Passeport pour la honte

I fully expected this to be as lurid as its title but watched it anyway, probably because I first found it under its much cooler name, Room 43. Glad I did; it's immediately engrossing. A sweet French waitress is framed into prostitution. The first step is to set her up as a "thief" at her place of work. Then the madam, who works for the pimp, swoops in to "save" her and whisk her off to England. Once there they tell her she needs to marry a brit to stay there, enter our hero cabbie. This is all in service of forcing her into the life. There are some wonderfully 50s bombshells to contrast against her innocence which is underscored by her finding and adopting a kitten, as well as and other beauties of the era.

Diana Dors was stunning. Tight sheath dresses, a pretty face and cotton white hair. She didn't have to act. All she had to do is show up with an attitude, "I am here. Be grateful."

The movie doesn't need a plot. You'll be too busy staring at Diana and wondering how she got a comb through that dry, bleached hair.

She plays an entertainer.

"What does an entertainer do?" "I entertain."

This film is a wonderful summary of hypocritical late fifties cinema. Purporting to reveal the sordid life of the prostitute but revelling in the sleaze and violence. From the opening lecture from *Fabian * of the Yard, to a climactic roof fight, every cliche about girls on the game is flung at the viewer. Poor Diana Dors and Herbert Lom try, but are done in by the florid script and dull direction. Spot Michael Caine in a bit part at the wedding.

Passport to Shame. What a great title, which is why it's surprising it should be changed to the more prosaic Room 43 across the Atlantic. It was more usual for British films going in that direction to have their names 'sexed-up' e.g. Hammer's The Flanagan Boy became Bad Blonde.

It is introduced pre-credits by Ex-Superintendent Robert Fabian 'Fabian of the Yard' himself, who claims that London 'has probably the worst prostitution problem in the world' and goes on to say that the film presents what is going on 'frankly, dramatically and accurately'. Though no doubt it was thought this necessary to forestall any problems with the BBFC, and it is striking how his inference that the majority of prostitutes were there by coercion rather than choice chimes with that of some modern radical feminists, it was quite true that many of the incidents the film depicts were commonplace. There really were gangster pimps and ponces like Herbert Lom's Nick Biaggi who terrorized any of their victims thinking of giving evidence against them, and the false wedding racket was widely used by the likes of the notorious Messina brothers and their low-life successors.

There is a great cast including some of my favourite actors, including Eddie Constantine, Diana Dors at her most spectacular, and Herbert Lom himself. Elwyn Brook-Jones is a strikingly slimy crooked solicitor, and while I've never rated Brenda De Banzie as a particularly convincing actress she's very good as a blowzy vicious madame. Scenes such as the fake wedding with the seedy guests are well done, though those toward the end, including the cabbies' attack on the vice den, borrowed from an earlier film, Noose, of a decade earlier tend toward the risible. Previously only available in a mutilated version sans the Fabian introduction, Passport to Shame has been released complete by Network on a R2 disc with vastly improved sound and visuals.

AKA..."Passport to Shame"

More Melodrama than Usual in this "Sexploitation" Cinema, Complete with the "Worn-Out" Intro by Law Enforcement (Fabian of the Yard), Making Sure Everyone Takes This as a "Public Service" and Not Something for the "Raincoat" Crowd.

Sporting a Good Cast of Herbert Lom (the Dapper Pimp), Eddie Constantine (the White Knight), and Diana Dors (Tart with a Heart).

Diana's White Skin-Tight-Clinging Dresses, Cotton-Candy Platinum Hair and Full-Lipped Makeup, High-Light the Eye-Popping Cheesecake. She Always Added some Acting-Chops.

Herbert Lom is All-Business, that being the Business of "White-Slavery-Trafficking", who Speaks in Threatening Mono-Tone, as He Frequently Steps-Aside and His Thugs Pummel Anything in His Way.

He is Also Not Above Sprinkling Acid on a Pretty-Face who Doesn't Cooperate.

Cult B-Actor Constantine is the "Love-Interest" Hunk that Rescues Oldile Versois, a French Immigrant being Groomed for the "Big-Spenders".

There's a Surreal "Drug-Induced" Segment with Swirling Fog, Collapsing Sets, Filled with High-Decibel Screams, as Hammer's William Asher, with the Help of Nicholas Roeg On Hand for some Stunning Camera-Work.

Overall, a bit Dense and Drawn-Out, and the Cab-Calvary to the Rescue is Over-the-Top.

More Intriguing than it Should be, it Remains an Above Average Film of its Type and it Definitely...

Worth a Watch.