La trata de blancas

As the title 'White Slave Trade' suggests this is a film in which women are depicted as victims and men as ignoble beasts. Director Luigi Comencini would turn up trumps the following year with ' Bread, Love and Dreams' but he would surely put this dismal opus down to experience. The same might be said of Sophia Loren, still billed as Sofia Lazzaro and still 'dubbed', slowly moving up the ranks under the guidance of Carlo Ponti. Needless to say, working with director Vittorio de Sica two years later would be the making of her and give us the actress we all know and love. She has a brief scene with pneumatic Silvana Pampanini, who is 'dubbed' as usual. This scene is of interest as it features the reigning Queen and the Pretender to her throne!

Fascinating performance by Tamara Lees as Clara, whose sexual predilections are decidedly Sapphic but the film really belongs to stalwart Hollywood 'baddie' Marc Lawrence, always good value, who takes sleaze to a new level as Machedi. He has no doubt been cast with a view to the North American market but to no avail as the film was renamed 'Girls marked for Danger', drastically snipped and consigned to cinematic oblivion.

Whichever way you look at it this film is pretty awful but somehow horribly fascinating!