Sunday 28 June 2020

Public interest? Passport to Shame (1958)


It’s all here! Nothing hidden… neither the sin… nor the shame!  Actually torn from the pages if the nation’s leading newspapers!

So screamed the American poster for this film and yet there’s more to it than box-ticking sexploitation. There’s an introduction from Robert Fabian, aka ‘Fabian of the Yard’, at the start, which makes it clear that it’s for public information not titillation; this is a film to show the horrors of sex work and the tragedies that fuel it and result from it. Frankly, I believed him – although this is the same public interest argument used by the News of the World – yet I’m sure that the filmmakers were sincere, especially given the quality of the cast, Brenda De Banzie, Herbert Lom and Eddie Constantine were not cheap or short of work. But there is also very little besides the high-octane sexuality of Diana Dors that you could class as salacious and, the thing is, Diana can also act, she’s a knockout and stands out among a quality cast.

The film’s story is also not to be belittled that easily – you can call it trite but the fact remains that people then and now have become trapped into prostitution and it is not the glamorous career of the sexually free but slave work operated by ruthless “business men”. The film hits as hard as it reasonably could in 1958 and is still entertaining, which is a good thing as it’s just been released on crystal clear Blu-ray.

Odile Versois and Diana Dors waiting for the men...
I like the cleverness of the opening as those newspaper headlines are blown into the gutter in a busy London street where the camera moves quickly from person to person as littel scenarios are palyed out. A man sees a sgtunning blonde and follows up her body only to realise she's a streetwalker then he walks over to anothe man who is staring at a new taxi cab he is desperate to buy... a great way to introduce people who will become key characters as the titles roll.

Directed by Alvin Rakoff – his first film after working mostly on TV – the film is centred on the “business” operation of low-life crook with big ideas, Nick Biaggi (Herbert Lom, who always delivers, whatever the script). Biaggi’s little empire is based on extortion and pushing people into having to pay him back in kind for debts he creates. In Paris where a young waitress, Marie Louise 'Malou' Beaucaire (Odile Versois) is entraped by Nick's his right-hand woman, Aggie (the excellent Brenda De Banzie).

Malou (Odile Versois) looks on in horror as Aggie (Brenda De Banzie) "saves" her
She has the café owner take money from the till and accuse Malouf of stealing it as Aggie slips the same amount into her apron. She’s facing prosecution and so readily accepts Aggie’s seemingly generous assistance and the chance to come and stay with her in London.

Meanwhile, Johnny McVey (Eddie Constantine), a former Canadian soldier working as a cabby in London takes a loan from Nick’s company in order to buy himself a black cab, he’s stretched to the limit but he’s determined to make a success of the trade. On his first day with the new motor, just as he’s being congratulated by the tight-nit group of fellow black cab drivers, Nick arranges for his lads to drive a truck into the new cab, crushing the front and Johnny’s plans.

A friend in need? Lom and Constantine.
Nick is on hand though to play the nice guy and to offer to cover the cost of repair knowing that Johnny now owes him more than money, and that’s a big favour. That favour will be to marry Malou so she can get her citizenship. She’s been moved into Aggie’s apartment which, according to Reel Streets is Courtfield Gardens between Earl's Court and Gloucester Road in southwest London. Aggie’s rooms adjoin the neighbouring house, which is a brothel full of working women, one of whom is played by Jackie Collins, Joan’s sister.

Also to be found is Vicki (Diana Dors), Nick’s top earner and a woman resolute in the face of her situation and Nick’s violent treatment of her sister. Dors is striking in all the right ways and conveys the defiance of someone who knows what it’s like to be objectified and also manipulated. Her character’s sister has been the lever Nick has used to keep her working and she has been disfigured, forcing Vicki to carry on working for the man she so despises, to cover medical bills. For all the almost light-heartedness of the “girls” in the cat house, Dors’ intensity does more than anything else to ground this in a – dramatized – reality.

Diana Dors
Elsewhere you sense a fairy tale in the making as Malou and Jeff meet and go through the motions of marriage to settle their debt – or at least the first instalment of Nick’s unforgiving contract. Also present at the registry office is one Michael Caine who has just got married to one Anne Reid – uncredited bit parts for two actors who have never stopped working since.

Returning to our Johnny and Malou, the marriage may be fake but not perhaps their nascent relationship. But there’s a torture path to follow before anything can come from this as Malou finally realises what is intended for her and Nick pressures her to start paying him in kind on the streets of West London and to set herself up in Room 43 – the alternate title in the UK for this film. He has high hopes and sees her breaking him into the next level of high-class escorting but she wants none of it and refuses even though it increasingly means that she is not only surplus to requirements, she’s an problem in need of a drastic solution.

A marriage of convenience?
Robert Brown does well as Mike, Johnny’s friend who initially looks down on his relationship with what he sees as a common prostitute but, as the audience is intended to, he gradually comes round, especially as he befriends Vicki and realises there’s some heart underneath the figure hugging, peroxide display.

But there is to be no easy way out for these characters and the film escalates in tension as escapes fail, threats ae made and the ultimate penalty is going to have to be paid for some…


Dusty verdict: I gave this film the benefit of the doubt and it repaid me with some excellent dramatics from a decent cast. The locations are also worth it, parts of London where the only change in 60-odd years has been the frequency of external decoration and the tax-bracket of the inhabitants.

There’s also a heart-warming cameo from Joan Sims as Miriam, Phone operator in the taxi office and one Nicolas Roeg was the camera operator; he later went on to direct Don’t Look Now and many other modern classics. Passport to Shame is not on that level but, now, as a social document of the way this subject was viewed in my parents’ era, it is worth your time.

