Gambling with Souls

This is one of many so-called "educational films" of the 1930s that were really sad excuses for sleazy low-budget producers to make films that could slip nudity and banned material past the censor boards. Starting in late 1933 and early 1934, the Hays Production Code was dramatically strengthened to eliminate nudity, extreme violence and decidedly adult far from movies. Believe it or not, before this time, all kinds of taboos were relatively common in films coming from reputable Hollywood studios. However, after the Code was strengthened, perverts and the curious went looking for seedy material and found it in educational films that were really just excuses to show boobs and talk about sex and drugs. As educational material, some states DID allow these films to be seen, though I seriously doubt that parents went to them to learn how to better raise their children!

The main theme of GAMBLING WITH SOULS is forced prostitution. It seems that a local gambling den is actually a front where nice young ladies are hooked on gambling and then forced to become hookers to pay off their debt. The story begins with a police raid and seeing a blonde shooting one of the leaders of this hole. The rest of the film is her account to the police of what led her to this murder and how she lost everything due to gambling.

The film is very obvious and trite--with only passable acting and a script that, at times, is very silly. Certainly NOT a great film but oddly watchable if you are a bit of a voyeur and like bad films. Otherwise, beware.

GAMBLING WITH SOULS is one of many "morality" shockers that were made in the 1930s. Ostensibly these were films designed to educate the viewing public about the dangers of drugs, vice, and sex, but in reality they were lurid little potboilers whose posters screamed sensationalism.

GAMBLING WITH SOULS is the first of these I've watched (it won't be the last) and it's a surprisingly well-made little film for the most part. Clearly this was done on a low budget, but the production values are fairly strong; there are lots of scenes set in bustling casinos and with lots of extras in the background. The narrative is well-constructed, with a mystery court-case bookending the tale told in flashback; it concerns a young woman, addicted to gambling, who is forced into prostitution in order to pay off her debts.

The cast is undistinguished but the material still holds a certain significance to this day - it's amazing how non-dated this feels, especially in comparison to the creaky likes of Lugosi's Dracula made the same decade - and it's fast-paced enough to retain the attention span of even the modern viewer.

I had never heard the name of actress Martha Chapin until I saw her in this dark, moody little gem that was included in the Mill Creek boxed set of exploitation flicks--an absolute must for any fans of these long forgotten grind house classics.

Chapin plays Mae, the frustrated and gorgeous young wife of a doctor who doesn't make enough dough for her dreams of illicit happiness.

Chapin is truly amazing--looking even more sultry, sexy and earthy than her much bigger cohort, Jean Harlow. Clad in clinging white satin gowns, with platinum hair, a low, musical voice, Chapin mesmerizes in her grim role of a housewife gone bad. In one astonishing scene, she meets her pimp in a dingy, darkly lit bedroom. She proceeds to strip naked although all you see are her clothes and undergarments hitting the floor. Then the camera moves into a huge close-up of Chapin's face. While her lover is doing something off camera to her, Chapin registers orgasmic joy.

If she had worked for one of the major studios, Martha Chapin could have been one of the great. You're left wondering whatever happened to her and where did she come from?

Gambling With Souls (1936)

* (out of 4)

Police raid a gambling house where they discover a dead man with a woman holding a gun over him. They take the woman in for questioning where they learn the gambling house was used to cheat women into losing all their money so that they'll have to join a prostitution ring. Early exploitation/"warning" film is actually fairly well-made but that leads to boredom instead of laughs ala Reefer Madness. Without that "so bad it's good" feeling this one falls flat on its face. At least it doesn't run too long and if you're a fan of this genre then you'll still want to check it out but this will always remain forgotten among countless gems like Reefer Madness, Maniac and Sex Madness.

The highly-publicized success in 1936 of Thomas Dewey in disassembling the vice-focused operations of "Lucky" Luciano spawned a raft of exploitative films such as this one (also titled VICE RACKET), an advertisement for which states "Soiled souls in the marts of a great city......sensational events as recently seen in the nation's headlines", a popular item for many years in those side street theatres that presented movies showcasing flesh and decadence while ostensibly offering an "educational" service to alert audiences of the wages of sin and lust. Although in love with her financially straitened surgeon husband, Mae Miller (Martha Chapin) becomes frustrated because with only a budding practice, he cannot provide for her those luxuries that her friends enjoy, and she is easily lured by an acquaintance to an illegal gambling establishment where she soon becomes addicted to the feckless thrill of wagering, that leads to more dire events after she falls into a state of substantial indebtedness to the club's crafty owner. This is Lucky Wilder (Wheeler Oakman) who places extreme pressure through a threat of blackmail upon Mrs. Miller since her debt to him has exceeded $10000, an enormous amount during the Great Depression, and Mae is compelled to become a call girl for Wilder in order to pay the vicemaster what she owes him, but events still worsen for the doctor's wife when her younger sister Carolyn (Gay Sheridan) is entrapped in the same manner. The scenario is related in flashbacks, with a District Attorney's office as setting of the present where Mae is being grilled as an accused murder suspect, characterized by the D.A. as "You who thrive on the slime of life", and yet the case has not been decided for Mae Miller in this quite sleazily-toned but competently constructed low-budget potboiler that is well-edited and ably directed by Elmer Clifton, who in his palmy days had been a favoured director for the Gish sisters, with perky Sheridan and well-practiced villain Oakman both convincing in their roles.