City of Missing Girls is an interesting post-Hays Code mystery film. It verges on exploitation subject matter but seeing as it was made after the stringent Code censorship rules you could be forgiven for not even noticing. The story is basically about an unscrupulous club-owner who sends show-girls off to lives of prostitution. Pretty racy stuff for the times but the vice material is only ever really alluded to. This was seriously taboo material in the 40's hence this enforced approach.
The film itself is an efficient enough, if unremarkable, example of genre film-making of the time. The focus is strictly on the mystery side of the story, with thrills and suspense almost completely absent. Still it's worth checking out as something of a curiosity piece, seeing as it was quite unusual in the 40's for such a standard mystery film to incorporate any exploitation material at all. So at the very least this movie has this one unusual angle to differentiate it from most of its peers.
The film itself is an efficient enough, if unremarkable, example of genre film-making of the time. The focus is strictly on the mystery side of the story, with thrills and suspense almost completely absent. Still it's worth checking out as something of a curiosity piece, seeing as it was quite unusual in the 40's for such a standard mystery film to incorporate any exploitation material at all. So at the very least this movie has this one unusual angle to differentiate it from most of its peers.