Sophia Loren Archives - La tratta delle bianche (1952)

FOREIGN TITLES & RELEASE DATES

Italy - September 25, 1952 - La tratta delle bianche - 100'

France (Paris) - July 24, 1953 - La traite des blanches -

West Germany - February 5, 1954 - Mädchenhandel -

USA (New York City) - June 6, 1954 - Girls Marked Danger - 89'

Belgium - Traite des blanches / Handel in blanke slavinnen -

Mexico - La trata de blancas -

Argentina - Esclavas blancas -


Italian poster	American poster	Belgian poster	German poster

PLOT

A young man, Carlo, frees a young woman with whom he is in love from the clutches of a criminal who deals in the white slave trade.
The latter, out of revenge, makes Carlo take part in a robbery so that he can then betray him to the police and thus have him arrested.
The girl, in order to be able to pay an attorney, participates in a gruelling dance marathon, which is actually a trap to catch gullible young women. After dancing non-stop for several days, the girl, who is pregnant, is taken to hospital where she dies. Carlo, having escaped from prison with other men whose girlfriends are also victims of the criminal, is about to take justice into his own hands, when the police
intervene just in time to settle things legally. (Enrico Lancia)
Story by Luigi Giacosi and Luigi Comencini.

FILMING LOCATIONS

Rome (Italy)
Ponti-De Laurentiis Studios, Rome (Italy)

Filming dates: 1952

MAIN CAST

Eleonora Rossi Drago (Alda)
Silvana Pampanini (Lucia)
Ettore Manni (Carlo)
Vittorio Gassman (Michele)
Sophia Laren (Elvira)

CREDITS

Photography:
Luciano Trasatti

Music:

Armando Trovajoli

Song:

‘La testa gira’ sung by Silvana Pampanini

Production:

Carlo Ponti & Dino De Laurentiis for Excelsa Films

NOTES

Alternate English titles: The White Slave Trade, Ship of Condemned Women, and Frustrations.

First true role of Sophia as an unmarried woman in a film produced by Carlo Ponti who is doing a test to see how well her protégée can perform. She is on the set for about a week and receives $400.

The film is popular in the American drive-ins where it is stil presented in the summer of 1955.

QUOTES AND REVIEWS

"In Girls Marked for Danger Sophia's pièce de résistance is a scene lasting a minute and some seconds in which she faints during the dance marathon, is carried to Silvana Pampanini's room and reveals that she is pregnant. Legend has it that during a break in the filming one of the member of the crew exclaimed: 'This one will steal the scene from Pampanini'".
Stefano Masi, Sophia.