Marchands de filles

This review is of the English-dubbed version of this 1957 film, entitled SELLERS OF GIRLS. Made in 1957 and released in the US in the early 60s, SELLERS OF GIRLS is a competently made French white slavery melodrama with a narcotics smuggling subplot. It starts off well, with a scene depicting a teenage girl in an abusive home with an unpleasant stepfather. She fantasizes about leaving home and going to Paris, which she eventually does. She is spotted by "recruiters" for white slavery, who can spot a girl from the provinces very easily, and soon she is sucked in by promises of a job. At this point, the film loses its interesting particularity and becomes a standard crime melodrama, not particularly gritty or distinctive, although it is a competently made as an early 50s Republic programmer, and like most French films of the era it features a good musical score--jazzy when the film is set in France, Latin-tinged when the film is set in some generic Latin American setting. Any viewer of foreign genre films is probably used to dubbing by now, but one problem here is that the sound effects are not synched well, which becomes a bit annoying. Other than that, this is an average French crime film (I gave it a "5" rating)and viewers intrigued by the risque title will NOT get what they are looking for. I won't give away the ending, but when one thinks the film is over, a fatalistic epilogue is added...how uniquely French!

"Marchands de filles " belongs to Maurice Cloche's movies dealing with the plight of prostitutes ;he and Leon Joannon were both champions of the cause . This kind of movie did not attract the audience fond of moral, but another one , who wanted to get an eyeful:but at the time the censorship was ruthless ,and nudities were few and far between when there was any: it does not prevent the film from being still shown in porno movie theaters in the sixties ,the TV would never screen this "filth" at the time.

Maurice Cloche made several interesting movies in the thirties and forties :Alphonse Daudet's "le petit chose" and his best effort " Monsieur Vincent" about the French saint . But from "Marchands de filles " onwards, after the prostitution cycle , in James Bond 's wake ,he directed poor spy thrillers,and there's nothing to save from the wreckage.

"Des Femmes disparaissent " (Molinaro,same year ) dealt with the same subject ,but the police intervened before the girls were sent to those marvelous faraway countries where they will be rolling in money; "Marchand de filles" goes all the way :the girls are lured to Latin America where they promise them the moon;we follow some of these girls :Josette (Agnès Laurent whose career was short-lived) a naive bubble head girl who thinks that her boss will allow her to marry the nice sailor she met on the liner ; Gaby who left her child in France and Vera who sings a melancholy song ,some kind of "some day my prince will come" are played by earnest actresses (Pascale Roberts and Evelyne Dandry);The same goes for Georges Marchal who would also work with Luis Bunuel at the time ("la mort en ce jardin" "cela s'appelle l'aurore",here cast as enigmatic Mister John.

The screenplay is muddled and melodramatic, direction leaves a lot to be desired (the small car chase and the final gangland killing); and how Josette, beaten to death,then kidnapped in the hospital,then sent to the brothel ,can escape unharmed is beyond me.

Only one short scene is impressive : a matron writes the number of "clients" on a blackboard in the brothel;and the screenwriters are honest enough to admit that the terrible problems of all those girls are not resolved when the movie's over.