I wish I could walk right into nightclub scenes of 30s and 40s movies, past the characters and the plot, pick up an imaginary cocktail and hang out & listen to the performance onstage. I can't think of better accompaniment to a dinner than professional dancers and musicians. Unlike the diner, these deco clubs seem not to exist anywhere anymore. The shot above is from a beautiful scene in Slaves in Bondage: a sensual tango accompanied by soft xylophones. I always wait for characters to comment on these amazing acts - they rarely do. In this scene, our villain says, "I'm bored. Let's get out of here." What!
Slaves in Bondage is supposedly an exploitation flick about prostitution rings. It's actually a decent mystery with likable leads. Condemned in '37 as "wholly objectionable" by the National Legion of Decency, this film would likely earn a PG-13 these days. All the risque material fits with the narrative - hardly exploitative. (OK, there's that one spanking scene - big whoop). Lona Andre has cartoonish cute looks and her character is no dummy. A manicurist in a barber shop, she twigs onto the fact that one of her best paying (and overly attentive) customers has sidelined her journalist boyfriend by saddling him with a pocket of marked bills. While this client (Wheeler Oakman, playing Jim Murray) is the nominal bad guy, house madame Belle Harris (played by Florence Dudley) is the more disturbing character who does all the hands-on work finding naive young ladies desperate to make a few dollars. There's a sizable cast of fascinating nobodies but I especially liked the hopeless acrobats, even though we never discovered if they ever paid the rent!
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