Slaves in Bondage

A while back, I bought a multi-pack of exploitation films (oddly misnamed "cult films") and this was one of twenty films in the set. However, unlike most of the other films, this one just wasn't very interesting and really bored me. The production values were a bit higher, but it still was a very bad film--just not bad enough to be funny or memorable.

This movie is about the "white slavery" problem--women being forced into prostitution and other vices by evil mobs. The film begins with a sweet young lady being kidnapped but ultimately escaping from these thugs. Much of the rest of the film concerned tracking down the jerks and prosecuting them, but despite being very salacious in nature, the film was so very dull and poorly acted it was a real chore to finish.

Barely watchable--and that's the BEST thing I can say about this one.

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.

Mary Lou manages to escape abduction by a prostitution ring.

She tells the Chief of Detectives they were planning to take her to the Berrywood road house, a well-known den of iniquity. Jim Murray and beautician Belle Harris are using her beauty shop to recruit floozies for their road house circuit.

Dona Lee, who works at the beauty salon, is falling in love with young reporter wanna-be Phillip, but Murray gets jealous and makes life rough for him. Meanwhile Dona begins to figure out the racket, but becomes threatened by Murray's unwanted advances.

This is one of those roadside productions from the mid thirties and early 40s that circumvented the censors by taking the movies across the country as a road show.

It's not a good movie, but is notable in that it demonstrates how the public cried out for more adult and scandalous movies, since nearly all of these films were a success.

Be prepared for a heavy handed story with pathetic acting.These are stories with a moral and like westerns where the bad guys always we're black, the villains are easy to discern.

Puhlenty of legs in the brothel. And lot's of girls in their undies. The movie was meant to titillate. Yes tame by today's standards, but an interesting historical curio piece.

Explotive movie about the white slave or prostitution business back in the 1930's that was very graphic and reveling for it's time. This mob boss and his assistant Jim Murray and Good-Looking Freddie, Wheeler Oakman & Matty Roubert, who were out looking for new girls to work for Murray's bordello the Barrywood Road-House try to kidnap Mary Lou, Louise Small. Which turns out to be the downfall for the two thugs and their entire sleazy operation.

Getting away from the two Mary Lou's ordeal has the city and the local newspaper up in arms to put an end to Murray's squalid and unsavory racket that was a stain on all the good and law abiding people in town.

Raiding the Barrywood Road House the local newspaper get police mug shots of all the gangsters that were arrested there. Including Good-Looking Freddie who Mary Lou identifies and one of her kidnappers.

With Good-Looking Freddie jumping bail and then threatening both Murray and his madam at the Barrywood Road House Belle Harris, Florence Dudley, with exposer to the police Murray Punch him out cold and then has him shot and dumped out on the street.

We have a side plot in the movie with Mary Lou's sister Dona Lee, Lona Andre, and her fiancé out of work reporter Phil Miller, Donald Reed,needing money to get married so Dona Lee gets a job as a manicurist at a parlor run by Murray and Harris. Like with Mary Lou Murray gets very infatuated with her sister Dona Lee and in order to break up Dona Lee and her boyfriend Phil he has his boys plant marked money on him at a local bookie joint. Then tips off the police about Phil passing it, the hot money, off.

The cops secretly knowing that Phil was set up have him arrested to put Murray off guard as well as make him feel that he can have his way with Phil's girlfriend Dona Lee. But it's that very act that put Murray's and Harris out of the prostitution business and behind bars for a long time.

Standred flick about the dark side of the entertainment business and how young girls and women who are desperate for a job and money to survive are exploited and driven into the business of sex for profit. With almost all the profits going to sleaze-balls like Marray and Harris and not the young women who do all their dirty work.