Passport to Shame

Plot

Nick Biaggi runs a finance company that provides unsecured loans to naïve young women – a facade for manipulating them into prostitution. He recruits many of these women from abroad and to get them passports arranges "husbands" for them in marriages of convenience. His newest recruit is Marie Louise "Malou" Beaucaire and her sham husband will be Johnny McVey, a Canadian cab driver who owes money to Nick.

When Nick meets Malou he assumes she is already a prostitute and is amused when she tells him she is not. Malou believes that she has been hired as a companion to an upper class British woman, and Nick has established her in a nice house, where she meets Vicki.

Nick blackmails Malou into engaging in street sex work, and threatens to disfigure her if she doesn't comply. Johnny locates and rescues her. Subsequently, Nick and his gang recapture Malou and assault Johnny, while fellow cab driver Mike grows close to Vicki, who after her sister's suicide rebels against Nick and tells Johnny where Malou is held captive. Johnny rescues Malou once more. Cabdrivers converge on Nick's bordello and fight a pitched battle against Nick's gang while Vicki, Johnny and Malou escape. Nick falls to his death.

Cast

• Odile Versois as Marie Louise 'Malou' Beaucaire
• Herbert Lom as Nick Biaggi
• Eddie Constantine as Johnny McVey
• Diana Dors ('guest star') as Vicki
• Brenda de Banzie as Aggie
• Robert Brown as Mike
• Elwyn Brook-Jones as Solicitor Heath
• Jackie Collins as English girl
• Lana Morris as girl
• Steve Plytas as French restaurant manager
• Cyril Shaps as Willie
• Denis Shaw as Mac
• Margaret Tyzack as June, Heath's secretary
• Joan Sims as Miriam, phone operator in the taxi office
• Pauline Stroud as Maria
• Michael Caine as man getting married (uncredited)
• Anne Reid as woman getting married (uncredited)
• Maurice Bush as client, dream sequence (uncredited)
• Emil Stemler as waiter (uncredited)

Production

Filming began on 3 July 1958 and took six weeks. The camera operator was Nicolas Roeg. Ron Randell was originally announced to star.

This was Eddie Constantine's first English-language film.

Reception

The Los Angeles Times said: "the picture is rather well done."'Room 43' Exposes Adults Only Theme Scott, John L. Los Angeles Times 24 Sep 1959: B7.

The Monthly Film Bulletin called it a "wildly incredible story" which "...must be the most wholeheartedly absurd prostitute drama yet. Motivations are mysterious and characterisations grotesque. Connoisseurs of the bizarre may relish some of the production's most ambitious moments."

Variety said: "Though a familiar entry in characters and general action, it has a plus in fairly unfettered looks at prostitution in London and the workings of a white slave ring. It looks to have exploitation facets for Yank dualer chances and its “X” certificate in England should also help at the boxoffice."

Leslie Halliwell said: "Would-be seamy melodrama which just about serves its purpose."

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "In the late 1950s, the BBFC reluctantly allowed producers to tackle prostitution as long as the films masqueraded as "Awful Warnings". This typical example has poor French waif Odile Versois coming to England and tricked into working for a brothel run by evil Herbert Lom. A cheap, tawdry and fascinating piece of vintage sexploitation. Way down the cast list, Michael Caine plays a bridegroom."

For Filmink, Stephen Vagg wrote: "Dors was the second female lead, once again better than the actual female lead".

References

References

1. (26 November 1958). "Passport to Shame". Variety.
2. "Passport to Shame".
3. (6 August 1958). "Hollywood Production Pulse".
4. (29 May 1958). "Warwick's adventure in economy pays off".
5. (January 1959). "Advertisement". Variety.
6. Review of film Volume 26, No.302, March 1959, page 35 Monthly Film Bulletin
7. Halliwell, Leslie. (1989). "Halliwell's Film Guide". Paladin.
8. (2017). "Radio Times Guide to Films". [[Immediate Media Company]].
9. Vagg, Stephen. (September 7, 2020). "A Tale of Two Blondes: Diana Dors and Belinda Lee".