Pierre Rossi and Béatrice live in the same block of flats in Marseille and love each other. One night, Béatrice leaves her apartment. Pierre knows that his fiancée goes to a rendezvous, but she would not tell him more than just that. Worried, Pierre follows her but he is attacked and stolen his identity papers by two men, Tom and Nasol, on the payroll of Quaglio, one of the city's bosses. Later on, Quaglio kills Nasol and deposits the body in a garage, leaving Pierre's papers nearby. As for Pierre, he manages to follow Tom to a villa where several young women have been invited. Pierre, horrified, realizes that this place is the headquarters for the white slave trade. - Written by Guy Bellinger
Similar titles
Reviews
One of the first features directed by Édouard Molinaro, in black and white, is a boring drama in the first half and a continuous shift of gun and machine gun bursts in the second half. A very young and not very convincing Robert Hossein in a dirty love affair, that has a lot of troubles because of the woman he loves, and Magali Noël (Fellini's favorite), as a woman who encourages the dangerous links between some young, unconscious and naive women, and some unscrupulous, tricky men.
Before his hit comedies, Molinaro began his career with interesting thrillers : his first one "Le Dos Au Mur" (you will never forget the ending, promised), his second "Des Femmes Disparaissent" (you will never forget the filthy Jane Marken and Philippe Clay as a very very bad guy, promised again), his third and first masterpiece "Un Témoin Dans La Ville" (with stunning cinematography and Lino Ventura as a very very unforgettable bad guy) and "La Mort De Belle" (his second masterpiece adapted from Simenon). "Des Femmes Disparaissent" is really exciting : two gangsters with ambiguous relations dealing young pinups in body slavery. For a movie directed in 1959, some scenes shocked me. Yes, between 1958 and 1961, Edouard Molinaro directed these fine thrillers, the last one not being available on DVD. Edouard Molinaro just left us, two weeks after George Lautner. So long, messieurs...
White slave trade was a trendy subject at the time.It's Edouard Molinaro's second film and like the first one "le Dos au Mur" ,and the follow-up ("Un Témoin Dans la Ville" )it's a thriller.It would be 1960 before Molinaro made a truly worthy film noir:"La Mort de Belle" from Simenon.Robert Hossein portrays a man whose fiancée mysteriously disappeared.There's a house where girls are invited:they promise them anything:to become a top model,to travel around the world,all that in a chic atmosphere ,a perfect lure .Best performance comes from Jane Marken,as Mrs Cassini,a woman who pretends to help the hero whereas...The actress could epitomize evil as few of her peers could do ("Manèges" by Yves Allégret).Average.
