User Reviews

The highlight of this film isn't so much the melodramatic narration explaining the tragedy of the thousands of young women who go missing every year (never to be seen again) or the plight of its long suffering heroine, Constance Worth, but the speciality of wacky older lady Jan Duggan. She appears out of nowhere with her shrill singing voice to initially annoy then suddenly amuse the bar patrons with her bizarre musical audience participation number that has her running around the bar from table to table. Then another woman (much younger) performs a striptease to "Minnie the Moocher" as Worth proceeds to drink too much and spends the night at her girlfriend's apartment, getting kicked out the next day by her toxic family who decide thar they can get more money on government relief than the $15 she pays for rent. Perhaps with family like this, she's better off without them, but that sets up her slide into the "wicked" life, never mentioned by name, but obvious none the less.

There's obviously a racket of organized crime that is revealed to be the hand that rocks the cradle, threatening Worth's boss with retaliation unless he fires her and another girl, and faced with starvation, there's only one way that a young woman can make a living, at least in the mid 1930's. This exploitation film is very direct, never as over the top as others in the genre dealing with drug abuse, mental illness or social disease. In a sense, it takes the pre-code melodrama plot of innocent young women in peril one step further, and being an independently made motion picture from an unknown poverty row studio, it gets away with things that the Hays code wouldn't allow the major studios to even have in the script. The scene where Worth is threatened with violence unless she complies is frightening, with the closeup of the man's face as he approaches her in a sinister way. Intriguing as a product of its time and well made in spite of the low budget, this is probably one of the best exploitation pictures of its time, convincingly acted, well written and fast paced. Worth proves her worth as she goes from young innocent to cynical "working" girl turned bad as a result of the abuse by these sleazy men.

Willis Kent produced this film with famed exploitation producer Louis Sonney, it's a story about a hard working woman named Majorie who works in a laundry plant trying to support her lazy family. She gets into an argument with them when she wants to go out one night and have some fun, after all she is the main breadwinner and should be untitled to some fun. So she goes out, meets a boy and gets thrown out of her home (stupid family, they threw away free money). The Boy she meets keeps telling her that he will marry her as soon as his divorce to his ex-wife is finalized...but months pass and nothing comes of it. Next thing you know her boyfriend is pimping her at Fat Bearl's Brothel, from which she eventually escapes. She tracks down her pimping boyfriend and kills him in and some Dame that he was setting up to his next sugar mama. The film ends with the jury debating whether she should go to prison or be set free. Interesting enough at the films close there is a chance for viewers to send in a essay that argues fair verdict, with a possibility in winning 1000 bucks for the best answer!

Filmed at a time when the depression was in full swing, public feelings and paranoia was not as high as in the early 20th century about white slave traders. Exploitation films dealing with the subject matter were rampant during this time when Lucky Luciano was busted for prostitution rings. In fact it was Lucky Luciano who was often portrayed in these films under a thinly veiled guise, as being solely responsible in shady dealings of white middle-upper class women being abducted and made to work in seedy brothels.