The Wages of Sin | |
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Directed by | Herman E. Webber |
Screenplay by | Willis Kent |
Produced by | Willis Kent |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Harvey Gould |
Edited by | Robert Jahns |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 77 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Wages of Sin is a 1938 American drama film directed by Herman Webber and starring Constance Worth, Willy Castello, Clara Kimball Young, and Blanche Mehaffey. It was produced by Willis Kent. Cheaply made, with poor production values, it is an exploitation film made outside the Hollywood production code, dealing with topics of white slavery, prostitution and murder.
The film begins with a long subtitled introduction, stating 90,000 women in the US go missing annually and suggesting many are forced by circumstances to join the “Sisterhood of Sorrow”.
Marjorie Benton, who is “just a kid,” dreams of an office job, but works at the Pacific Laundry and is the only breadwinner for a family of coarsely-spoken strikers and loafers. She finally goes on a night out with Florence, one of the other laundry workers, to a seedy nightclub. At the nightclub they watch some impromptu acts and Marjorie drinks alcohol and tries marijuana, which Florence does not approve of. The girls catch the eye of Tony Kilonis who insists on driving them back to Florence's. Tony warns Florence not to say anything about his reputation to Marjorie.
Having been thrown out of home by her family for staying out, and Tony having secretly arranged for Marjorie to be sacked, Tony charms Marjorie and lures her into living with him in a stylish apartment, with promises of marriage and lavish lifestyle. After a few months, he tells her he wants her to entertain a gentleman at a hotel "for money". Marjorie is initially shocked. In an unusual close up shot on Tony's face, straight to camera, he threatens her and she complies. Marjorie works as a regular call girl at a hotel until exposed when she steals from a customer.
Tony then offers her a "long vacation" up the coast. This turns out to be at a brothel, run by madam Pearl. When Marjorie refuses to work, she is locked in her room. Tearfully, she explains to another prostitute, Roxy, that she is pregnant. If only she could tell Tony. Roxy helps her to escape. Making her way back to the city, she returns to Tony's apartment but discovers him seducing another woman with exactly the same lines he once used on her. In despair, Marjorie shoots them both. A final courtroom and jury scene completes the film - however the question of Marjorie's guilt is left unresolved. A title offers cinema goers cash prizes for the best written verdict sent in. [1]
In the lengthy nightclub scene, Jan Duggan sings "The Seashell Song", which she first sang in the 1934 W. C. Fields film The Old Fashioned Way . Burlesque dancer Rose La Rose performs a partial striptease, until interrupted by an angry boyfriend who covers her with a table cloth. (She appears in the same clothes and in front of an identical bar room set up in "Rose la Rose, Tops in Any League", a short stag film).
Willis Kent's main film production output was B-westerns. However, he also made a number of exploitation films, including The Pace That Kills (1935), Smashing the Vice Trust (1937) Race Suicide (1938) and Mad Youth (1940). Jeremy Geltzer suggests that like fellow exploitation filmmaker Dwain Esper, Willis Kent was able to avoid censorship by not submitting his films for censorship classification. Advance publicity was avoided because exploitation films were quickly and cheaply made, and like Esper, Kent handled his own distribution and exhibition to independent cinemas. Film screenings would be therefore often be over before municipal authorities could react. [2]
Eric Schaefer notes two typical features of exploitation films, also found in The Wages of Sin. To expand the film to a marketable length, exploitation filmmakers like Kent used "padding," often setting the main characters in a nightclub, which became an excuse for a series of acts. Cut-aways at frequent intervals would show "the story characters sitting at a table rapturously enjoying themselves". In addition, Kent's films usually began with a "square-up", a statement at the beginning of the film justifying itself as a dramatic exposé of one of society's problems. [3]
Performers on exploitation films were not on ongoing contracts. Leading actress Constance Worth had lost her RKO contract in 1937, and had been through a messy divorce from actor George Brent. Married for ten days in May 1937, their divorce was not finalised until December 1937. Accounts of the drawn out divorce dominated US and Australian newspapers for months. [4] [5]
The film was never released in Australia, where Jocelyn Howarth (Constance Worth) had been an up-and-coming stage and screen actress in the early 1930s. Lon Jones, a Hollywood-based journalist writing for The Sydney Morning Herald commented that "it is a story of white slavery, and is very sordid. Constance does a fair job of acting in the picture but I doubt...(it) will help her career. She would have been wise to stay out of such a picture." [6]
In 1943, Willis Kent used sections of this film and his other exploitation films for Confessions of a Vice Baron . In it, Willy Castello's character, about to be executed, reviews his life of crime. This is the device used to include some of the most salacious scenes from the Willis Kent Studio exploitation films.
Constance Campbell Bennett was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles in What Price Hollywood? (1932), Bed of Roses (1933), Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938), and had a prominent supporting role in Greta Garbo's last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941).
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Blanche Mehaffey was an American showgirl and film actress.
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The Women is a 1939 American comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor. The film is based on Clare Boothe Luce's 1936 play of the same name, and was adapted for the screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, who had to make the film acceptable for the Production Code for it to be released.
The Autumn Garden is a 1951 play by Lillian Hellman. The play is set in September, 1949 in a summer home in a resort on the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 miles from New Orleans. The play is a study of the defeats, disappointments and diminished expectations of people reaching middle age. For inspiration, Hellman drew on her memories of her time in her aunts' boardinghouse. Dashiell Hammett, who had been Hellman's lover for 20 years, helped her write the play and received 15 percent of the royalties. Of all Hellman's plays it was her favorite.
Constance Worth was an Australian actress who became a Hollywood star in the late 1930s. She was also known as Jocelyn Howarth.
Confessions of a Vice Baron is a 1943 American crime film directed by S. Roy Luby, William A. O'Connor, Melville Shyer, and Herman E. Webber. The film was created using edited footage for the flashback scenes from Mad Youth (1940), The Wages of Sin (1938), Smashing the Vice Trust (1937), Race Suicide (1937), and The Pace That Kills (1935). Willy Castello appeared in each of these films except for The Pace That Kills.
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Wine, Women and Horses is a 1937 American drama film directed by Louis King and written by Roy Chanslor. The film stars Barton MacLane, Ann Sheridan, Dick Purcell, Peggy Bates, Walter Cassel and Lottie Williams. It is based on the 1933 novel Dark Hazard by W. R. Burnett. The film was released by Warner Bros. on September 11, 1937. The screenplay concerns a gambler who tries to reform.
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Willy Castello was a Dutch-American film actor, also sometimes credited as William Castello. While he spent much of his screen career playing supporting roles, he appeared for producer William Kent in several Poverty Row exploitation films.