Slaves in Bondage

Even the Grindhouse, I guess, can be a grind. I have to agree with the house here, this is a roadshow movie about brothels that manages to be a little dull. The great thing about this out of bounds genre of film is that in the case of, say, a "Maniac" it delivers something totally odd and out of left field. Here, with the production values at least up around the quality of the better poverty row, we get tame and very conventional fare, still a long way from conventionally good. For hard core students of this kind of thing only. IMDb want me to say more about it, but that pretty much tell the tale. Don't waste your time. It's bad.

1930's exploitation film about the evils of a prostitution ring. The plot concerns how the failed attempt at kidnapping a girl off the street for a prostitution ring ends up leading to the rings down fall. Made on the cheap with a little bit of talent this would be a complete over done pot boiler were it not for some okay performances, some touches that only an exploitation film of this film dared do (women in their frillies and some smart ass dialog) not to mention the passage of time that has twisted some moments into unintentional howlers. Don't get me wrong this movie is trash but its a sincere trash that is mildly entertaining. Not one to look for but if you catch it you might want to watch it for the giggle factor of a once "sincere" warning,

Donald Reed wants to get a job on the local newspaper, so he can marry Lona Andre. She's a manicurist at Florence Dudley's shop. The place is just a front for recruiting girls; the real moneymaker is the disorderly house she runs with Wheeler Oakman.

He's a pretty good exploitation movie from the period, eked out with comic acrobats, lady contortionists, fan dancers and such extras. Without these, it wouldn't have been more than about forty minutes, far too brief for the sort of presentation that exploitation pictures used in those days: rent the movie theater, advertise heavily in the local papers about the educational aspect of the movie (mostly girls in their undies, and terms like "pink tea"), and keep all the receipts. This was called 'four-walling'.

Although most of the cast actually had movie careers -- very minor ones, but even so -- Oakman is the biggest name in the cast. He spent a lot of time in B westerns being villainous, and here he is, about to assault Miss Andre in a locked, soundproofed room. We know that Heaven will protect the working girl, and Miss Andre works as a manicurist, but what about the other girls who get into wrestling matches in their skivvies?

This movie begins with a young woman named "Mary Lou" (Louise Small) who has been kidnapped and is being forcibly taken to a brothel in a speeding car. In the process of fighting her captors she manages to jump out of the car and loses consciousness when she lands on the pavement. Fortunately, the occupants of an oncoming car happen to see her on the side of the road and take her home. It's then that an unemployed reporter named "Phillip Miller" (Donald Reed) picks up on the story and sells it to the newspaper where it makes front page news. Soon one of the abductors is identified and what basically transpires is the story of how small-town girls are lured to New York City by the offer of employment and then eventually forced into prostitution when they discover that things aren't what they appear to be. Now although this movie is rather old I thought that for an exploitation film like this it was well ahead of its time. Obviously, the Hays Code prevented any nudity or scenes of a sexual nature and because of that this film might seem tame in comparison to movies of today. Accordingly, I believe that in order to better appreciate this movie a person needs to be able to use his imagination in order to fill in the blanks. Having said that I rate this movie as slightly above average.

1st watched 2/13/2007 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Elmer Clifton): Slightly watchable tale about a traveling prostitution circuit that sets up shop wherever it can until the police get a lead. The heads of the group disguise themselves as self-made rich people who somehow just know how to make money. The two heroines in the story, a couple who give links to the local newspaper, are just trying to get on their payroll to make enough money to get married but keep getting caught in the middle of this thing. The hero gets put in jail after the leader of the ring, Mr. Murray(who also happens to be a customer of his girlfriend), plants marked money on him and sends the cops in to arrest him. The rest of the movie, the girlfriend is trying to get him out on bail and is pulled into and introduced to the prostitutes by her boss at the nail saloon(who's doubling as the other leader of the ring). The acting is actually decent in this B movie, but the story is slow to progress and it just doesn't pull you into the plight. The situation just seems a little too canned and Hollywood'ized(as if that we're a word) to have any believability in the characters and their problems. I realize this is a late 30's movie with low production values but the artists don't have enough to make the story worthwhile to watch or credible. Not bad, but definitely could have been better.