, Hester's mother Doris (Jane Alexander) assumes that the Hawaiians are to blame, but Hester says, "It's nobody's fault; I was the pregnant one!" The shocked Doris tells her daughter that she must collaborate in Doris' campaign to blame the Hawaiians, saying that Hester must think of Doris' "position" in high society. Accordingly, the four are charged with rape and assault, although the only sexual intercourse that Hester had was consensual and not with any of the four.
Most of the law-enforcement officers involved, including the Honolulu Police Department and the Navy Shore Patrol, assume that the Hawaiians are guilty, but Detective Captain Curt Maddox (Kris Kristofferson) is unconvinced. Meanwhile, the Hawaiians get a court-appointed attorney who strives valiantly to show that the four must be innocent of the crime, because of time-line conflicts with the best estimate of when the beating took place. The trial of the four ends abruptly and tragically, though, when Lieutenant Murdoch, at the height of an at-the-bench discussion between the judge and the two opposing counsels, abruptly draws his service automatic and shoots the lead defendant twice in the head, killing him.
Now Murdoch must stand trial (in a civilian court) for murder in the first degree. Doris sends a wire to famed criminal attorney Walter Bergmann (Jose Ferrer), who agrees to defend Lieutenant Murdoch against the murder charge. The pretrial investigation is complicated by an affair between Detective Maddox and Mr. Bergmann's wife Leonore (Sean Young).
The case is further complicated when a number of Navy petty officers, all friends of Murdoch, kidnap the three remaining Hawaiians, tie them in spread-eagle fashion to an improvised rack, and beat them to get them to confess to the original alleged rape and assault. In the course of that particular atrocity, the Navy men repeatedly use the expression "bilge", which (at least according to the film) is common Navy slang for useless information or known falsehood. The lawyer for the Hawaiians interviews the three, after they are brought to a hospital and unable to lie on their backs because of the severe beatings they have received. There, they finally blurt out, "They said, 'Bilge!'" This gives the lawyer the vital clues he needs. Maddox follows up the clues and has the three arrested.
Murdoch's trial climaxes with Attorney Bergmann trying to sum up by saying that Murdoch's action was excusable. "Those animals beat her!" he cries; then Hester, plagued by her conscience, blurts out, "They're innocent! They're innocent!" Although Bergmann roughly escorts her from the courtroom, the damage is done: Murdoch is convicted.
Subsequently, Doris engages in a behavior called "brazening it out". She hires an interior decorator to redecorate her home. In the middle of her interview with the decorator, Detective Maddox arrives with a warrant for the arrests of Doris and Hester. Hester, crushed, rushes to her bathroom and hangs herself from the shower head. Doris discovers Hester's dead body and cries out in anguish. Whether that anguish is truly for losing her daughter or because this is the final shameful and devastating blow to her social position, the film leaves unresolved, perhaps deliberately so.
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Admiral Charles William de la Poer Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford,, styled Lord Charles Beresford between 1859 and 1916, was a British admiral and Member of Parliament.
The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900, until August 21, 1959, when most of its territory, excluding Palmyra Island, was admitted to the United States as the 50th U.S. state, the State of Hawaii. The Hawaii Admission Act specified that the State of Hawaii would not include Palmyra Island, the Midway Islands, Kingman Reef, and Johnston Atoll, which includes Johnston Island and Sand Island.
The Honolulu Police Department (HPD) is the principal law enforcement agency of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii, headquartered in the Alapa'i Police Headquarters in Honolulu CDP.
Abigail Wahiʻikaʻahuʻula Campbell Kawānanakoa was a politician and Princess of Hawaii.
The Massie Trial, for what was known as the Massie Affair, was a 1932 criminal trial that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii Territory. Socialite Grace Fortescue, along with several accomplices, was charged with the murder of the well-known local prizefighter Joseph Kahahawai. Fortescue was the mother of Thalia Massie, who had brought charges that Kahahawai was one of a group of men who had raped her.
Thalia Fortescue Massie was a member of a socially prominent U.S. family involved in a series of heavily publicized trials in Hawaii.
Grace Hubbard Fortescue,, was a New York City socialite who murdered a man, later proven innocent, who was accused of raping her daughter. After being convicted of manslaughter at a sensational trial, her ten-year sentence was commuted to a single hour by Hawaii's Territorial Governor Lawrence Judd.
Olivia Margaret Benson is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the NBC police procedural drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Mariska Hargitay. Benson holds the rank and pay-grade of Captain and is the Commanding Officer of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit of the New York City Police Department, which operates out of the 16th Precinct. She investigates sexual offenses such as rape and child sexual abuse.
Margaret Gillespie Wyllie was an American actress who appeared primarily on television. She portrayed Mrs. Kissel in The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963-1964).
Steve McGarrett is a fictional character who is the protagonist of CBS' Hawaii Five-O. McGarrett is a former United States Navy officer and the leader of a special state police task force, which is called Five-O. McGarrett was portrayed by actor Jack Lord in the original show from 1968 to 1980, and later by Alex O'Loughlin in the series' remake from 2010. Throughout the show, McGarrett is partner to Detective Danny "Danno" Williams.
The Silent Scream, popularly released under the truncated title, Silent Scream, is a 1979 American slasher film directed by Denny Harris, and starring Rebecca Balding, Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Steele and Yvonne De Carlo. The film follows a college student who finds rooming in a hilltop boarding house where a homicidal killer is on the loose.
Granville Roland Fortescue was an American soldier, a Rough Rider serving with his cousin, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in Cuba, a presidential aide in the first Roosevelt administration and later, a journalist and war correspondent for the London Standard during the Rif War in 1920 Spanish Morocco. He wrote for the London Daily Telegraph during World War I and during the Spanish Civil War.
Hawaii Five-0 is an American action police procedural television series that centers around a special police major crimes task force operating at the behest of the governor of Hawaii. It is a reboot of the 1968–1980 series Hawaii Five-O, which also aired on CBS. The series was produced by K/O Paper Products and 101st Street Television, initially in association with CBS Television Studios. The show received praise for its modern take on the original series.
Loretta Ables Sayre is an American actress and singer who performed jazz standards at luxury hotels in Hawaii for three decades. During her career, Ables Sayre performed in a few musicals and guest-starred in several television shows, also doing work in commercials. In her 2007 Broadway debut as Bloody Mary in South Pacific, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and also won the 2008 Theatre World Award.
1920 Politics also referred to as "Jim Crow" circa 1930, was a Democratic political strategy to reassert the authority of the white race and promote American Anglo-Saxon values, in what was then the US Territory of Hawaii.
Joseph Kahahawai Jr. was a Native Hawaiian prizefighter accused of the rape of Thalia Massie. He was abducted and killed after an inconclusive court case ended with a hung jury mistrial.
Douglas S. Chin is an American attorney and politician who served as the 14th Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii from February to December 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, Chin previously was the 14th Attorney General of Hawaii. On December 18, 2017, Chin announced his intent to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. In February 2018, Chin became Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii after the resignation of Shan Tsutsui and after two others in the line of succession declined the office. In August 2018, he lost the Congressional seat's Democratic nomination to Ed Case.
Helen Lake Kanahele was an American labor organizer. She was president of the Women's Auxiliary of the International Longshoreman's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and worked with the United Public Workers union. Due to her labor organizing and opposition to the death penalty, Kanahele was subpoenaed by the Territorial Committee on Subversive Activities in the 1950s.
