User Reviews

I like silent films, so I enjoyed this one quite a bit. However, I also feel that unless you are really, really a big fan of silents, you will be a bit bored by the film...even with its sensationalistic plot.

The film is about the problem of 'white slavery'--women being forced into prostitution by evil gangs. But before that topic is discussed, there is a back story about two sisters...one of which eventually is kidnapped by the evil gang of pimps. So, it's up to her sister to investigate her disappearance for herself. Oddly, the trail leads to the office of a reformer from some sort of 'Purity League'. It turns out that while he's campaigning to clean up the white slavery operations, he's in bed with the crooks (so to speak). Using some clever high-tech means, she is able to get the evidence on these scum-bags---leading to an ending that is quite salacious and entertaining. When this pillar of the community is caught and arrested, the repercussions on his wife and daughter are quite unexpected!

Overall, this is a bizarre little curio that is definitely worth seeing if you love silents. However, some overacting (even by 1913 standards) and a few slow spots make this a film for the more patient cinephiles.

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.

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!

This is one of the better feature-length films from before 1915 that I've seen, for the simple reason that it moves. I much prefer it to the plodding filmed plays, which so many early features were, such as "Queen Elizabeth", "From the Manger to the Cross" (both 1912), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1913), and most of the rest. It's perhaps the most well paced longer film that I've seen predating D.W. Griffith's transition to feature-length productions. Much credit for that must go to director George Loane Tucker and co-writer Walter MacNamara, as well as producer and, apparently, editor Jack Cohn, who, after working for Carl Laemmle, would co-found Columbia Pictures.

The editing, however, is choppy in places, which may in part be due to missing footage, but it's clear that much of the choppiness was originally there. This isn't uncommon for early films, when editors had to rely on physically cutting the film without even a good viewing device, but "Traffic in Souls" is choppier than most. Regardless, there's a lot crosscutting in this film between various plots over the span—within the film—of only a couple days time. Additionally, there's some good continuity editing and cutting between suggested point-of-view shots and counter shots of the one viewing, which were not widespread techniques in 1913 as they are today. Ben Brewster ("Traffic in Souls: an experiment in feature-length narrative construction" printed in "The Silent Cinema Reader") counted the shots in "Traffic in Souls" and those in "Cabiria", which was the pinnacle of the literary/theatrical style of early features also used in the aforementioned filmed plays. "Cabiria" has an average shot length of 20.2 feet, while "Traffic in Souls" has an average of 7.9 feet. Despite being twice as long as "Traffic in Souls", it also has fewer shots overall while having nearly a third more title cards.

Today, the narrative of "Traffic in Souls" seems similar to later exploitation films (although, I'd say, better constructed than many such films made even several decades later). Of course, the subject matter of forced prostitution rings is treated quite sensationally. Reportedly, this was actually a big (mostly imagined) fear at the time this film was made—among progressive social reformers, at least. Additionally, I suspect "Traffic in Souls" was strongly inspired by the Danish three-reel film "The White Slave Trade" (Den Hvide slavinde) (1910) and its several sequels and derivatives, which were very popular, although I haven't seen those Danish films, nor heard anyone else make that connection before. Early Danish cinema was, in general, sensational, and from the examples I've seen, it seems likely this Danish sensational genre influenced the production of "Traffic in Souls". Another influence: Tucker had already employed a heroine plot involving technological devices resembling that part in "Traffic in Souls" in "The Rise of Officer 174" (1913).

Other than structure, this film is typically dated. The filmmakers do very little with the camera and return to the same camera position for nearly every scene for the respective locations (which was standard at the time). The mob scene, with a moving camera from an overhead angle, and the jail panning shot are exceptions. The acting is mostly no frills, which is preferable since even good actors back then could go overboard with histrionic projecting sometimes. The best characterization is of the duplicitous Trubus, whose large sideburns and appearance are said to be a mocking of John Rockefeller Jr., heir to Standard Oil and a social reformer who sponsored an investigation of prostitution contemporary to this film (which says something about the filmmakers' earnestness, or lack thereof, in regards to the forced prostitution scare).

