"Gambling with Souls" director Elmer Clifton's "Slaves in Bondage" reveals the enormous pressure the Production Code brought to bear on exploitation filmmakers during the reign of Hollywood's Code of Self-censorship. This low-budget, black & white, 1937 crime thriller exposed the evils of white slavery. Of course, neither Clifton nor scenarist Robert Dillon could plumb the depths of unadulterated depravity surrounding the circumstances involving these impressionable, young, females. These darlings were bamboozled into accepting apparently harmless jobs before ultimately being railroaded into prostitution. Eventually, after Hollywood abandoned the Code in the 1960s, filmmakers could depict with greater accuracy the perils awaiting young women who stumbled and resorted to prostitution. Nowadays, these venerable exploitation films are treated with amusement because Hollywood was governed by a different set of rules and prevented from exploring the rough stuff. Instead, audiences had to use their imagination. Basically, what constituted a tragedy in 1937 would be ridiculed as "so bad, it's good.'
The story unfolds one evening as a speeding car streaks down the highway. One villainous dastard sits behind the wheel of this jalopy while the second lowlife, mustached Jim Murray (Wheeler Oakman of "Three of a Kind"), rides in the back seat with a defenseless dame, Mary Lou Smith (Louise Small of "College Holiday"), who begs Murray to stop the car and release her. These despicable brutes ignore Mary Lou until the girl resorts to the unimaginable. Hurling herself from the car, Mary Lou tumbles into the middle of the road. Once up she picks herself up, she doesn't get far before she collapses. Fortunately, the three fellas in a car who know Mary Lou stop and alert the authorities about her predicament. Naturally, Mary Lou's mother is shaken up about the incident. Mary Lou explains to a detective that the men pulled up alongside her while she was walking home from church and fooled her into getting into the car. The neighbor consoling Mary Lou's distraught mother is Dona Lee (Lona Andre of "Pilot X") and her boyfriend, out of town newspaper reporter Phillip Miller (Donald Reed of "Secret Agent K-7"), questions the fellows who found Mary Lou in the road. It seems Phillip plans to marry our heroine Dona Lee just as soon as he can land a job on a local newspaper. Despite his account of Mary Lou's escape from sure slavery, Miller cannot persuade the editor to hire him. Meantime, Dona works as a manicurist in a local beauty salon run by Belle Harris (Florence Dudley of "Party Girl") who advertises for employees. Essentially, when Belle interviews prospective employees, she looks at their legs and then hires them if she finds them appealing. Sadly, those ladies who don't work out in beauty salon are shipped off to Jim Murray's notorious roadhouse. As it turns out, Murray and Belle are business partners, and business is booming. Murray loves to sit and watch Dona do his nails. He lusts after this naïve beauty who holes him at arm's length until Murray learns about Phillip Miller. Murray wants Dona in his bed so badly that he will do whatever it takes to land her. He learns that her boyfriend is a small-time gambler, so he fixes it so that Phillip wins a race. Meantime, a pickpocket plans forged dollars on the unsuspecting journalist and he winds up in jail. Murray recommends a mouthpiece to Dona, but this crooked lawyer advises Phillip to do the worst thing: confess his crime.
Eventually, Belle ushers Dona into her house of prostitution and shows her what is involved. This scene will no doubt trigger laughs galore as Belle shows our heroine a variety of ladies sprawled in luxurious beds in their lingerie. You'll laugh yourself silly at this scene. "Slaves in Bondage" provides some hilarious comic relief that has little to do with the plot. Two drunks are at a bar and one goads the other into having a 'mixed drink.' What happens is funny. The bartender furnishes them with three bottles of liquor. One drunk pours a drink from each bottle and then tips it down the other drunk's throat. Once he has filled his friend up with booze, the other drunk squeezes his friend's mouth shut and shakes the man's head vigorously. The drunk staggers happily at this exercise.
Meantime, Dora's suspicions prompt her to visit the police, and she fills them in on what happening at the roadhouse as well as the way her boyfriend is being treats. Turns out the police harbored their own suspicions and have held Phillip until they are sure that Murray's lawyer is railroading the journalist into prison by confessing his crime. Lecherous Jim Murray itches for the opportunity to take advantage of Dona. Not surprisingly, as Dona is being manipulated into the web of evil that Murray and Belle have set her up for, the Production Code dictated that crime could not pay, so the police crash Murray's roadhouse and our two love birds are reunited. Watching "Slaves in Bondage" from the perspective of our enlightened age, we have no alternative not to laugh ourselves silly as the way crime was committed in the 1930s.
Eventually, Belle ushers Dona into her house of prostitution and shows her what is involved. This scene will no doubt trigger laughs galore as Belle shows our heroine a variety of ladies sprawled in luxurious beds in their lingerie. You'll laugh yourself silly at this scene. "Slaves in Bondage" provides some hilarious comic relief that has little to do with the plot. Two drunks are at a bar and one goads the other into having a 'mixed drink.' What happens is funny. The bartender furnishes them with three bottles of liquor. One drunk pours a drink from each bottle and then tips it down the other drunk's throat. Once he has filled his friend up with booze, the other drunk squeezes his friend's mouth shut and shakes the man's head vigorously. The drunk staggers happily at this exercise.
Meantime, Dora's suspicions prompt her to visit the police, and she fills them in on what happening at the roadhouse as well as the way her boyfriend is being treats. Turns out the police harbored their own suspicions and have held Phillip until they are sure that Murray's lawyer is railroading the journalist into prison by confessing his crime. Lecherous Jim Murray itches for the opportunity to take advantage of Dona. Not surprisingly, as Dona is being manipulated into the web of evil that Murray and Belle have set her up for, the Production Code dictated that crime could not pay, so the police crash Murray's roadhouse and our two love birds are reunited. Watching "Slaves in Bondage" from the perspective of our enlightened age, we have no alternative not to laugh ourselves silly as the way crime was committed in the 1930s.