With it's sensational subject matter, it's not surprising that "Traffic in Souls" wound up banned in some cities. If you think about it, here's a film made over a century ago that dealt with prostitution and the white slave trade in a rather frank manner, adding elements of police detective work and a shoot out between the cops and the sex traffickers that would have had theaters packing them in. There's even a madam with a whip employed to force a victim to do the bidding of the slavers, all very provocative and eye opening.
Without a clear sense of when various forms of technology and communication were invented, another surprise for this viewer was seeing how the brains behind the procurement enterprise kept tabs on his underlings. Trubus (William Welsh), the 'man higher up', used a form of dictograph and a recording tablet that had all the earmarks of science fiction for 1913. As far as taking down the bad guys, it seemed way beyond coincidental that the father of the abducted girl at the heart of the story was the one to invent a device to record the phone conversations that served to put them away. Not to mention how all that contrasted with modern day notions of warrant-less search and entrapment. But again, this was over a hundred years ago.
An interesting item for discussion. After Trubus and his minions were busted, how does one take the death of his wife? Did she die from the stress of the ordeal, or did she commit suicide over the disgrace? An inter-title card describes that she 'escapes his shame', so one is inclined to lean to the latter idea. But isn't that always the case, the worst one of the lot lived a dual life as the head of the International Purity and Reform League!
Without a clear sense of when various forms of technology and communication were invented, another surprise for this viewer was seeing how the brains behind the procurement enterprise kept tabs on his underlings. Trubus (William Welsh), the 'man higher up', used a form of dictograph and a recording tablet that had all the earmarks of science fiction for 1913. As far as taking down the bad guys, it seemed way beyond coincidental that the father of the abducted girl at the heart of the story was the one to invent a device to record the phone conversations that served to put them away. Not to mention how all that contrasted with modern day notions of warrant-less search and entrapment. But again, this was over a hundred years ago.
An interesting item for discussion. After Trubus and his minions were busted, how does one take the death of his wife? Did she die from the stress of the ordeal, or did she commit suicide over the disgrace? An inter-title card describes that she 'escapes his shame', so one is inclined to lean to the latter idea. But isn't that always the case, the worst one of the lot lived a dual life as the head of the International Purity and Reform League!