Gambling with Souls

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?

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.

(Spoilers) Educational movie about the evil's of gambling and how they can destroy even the best brightest and good among us.The movie starts off with a police raid of an illegal city gambling den that ends with the shooting death of the mobster who runs it Frank "Lucky" Wilder, Wheeler Oakman, a obvious fictional "Lucky" Luciano mob kingpin. Mae Miller, Martha Chapin, is caught by the police red-handed with the smoking gun still in her hand.What caused Mae an upstanding citizen who never was in trouble with the law in her life to end up charged with first degree murder?

Later in the D.A's office, the D.A looking a lot like the legendary 1930's New State crime fighter Thomas E. Dewey, Mae tells her story with her heart-broken and shocked husband Dr. Miller, Robert Frazer, present. Some time back at a local garden party Mae won $105.00 gambling on a boxing match and was approached by Molly Murdock, Gay Sheridan, who encouraged her to go with Molly to this gambling den in the city to have fun together with her. Unknown to Mae Molly works for that notorious gangster Frank "Lucky" Wilder as a madam who's out looking for new recruits for his prostitution racket. Rigging the roulette wheel so that Mae could win it turns out that at one point she won over $5,000.00 and spent it on fancy clothes and a new car as soon as she got it.

Mae's little sister Carolyn, Janet Eastman, is so impressed with Mae's lifestyle that she becomes interested in going to "Frank's Place" and make a bundle too and then live it up like Mae is doing. Then things start to turn around where Mae starts to lose and runs up a debt to "Lucky" for over $10,000.00, money that he so "gracefully" loaned her. Not being able to pay "Lucky" Wilder off Mae is forced to do unthinkable things like going out with strange men and putting out sexually for them in order to get the "blood money" that she owes Wilder.

A total wreck and mentally and psychically destroyed Mae tries to get away from Wilder but he threatens to tell her husband about her secret life if she pulls out of his control, but the worse is yet to happen to poor Mae. little Carolyn also gets involved with the Wilder mob as a dancer and Mae in shock and outrage tries to go to the Wilder nightclub where Carolyn is working to take her back home but Wilder has her thrown out.

Later Carolyn turns to even worse vices as she like Mae gets hooked on to the lifestyle that getting easy money, like by gambling, leads to. Found on the street one night and seriously injured from a back alley abortion, Carolyn obviously was knocked up by one of her Johns,Carolyn dies in the hospital with both her brother-in-law Dr. Miller, who worked there, and her sister Mae by her side.

Enraged and almost suicidal Mae goes to Wilder's gambling den and just as the police raid the joint, did she tip them off?, shoots him dead after telling him what a lowlife heel he is for what he did not only to her and Carolyn but to the scores of other people that he exploited. Mae shooting Wilder didn't at all look unprovoked. It seemed like Wilder was about to pull a gun out of his suit just before Mae shot him.

Back at the D.A's office Dr. Miller pleads with him to spear Mae for what she did saying that she bared her soul and that she only exterminated a vile and evil creature, Frank "Lucky" Wilder, who was only a menace to society and deserved what he got and that Mae had already suffered enough. The D.A in his ultimate wisdom tells Dr. Miller that it's up to a court and jury to decide what she did was either right or wrong.

Better then the far more famous "Reefer Madness" and far more accurate in it's subject matter "Gambling with Souls" is as prevalent today on the evil's of compulsive uncontrollable and illegal gambling as it was back then in 1936.

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.

This somewhat ramshackle production starts out as it means to go on, with shots of police starting out on a raid, clearly borrowed from elsewhere. We're soon introduced to Mae Miller, wife of a distinguished surgeon, and arrested for the murder of the local vice king following her inducement into heavy gambling, and then being forced to work as a call girl to pay off her debts. She's played by the unknown Martha Chapin, who is absolutely mesmerising in a performance of real star quality. Bearing more than a passing resemblance to a renowned star of the infinitely more explicit Adult entertainment of over forty years later, the adorable Juliet Anderson, she is alternately vivacious and vulnerable, and very sexy throughout. Did participation in such an outlaw movie as this preclude working in more respectable productions? If so, then what a waste.

The rest of the acting is variable; Wheeler Oakman as head of the gambling/vice racket would have been twirling his moustache, had it been longer; Vera Steadman is quite good as Mae's supposed friend Molly. In its crude fashion, this is entertaining, keeping you watching, and fans of this kind of dubious fare from yesteryear should enjoy it.