You can buy the Blu-ray at Amazon and all good on and offline retailers.

Fabian of the Yard
Mike bumps into Vicki during the film's credits and only comes to know her proper worth later
Johnny and Malou's dreams are revealed during the credits...
Nick is the one to use their hopes against them.
Still, he at least drives and Aston Martin
Lovely couple: Michael Caine and Anne Reid

Saturday 27 June 2020

Survivors… The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)


Probably not the best time to watch a film in which the majority of the Earth’s population gets killed off by an invisible enemy, but then again there’s more to this film than meets the eye. Writer Harry Spalding – here under the nom-de-plume of Henry Cross - had a fair track record in B-move exploitation having already written must-see films such as The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962), House of the Damned (1963) and The Young Swingers (1963) and yet, after suggesting it as a joke, he was seemingly not keen on this title for his script.

There’s certainly not much screaming as the film opens with a tour through a body-strewn English countryside in which seemingly almost everyone has died on the spot. The film starts with a dead steam engine driver as his locomotive smashes into another at high speed, a stock shot which I think is from a silent film called The Wreckers (1929) which involved the staging of a head-on crash, filmed by Hungarian Géza von Bolváry and twenty two cameramen. Then a plane falls from the sky and we see two dead people outside and estate agents… surely a sign of The End of Days?

Willard Parker finds the lights on but nobody home
A Land Rover drives through deserted villages looking for any sign of life. It’s driven by American aeronautical engineer Jeff Nolan (Willard Parker a decent actor looking rather more than his 52 years) but still who soon over looks a car containing a dead woman and Thorley Walters who, at this early stage, surely can not be dead? Nothing doing, Jeff does the sensible thing and heads to the village pub – and I think we can all agree that there’s very little as compelling and comforting as a vintage sci-fi mystery based around a public house.

In the pub Jeff’s attempts to get a signal on the TV are rudely interrupted by a man holding a woman and, worse, a gun. It’s Quinn Taggart (the excellent Dennis Price) and Peggy Hatten (Virginia Field) an over-cautious couple who soon warm to the idea of another living person as, indeed, do Edgar Otis (the aforementioned Thorley) and his lady companion, Violet Courtland (Vanda Godsell) as Jeff finds them raiding a sweet shop. All five convene at the pub and try to work out why they are the only ones left.

Dennis Price and Virginia Field
Then things take a huge turn as the group spot two mysterious figures walking outside, Violet thinks it’s men in hazard suits and runs out to greet them as the rest hold back guns in hand – Jeff has a rifle – watching in horror as one of the figures turns round and zaps the middle aged woman dead. They are unearthly and look for all the world like early designs for Cybermen who didn’t make their debut in Doctor Who until the Tenth Planet in 1966. The figures walk off and the group have no desire to stop them.

A young couple drive up in a Vauxhall, a cocky young chap in too-tight slacks, Mel (David Spenser) and his heavily pregnant girlfriend Lorna (Anna Palk). Under Jeff’s instructions they head off to the nearest army base and secure some more rifles and begin to hunker down to try and work out a plan of action.


Terence Fisher directs a lot of tension into the film through what is essentially a character play with added alien menace. The interplay between the five is well handled as alphas Jeff and Peggy are drawn to each other as Quinn looks more and more venal – could anyone ever convey the mix of self-serving cowardice and  self-loathing as well as Dennis Price? Meanwhile the young couple bicker and Edgar turns increasingly to drink.

There’s a close encounter as Lorna grabs a midnight milk in the kitchen as one of the aliens appears at the window and Jeff narrowly avoids getting zapped and then additional creepiness is added as Violet is reanimated as a boggle-eyed zombie under the aliens’ control. Another tense scene see Peggy hiding in wide-eyed terror in a wardrobe as two zombies search for the living… More and more of the formerly deceased start appearing and it’s now that Quinn makes his move, trying to get away in his smart MG with Peggy at gunpoint. In spite of her tight dress and high heels Peggy is able to give him the slip and as he tries to make good his escape one of the aliens applies the microwave treatment.

The are worse places to hold up than a pub...as Edgar Wright knows full well.
Jeff rams one of the aliens in his Land Rover – good car casting in this picture – and they discover that they’re robots, an advance recce for extra-terrestrials clearly far too advanced to get their hands dirty at the early stages of an invasion. There must be some way to stop them… who is controlling the robots and how? Did I mention that Jeff is an engineer?

Dusty verdict: A good cast and decent direction make the most of this film and whilst it’s not quite a home counties Invasion of the Body Snatchers there’s enough suspense and human interest to keep your interest and it’s probably in the Top Ten Low Budget Alien Invasion Films Set in Pubs in Surrey!

There’s also an interesting score from avant-garde composer Elisabeth Lutyens which adds much to the atmosphere. She composed scores for many Hammer horror movies as well as Amicus Productions and mostly took the work to pay the bills famously saying; 'Do you want it good, or do you want it Wednesday?'. She was the first woman to compose for British films and is a thoroughly interesting character in her own right and if I take one thing from this film it is to find out more about her. She apparently enjoyed being called the “Horror Queen” and it went with a style that included green nail varnish and the trappings of eccentric bohemia.


The main location is the lovely village of Shere in Surrey and Elisabeth’s father father, Edwin Lutyens, designed Manor House Lodge seen on a number of occasions, here as Dennis’ Price drives his MG. I can feel a location visit coming on, if only that pub is still open…

The train crash from The Wrecker and above the scene featured in this film