Glamour for Sale

A very post-Code look at "escort services," albeit they're places where there's nothin' dirty goin' on, this is a brisk little B with an appealing Anita Louise helping undercover agent Roger Pryor, with an uncommonly unattractive mustache, close in on the thugs running the thing. Considering all the dialog about how good these girls are, it has a nicely tawdry atmosphere, and Don Beddoe is authentically menacing as the thug-in-chief. A couple of bad songs with bad voice doubles round it out, and at just an hour and change, it won't bore you.

Nice girl Anita Louise needs to make a living. She gets a job at an escort agency -- and stop snickering, because the Production Code was in full force when this was made. Little does she know that her company is controlled by mobster Don Beddoes, who has a sideline of snapping photos of his girls with clients in from other parts, and threatening to publish them. When one of his blackmail subjects kills himself, undercover agent Roger Pryor recruits Miss Louise in a scheme to bring down the forces of evil.

given this is a one-hour second Columbia feature directed by Ross Lederman, it's obvious no one was expecting much from this movie. It was just a movie that Harry Cohn spat onto Gower Street one Friday afternoon. The fact that no writer is credited makes me think the property had been floating around the studio for a long time; certainly, it would have made a great Pre-Code movie. As it exists, there's little of note except for Franz Planer lighting the sets inconsistently to make Miss Louise look beautiful, and June MacCloy doing an Eve Arden imitation. Everyone else is all right, but unmemorable.

Despite many folks thinking that B-movies are synonymous with being bad films, they actually were the inexpensive second feature from a double-feature. Cheaply made, of course, but not necessarily bad...just churned out at a higher rate and lower cost than the A-picture. "Glamour for Sale" is a great example of a B, in that it runs slightly less than an hour (most Bs are 50-70 minutes), has a cast of minor actors and is enjoyable and to the point.

This film is about a ring of crooks who operate escort services that shake down customers. They put them in a compromising situation and then blackmail folks for money. The police decide to investigate and one of the folks they follow is Ann (Anita Louise). When they are convinced she's legitimate*, they approach her and ask her to go undercover to investigate one of the worst of these shakedown artists.

The film is modestly enjoyable, action-filled and short. It won't change your life and is not a must-see by any stretch but it is competently made. My only serious complaint...the singing...yuck!

*By the way, at no point does the film even hint at the fact that many (or perhaps all) escort services are covers for prostitution..an odd omission but this was made in the earl Post-Code days when mentioning such things was strictly forbidden.