mark.waltz Leading young actress wannabees on the road to ruin is the name of the game in this expose of white slavery in the sex trade, going on around the world even back in the 1940's (and way before that), and police captain H.B. Warner is determined to prevent the vice trade from expanding anymore and prevent any more innocent young girls from having their lives ruined. Philip Van Zandt is the head of this racket, given the obvious criminal name of King Peterson, head of a nightclub who treats the accusations made against him like a total joke, laughing at the law, knowing that they just don't have the evidence on him for being the scum of the earth that he is. He's secret partners with wealthy Boyd Irwin and slimy Herb Vigran (a veteran of many T.V. episodes and especially remembered for commercials), and he threatens them with the fact that if he goes down, he's taking them as well.Astrid Allwyn is Irwin's daughter, an ace reporter who is unaware of her father's protectives and is determined to expose the racket for what it is, even if it means sneaking in as one of the possible girls they utilize for their nefarious intentions. John Archer plays a young assistant D.A. whom Allwyn harasses to get information, and he steps right into the middle of the investigation by answering the phone call from one of Van Zandt's molls who promises to give him the information that he's been searching for. Of course, it's a trap, and all that happens in his attempts to question her is the discovery of a dead body and evidence which will ultimately bring the bad guys down. This of course results in a cowardly act of one of the villains to save their own neck, but the only thing that ends up being saved is the noose to go around it. The end for this nefariously evil character will obviously be in the electric chair! Somewhat shady and exploitive in its pursuit of one of the most low-life of big city rackets, this is cheaply made and sometimes pretty tacky in the way it laughs at the law through the villains. Warner's character, in particular, is so decent and moralistic that this comes off more as a warning for the young girls who have yet to have left their homes and head to big entertainment metropolises like New York or Los Angeles. Patricia Knox, playing the moll, seems to be an unknown variation of similar actresses playing characters which Marian Martin, Veda Ann Borg, Barbara Pepper and Adele Jergens were experts in. This has some enjoyable moments that are pretty heated, but overall, the film just seems to be major exploitation with a few familiar names involved in, amongst them a very young Gale Storm.

kidboots For lovers of B movies this film is a cornucopia of stars - silent stars - Walter Long, stars on the way down - Astrid Allwyn, H. B. Warner, stars on the way up - Gale Storm and stars that never were - Kathryn Crawford. In 1930 Crawford was getting the star treatment. She was thought a good bet by Paramount - enough to snare Buddy Rogers away from the more beautiful Carole Lombard and Virginia Bruce in "Safety in Numbers" (1930) - even though she was the drabbest of all the chorus girls in the movie. The next year she had the lead in "Flying High" which boasted Busby Berkeley choreography. Then musicals went out and so did Miss Crawford. She hung around until 1933 and then no more - until this movie - 8 years later, when she was billed as Katherine Crawford and played, what else, a jaded chorus girl.A philosophizing D.A. (H. B. Warner) is on a crusade to find out the fate of a group of missing girls, all of whom have attended a local dramatic school. A sleazy night club manager King Peterson (Philip Van Zandt), uses it as a feeder for his nightclub, which could also be a front for a prostitution racket - or that's what the D.A. wants to find out. Nora (Astrid Allwyn) is a newspaper reporter, whose father is a theatrical booking agent. She goes to him for information about the girls and while he pleads ignorance, he knows far more than he lets on. One of the missing girls turns up, showering gifts on her mother but being vague about her new job. It seems that one of the nightclub girls has been recruiting young girls for the drama school and Pauline , along with her pretty friend Mary (Gale Storm) are signed up. Pauline, however knows too much and is talking so she ends up dead in an alley. Nora's father runs the drama school but when he entered into association with Peterson, he didn't realise what was involved - and now he wants out.This is an OK movie. H.B. Warner had an astounding career - there didn't seem to be a role he wouldn't tackle. In this one he was so debonair - I kept expecting him to be unmasked as the villain. Astrid Allwyn, must have discovered the secret of eternal youth as she always looked young and beautiful.Recommended.

