ida lupino be one of the few woman to break through the directorial glass ceiling in hollywood under the studio system . not surprisingly and she also tackle proto feminist theme that and when touch at all and be approach in so gingerly a manner that it be seldom quite clear what be be talk about . in outrage and she treat rape and it aftermath and and though throughout the short movie it refer to a ` criminal assault and she leave and for once and no doubt about what happen . mala power ( in her official debut ) play a secretary bookkeeper at a big industrial plant while she live with her parent but be engage to a swell guy ( robert clarke ) and who just get a raise and now make $ 90 a week . leave the plant after work late one night and she find herself be stalk . in the ensue scene the best in the movie she try to escape her pursuer in a forbidding maze of building and alley but fails . when she return home and disheveled and in shock and the police can not get much out of her while she claim she never saw her attacker ( who man a snack truck outside the factory ) . try to pretend that nothing happen and she return to her job but fall apart and think that everybody be star at her and judge her . she go into a fugue state and run away to los angeles on a bus but stumble off at a rest stop . wake up in a strange ranch house and she learn that she be rescue by tod andrew and a young minister in a california agricultural town . she lie about her identity and take a job packing orange . the two fall vaguely in love and but it clear to andrews that power be keep dire secret . when and at a company picnic and she seize a wrench and crack the skull of jerry paris and who be try to steal a kiss and the truth about her past come out . it be a courageous movie to come out in 1950 and and that may explain and excuse some of it shortcoming . lupino never recapture the verve of the early assault scene and and the movie wander off into the bucolic and sentimental and end up talky and didactic . yes and lupino have important information to impart and but she do not trust the narrative to speak for itself . her cast and pleasant but bland and generic and weren not much help and either and revert to melodramatic posture or homespun reassurance . but outrage be a breakthrough and blaze a trail for late discourse on what the crime of rape really be and and what it really mean to it victim .