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,
10 Reviews
So you wanna play eh!
sol121818 December 2004
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.
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.
Slightly watchable tale about a traveling prostitution circuit ...
dwpollar13 February 2007
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.
Oddly, for an exploitation film, this is very dull
planktonrules24 September 2007
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.
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.
The Title is the Most Exciting Thing About the Film!!!
kidboots20 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Lona Andre often played dizzy blondes but when she retired from films she became a successful real estate business woman. I can't find much evidence that she had many leads - A's, B's or Z's, her name was usually found in the middle to the bottom of the cast. At first she had parts in a couple of Bing Crosby movies - "College Humor" (1932) and "Too Much Harmony" (1933), then it was uncredited parts for Liberty Films "Two Heads On a Pillow" (1934) and "Let's Be Ritzy"(1934). So Lona, who seemed to be a bit dizzy in real life as well (her 4 day marriage to Edward Norris) must have jumped at the chance to star in a film that would give her the leading role. It was a J.D. Kendis production, who made films as cheaply as possible but managed to get reputable directors and familiar screen faces.
A girl, Mary Lou (Louise Small), is found wandering along the road and is taken home to her mother. She jumped from a car driven by a gang of hoodlums, who were planning to kidnap her for prostitution. Acting on her information the police raid "BerryWood" road house and rescue 7 girls. She also identifies the driver "Good Looking Freddie" (he isn't)(Matty Roubert). Her friend Dona (Lona Andre) is a manicurist in a beauty salon that is a front for criminal activities. She doesn't realise this, but she is a bit suspicious of the bevy of pretty girls that are constantly applying for jobs.
Dona and her fiancé, Phil, (Donald Reed) are on the spot when "Good Looking Freddie" is rubbed out. Phil, an unemployed reported gets the scoop, but the editor is suspicious - how was he lucky enough to be an eyewitness - he must be involved with the mob. He isn't but he does bet on horses and when placing a bet is given stolen money and then goes to jail for extortion. Dona goes to her boss for help in raising money for his bond. She directs Dona to Murray (Wheeler Oakman) who, she says can help. Mary Lou thinks she recognises Murray from her nightmare car ride but Dona refuses to believe her. When she later meets Murray at the "Bubble Up" Club, she is shown around and realises it is a brothel and the girls were the applicants for the manicurist jobs. One thing that makes this plot a bit different - Dona is innocently entrapped in the world of vice - she is not a crusading reporter going undercover. Undercover is what the plot seems to be. As with a lot of these exploitation movies - it is hard to figure out what "vice" is involved - unless it is the crime of bad variety acts!!!
A girl, Mary Lou (Louise Small), is found wandering along the road and is taken home to her mother. She jumped from a car driven by a gang of hoodlums, who were planning to kidnap her for prostitution. Acting on her information the police raid "BerryWood" road house and rescue 7 girls. She also identifies the driver "Good Looking Freddie" (he isn't)(Matty Roubert). Her friend Dona (Lona Andre) is a manicurist in a beauty salon that is a front for criminal activities. She doesn't realise this, but she is a bit suspicious of the bevy of pretty girls that are constantly applying for jobs.
Dona and her fiancé, Phil, (Donald Reed) are on the spot when "Good Looking Freddie" is rubbed out. Phil, an unemployed reported gets the scoop, but the editor is suspicious - how was he lucky enough to be an eyewitness - he must be involved with the mob. He isn't but he does bet on horses and when placing a bet is given stolen money and then goes to jail for extortion. Dona goes to her boss for help in raising money for his bond. She directs Dona to Murray (Wheeler Oakman) who, she says can help. Mary Lou thinks she recognises Murray from her nightmare car ride but Dona refuses to believe her. When she later meets Murray at the "Bubble Up" Club, she is shown around and realises it is a brothel and the girls were the applicants for the manicurist jobs. One thing that makes this plot a bit different - Dona is innocently entrapped in the world of vice - she is not a crusading reporter going undercover. Undercover is what the plot seems to be. As with a lot of these exploitation movies - it is hard to figure out what "vice" is involved - unless it is the crime of bad variety acts!!!
"From now on, our policy is to crusade against vice!"
classicsoncall15 March 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Well the title is a lot more suggestive than the story ever gets to be. The most exploitative this flick ever gets is showing a half dozen or so young girls in their undies, and they didn't seem to mind all that much. The trigger for the plot occurs right at the outset with a botched kidnap attempt (the girl was walking home from church!!!!), and from then on it's about getting the goods on a traveling prostitution ring. Darn if my timing isn't just SO coincidental with the Eliot Spitzer mess, but no one here looked anything like 'Kristen', Ashley Alexandra Dupre, or whatever name she might be using right now. But it was made seventy years ago, so I guess we can cut it some slack.
You know, I couldn't figure out why Good Looking Freddie was such a klutz - didn't he ever read the newspapers? He would have known he was a hot commodity before Big Jim Murray (Wheeler Oakman) and Belle Harris (Florence Dudley) ever put the finger on him.
And holy cow! - what was with those two boarding house guys with the goofy acrobatics? You would think that for an exploitation film, the principals involved could have made use of more stimulating filler related to the topic. Like a few more shots of the hookers in their underwear. It's all a stretch, I know, but there are so many good grief moments in the picture that it strains credibility on so many levels.
I doubt you'll catch this one on any of your favorite cable channels, but stay alert and it will pop up as part of a four disc, twenty film DVD set from Mill Creek Entertainment, that's to be commended for putting out tons of old material like this under various headings. This set goes by the way of 'Cult Classics', and it's a hoot to catch a whole barrel full of 1930's era 'educational' films related to the evils of the day, which quite coincidentally managed to make it to the present time. I guess we haven't really learned that much since, have we?
You know, I couldn't figure out why Good Looking Freddie was such a klutz - didn't he ever read the newspapers? He would have known he was a hot commodity before Big Jim Murray (Wheeler Oakman) and Belle Harris (Florence Dudley) ever put the finger on him.
And holy cow! - what was with those two boarding house guys with the goofy acrobatics? You would think that for an exploitation film, the principals involved could have made use of more stimulating filler related to the topic. Like a few more shots of the hookers in their underwear. It's all a stretch, I know, but there are so many good grief moments in the picture that it strains credibility on so many levels.
I doubt you'll catch this one on any of your favorite cable channels, but stay alert and it will pop up as part of a four disc, twenty film DVD set from Mill Creek Entertainment, that's to be commended for putting out tons of old material like this under various headings. This set goes by the way of 'Cult Classics', and it's a hoot to catch a whole barrel full of 1930's era 'educational' films related to the evils of the day, which quite coincidentally managed to make it to the present time. I guess we haven't really learned that much since, have we?
Need its Place, but Beware....
artpf11 October 2013
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.
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.
The Pieces Don't Match. But The Women Don't Wear Much
boblipton1 June 2020
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?
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?
Ahead of Its Time
Uriah4310 November 2014
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.
Roadhouse Blues
amosduncan_200019 January 2014
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.
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