wes-connors "A string of mysterious deaths and disappearances of young women have all been traced to a drama school, where all the girls were students. The district attorney suspects the school may be a front for a prostitution ring and sets out to investigate it. After the D.A. is blackmailed into dropping the investigation, a female reporter decides to go undercover to learn the truth," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Writer/director Elmer Clifton manages to squeeze a few drops of blood from this stone. A scene between villain Philip Van Zandt (as King Peterson) asking "Do you mind if I smoke?" and hero John Archer (as Jimmy Horton) replying "I don't care if you burn" piques interest. Mr. Clifton and H.B. Warner (as "Mac" McVeigh) were bigger names during the silent film era (look for Walter Long, also).Mr. Archer was a fine actor, who did not get the parts he deserved; and it shows, in this film. Teenage Gale Storm (as Mary Phillips), who unexpectedly became a 1950s TV and rock 'n' roll era recording star, is irresistibly cute; she, and brief pair of vivacious dancing girls, give the film some much-needed oomph. In spite of some strengths, "City of Missing Girls" remains oblique and recumbent.**** City of Missing Girls (3/27/41) Elmer Clifton ~ John Archer, H.B. Warner, Gale Storm

sol1218 ****SPOILERS**** A number of young women have disappeared or have been found murdered in and around town. The one connection being that they all have in common with each other is that they attended or are attending the Crescent School for the Fine Arts. The local police department as well as the up and coming assistant DA James Horton,John Archer,as well as John's good friend and mentor police Captain McVeigh,H.B. Warner, have been trying with interest to find out who's behind these missing and dead young women. D.A Horton starts to put the heat on the schools owner Joseph Thompson, Boyd Irwin,who's a front-man for the cities top mobster King Peterson, Philip Van Zandt. Thompson has no idea of what the school that he's running is all about, Peterson's prostitution and call-girl racket. Peterson tries to pay off assistant DA Horton with $10,000.00 to stop his investigation but the incorruptible Horton tells Peterson to take a walk with Capt. McVeigh listening in on the office inter-con. Peterson later comes up with the idea to frame and blackmail Horton in order to get him off his back. Later Tompson panics when it turns up in the newspaper that a student Pauline Randolph in the Crescent School was connected with with one of the murdered girls Thaila Arnold. Thompson wants out of the whole dirty business but Peterson won't let him in fear that Thompson would go to and tell the police in order to save his hide. Pauleine is later also found murdered and the police now have enough evidence to make a case against the Crescent School and it's owner and administrators, the Peterson mob. Peterson then sets up assistant DA Horton by having one of his girls Kate Nelson,Patrkia Knox, to call him over to her hotel room with information on the Randolph murder.Having Horton secretly photographed with her in a somewhat intimate pose Kate later gets into a fight with Peterson who kills her. Horton having himself photographed with Kate in her hotel room and later Kate being found murdered in that same room is now in no position to handle the case. He may very well be indited for murdering Kate! Two things then unexpectedly happen that saves the day for Horton and the forces of law and order. The photographer who took the photo gets scared when he finds Kate's body and is later kidnapped by the Peterson mob only to be rescued by the police and then spills the beans on him, Peterson. Later Thompson's daughter Nora, Astrid Allwyn,who's a newspaper reporter goes undercover in the Crescent School as a student. Nora is recognized by Peterson and in a fit of disgust and outrage goes to call the police on him. the police and assistant DA break into his office and catch him red handed. Peterson is later convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair and at last the mystery of the missing and murdered girls is finally solved."City of Missing Girls" is a mostly typical crime drama with the exception of touching on a very taboo subject back in those days, the 1940's, in Hollywood: prostitution. It's interesting to see how the film makers avoided to even mention that word even though the movie plot was all about it, prostitution and call-girls, as if that subject and those very words were off-limits by the moral majority of that day which they were.