Review of Traffic in Souls

By the humble standards of 1913, this is very sophisticated film-making. Admittedly, it doesn't start well or any too promisingly at all, but stick with it. Even before you start to marvel at the film-making, you'll love all the filmed-on-the-spot New York street scenes (which include many shots of the city's streetcars). There are no close-ups at all in the entire movie. The camera doesn't move an inch and is seemingly bolted to the floor, when suddenly there's a slight pan from ship to wharf when the new arrivals dock. By this time, the story has grabbed our attention and we were amazed to note that every year 50,000 young women disappeared and ended up as forced labor in prostitution rings. An elaborate system kept those high up in the rings unknown by those who were doing the actual work of kidnapping and imprisoning. The movie comes to a well-shot action climax and right at the end uses a number of long traveling shots as the camera glides past all the gang members who are now imprisoned. The movie was directed by George Loane Tucker who was later responsible for Lon Chaney's first film, "The Miracle Man" (1919) from which only a few minutes have survived.

Alpha's version of "Traffic in Souls" runs 70 minutes and seems to be complete. When Universal registered the film on 2 December 1919, its length was described as 6 reels. At silent speed a reel runs approximately 12 minutes, so that means a total of 72 minutes, provided all the reels were full (which they not always were). So Alpha's DVD of 69 minutes is exactly equivalent to a cinema's 72 minutes. A pity the print is obviously a dupe of a dupe, but it's quite watchable.