One of the first feature-length films made in America was an exploitation movie. Isn’t that great? And does the movie hold up? Of course not. It’s a trip to the museum, a fragile curiosity under glass. Look but don’t touch. You see this mostly so you can say that you saw it. What in 1913 was a lurid lid-blower about the white slavery underground in which candy store clerk girls are kidnapped and forced into prostitution by fat guys in bowler hats is today just another document of cinema in its early days when there wasn’t yet much of a cinematic language. The camera is an immovable eye of God on a tripod. Each actor is in a frenzy of broad gestures. You know the drill.
The cleverest twist: The secret leader of the prostitution ring is also the hypocrite head of The International Purity and Reform League, an organization that claims to fight for morality (no spoilers; we learn this early in the movie).
The coolest parts: the scenes that show off a weird fictional invention that the bad guys use for remotely transmitting handwriting from one person’s notepad to another person’s notepad, like a primitive nonsensical fax machine/Facebook-sorta thing.
The enduring lesson: a reminder of how the movies have always tried to scare us, in the tabloid headline sense. Something dangerous is happening RIGHT NOW and YOU, or someone YOU LOVE, could be its next victim! Stay tuned, check out our magazine, click on our link or buy a ticket to learn more!