Traffic in Souls

1913 CrimeDrama 88 minutes Directed by George Loane Tucker

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About Traffic in Souls

The story runs three days. In a prologue, men offer two Swedish immigrant women work that is a prostitution trap. Footage at Battery Park, after Ellis Island, has real immigrants in the background. In the main plot a procurer, Bill Bradshaw, kidnaps Lorna Barton. Her sister Mary and Mary's sweetheart, police officer Larry Burke, go after her. The pimp is killed. An epilogue gives the outcome in a newspaper someone has thrown away. The respectable front of the ring is William Trubus.

Cast & crew

More about Traffic in Souls

George Loane Tucker directed from his own story and also appears as a wireless operator. Walter MacNamara wrote the scenario and produced with Jack Cohn. Independent Moving Pictures made it. Universal released it on 24 November 1913. It runs 88 minutes, in six reels, longer than most American films of that year. The cost was $5,700. Reported returns are $450,000.

Themes

  • A job offer that is a trap
  • Two sisters and a policeman
  • A philanthropist over the ring
  • Mary Barton
  • Lorna Barton
  • Larry Burke
  • William Trubus
  • white slavery
  • Ellis Island

Background

Universal put it out on 24 November 1913, in the season of American white-slavery pictures. This one ties the kidnappings to an office run by a philanthropist.

Making

Tucker shot a six-reel story for a few thousand dollars and put real passengers from Ellis Island behind the staged women at Battery Park. The respectable villain is Trubus, not the street procurer.

Look

The Fort Lee scenes are staged. The Battery Park sequence was shot with immigrants who had just come from Ellis Island standing in the real park.

Preservation

Prints are at the Library of Congress and with Film Preservation Associates. The National Film Registry added it in 2006. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Jane Gail plays Mary Barton. Ethel Grandin plays Lorna. Matt Moore plays Larry Burke. William H. Turner plays their father, Isaac Barton, an invalid inventor. William Welsh plays William Trubus. William Cavanaugh plays Bill Bradshaw.
  • Another release title is While New York Sleeps.
  • The company shot the body of the film in Fort Lee and added location footage at Ellis Island and in Manhattan.
  • Executive producers named with the production include King Baggot, Herbert Brenon, William Robert Daly, and Carl Laemmle.
  • The Library of Congress and Film Preservation Associates hold prints. The National Film Registry selected it in 2006.

Scenes

  • At Battery Park, staged procurers work in front of real immigrants just off Ellis Island.
  • Bradshaw takes Lorna. Mary and Burke go after her.
  • A thrown-away newspaper carries the ending.

Also available

  • Library of Congress
  • Wikimedia Commons (Traffic in Souls (1913).webm)