The New York location shooting is rather interesting. At times, the film takes on an actuality, or documentary, feel; pedestrians in some scenes noticeably look directly at the camera, including a kid who waves at it from a trolley. Some of the sets, however, seem inappropriate. As William K. Everson ("American Silent Film") remarks, "There is a Victorian look to many of the interiors of homes and offices; ultra-busy wallpaper and a plethora of vases and ornaments…. But it is inappropriate for an essentially modern story of organized crime… and the interiors clash rather notably with the exteriors shot in the busy streets of New York." Nevertheless, "Traffic in Souls" is a landmark film. If not so much controversial in itself, the film inspired a spew of copycat productions in the US on white slavery, which led to a 1916 ban by the National Board of Review on all white slavery films—a ban that was adopted by the Hays Code. The film was also comparatively expensive and profitable in its day: costing some $57,000 to produce and grossing near a half million. This film has also been selected to the US National Film Registry. Yet, the importance of "Traffic in Souls" lies more in that it's the first modernly constructed and edited feature-length film narrative and, thusly, America's first quality long film.

Ethel Grandin had already tried to find film work at American Biograph but when director D.W. Griffith asked to see her legs (just to make sure she was not bow legged) she left in a huff!! The next port of call was I.M.P. - Carl Laemmle's company, recently returned from Cuba where they had gone to dodge the Patent's officers. The little maverick company had started to acquire some prestigious names - Herbert Brenon, George Loane Tucker and Thomas Ince who found in Ethel his perfect leading lady. As Ethel recalled, Tucker asked her if she would do some scenes for him but it had to be quick. "Traffic in Souls" was inspired by the Rockefeller White Slavery Report and New York District Attorney Whiteman's investigations into vice. It was made for $5,700 from donations put up by Brenon, King Baggott and others and without Laemmle's permission, that's why everything was hush-hush but with 30,000 people seeing it in it's first week and soon to be playing in 28 cinemas in greater New York alone it made enough for Uncle Carl to put together a reputable studio - Universal.

As "head of the house" Mary (Jane Gail) finds it hard to keep flighty younger sister Lorna (Ethel Grandin) who is often late for work, in check. Someone else has his eye on Lorna - he is a scout for the local brothel - the "trafficker in souls"!!

Gail (who does a super job), Matt Moore and Grandin may have been the nominal stars but the real eye opener (to the public of 1913) must have been the devious means the villains went to, to procure the innocent young girls to fill their "suspicious houses". The different men on every corner, so when a policeman sends a disreputable rat (posing as a helpful citizen) about his business, there is always another toad around the corner to guide a poor innocent country girl (Luray Huntley, wife of Walter Long who plays one of the policemen) to a recommended "boarding house". Two Swedish girls see their brother at the docks but he is soon involved in a "scuffle" and another helpful Swede pops up to direct the girls to the Swedish Employment Bureau!! In an interesting plot twist Officer 4434 stages a huge raid on the premises, rescuing all the girls but not finding out who runs the operation!!

Meanwhile Lorna's disappearance has caused a sensation and Mary is sacked for bringing notoriety to the shop. To the rescue is wealthy Mrs. Trubus who secures Mary a job in her husband's office and where Mary finds, after mopping up some spilt ink, a hidden Dictaphone that helps her expose Mr. Trubus as the man at the top of the vice and corruption tree. The Dictaphone could have been a stumbling block but luckily Mary's father is an inventor who has created a machine for recording Dictaphone messages on cylindrical disks!! There mayn't be any customers (as one reviewer questions) but Ethel Grandin is called on to do some powerful emoting (1913 style) as she realises where her love of good times and fancy gifts has led her. And when the whip comes out as a last resort to force Lorna's bidding......

The film can be repetitive with too many scenes of just too many people crammed into an office forever counting their ill gotten gains but the very drabness of the sets give it an almost documentary feel, with the many exteriors of 1913 New York giving it a quaint period look.

Highly Recommended.