Confessions of a Vice Baron

This movie is a must-have for exploitation film fans as it contains edited clips from a number of other movies within its overarching narrative. In essence, it is a "Best of Willy Castello" retrospective, rather cleverly strung together from bits and pieces of 1930s films in which this Dutch-born actor portrayed criminals. Identification of the movies in which the archival footage originated includes fragments from "Mad Youth" (Willy Castello as a gigolo), "Race Suicide" (Willy Castello as an abortion doctor), "The Pace That Kills" (better known under its reissue title "Cocaine Fiends" -- in which Willy Castello does not appear), and "Smashing the Vice Trust" (Willy Castello as crime lord James "Lucky" Lombado in a prostitution sub-plot). Although at least one of the movies from which the footage is drawn deals with drug use, that aspect of the story is discarded here entirely in favour of a focus on Castello's character as a despoiler of women, first as a gigolo, then as an abortion doctor, and finally as the crime boss who instigates two prostitution subplots -- one in which the focus is on the kidnapping of school girls and another in which he seduces a young woman and sends her to Fat Pearl's brothel when he tires of her. Exploitation of women is also evident in a dainty disrobing sequence in the abortionist's office and a noteworthily non-plot-driven side-show scene showcasing the belly dancers "Carmalita" and "Fatima" (pronounced "Fateema") from another Willis Kent production, "Murder in the Museum." My immediate reaction to this film was to try to identify the sources used in compiling it. Others, whose interests are not attuned to filmic trivia, might fault the story for lack of originality, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I liked it, although i realize its firmest audience base will be classic exploitation fans only.