1941 / B & W / 74 minutes
Tagline: Talent School Racket Exposed!
Gangster King Peterson operates a fake “school of performing arts” to lure innocent girls with big dreams of making it in show business. The fact that many of the girls end up missing or dead attracts the attention of the young assistant DA and his girl-reporter girlfriend. The talent school, funded by the girl-reporter’s father, of all people, is in fact a front for a ring that enslaves girls into the ugly world of human trafficking.
The first 35 minutes are very slow, though a couple of scenes with the worried grandmother of a missing girl are surprisingly affecting because they feel so authentic. The casting of unsophisticated girls rings true: their faces are babyish and one wears the symbol of dewy-eyed innocence, saddle shoes.
This has more convincing acting and better production values than most exploitation movies of the era. Veteran actor H. B. Warner plays a Carlyle-quoting police captain nearing retirement. With poise and dignity, he knows how to wear a suit and project screen presence. Sarah Padden, as the grandmother, brings her role to life and dignity. Astrid Allwyn is beautiful and her acting is coy and cute, though she will do annoying things with the pitch of her voice.
The comic relief is comical. At the talent
school, snickering dancers, twins in fact, toss each other around. At a police
line-up the dancers are told to look left and right, which only about half of
them get, thus disabusing me of the idea that dancers are more on top of things
than models. The things we learn from old movies.
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