Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov September 12, 2020

Alvin Rakoff's "Passport to Shame" a.k.a. "Room 43" (1958) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Network Releasing. The only bonus feature on the disc is a gallery with vintage promotional and production materials for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

We can arrange a loan for you -- a good one.

You won’t believe what is happening on the streets of London. It is bad. Really, really bad. But director Alvin Rakoff has made a film called Passport to Shame that will open your eyes and make you so uncomfortable that you will be inspired to demand an end of it. So, get comfortable and pay attention now because you are about to see a side of London you never knew existed.

Roll the film.

First you are welcomed to the loan agency where desperate people surrender to Nick Biaggi (Herbert Lom). They don’t know that they do, but as soon as they sign their loan papers, they lose their freedom. That’s right. It won’t be long before they realize that they can’t meet their financial obligations, so Biaggi will offer them ‘deals’ that can solve their problem quickly. The elegant lady that just secured a large loan from the agency, for instance, will shortly be ‘dating’ lonely gentlemen who will be happy to pay for her time. And this is Johnny McVey (Eddie Constantine), an overworked but ambitious cabbie, who is about to see the brand new car he just purchased with a loan from the agency crushed in a freak accident. Biaggi, who has masterminded the accident, will then ask him to participate in a marriage scam that will secure his French wife the papers she needs to legally live and work in London.

Here’s the future bride, Malou (Odile Versois), who makes ends meet as a waitress in a bistro somewhere in the south of France. She does not know that the older British lady she is serving, Aggie (Brenda de Banzie), and the owner of the bistro work for Biaggi and she is being set up. In a few moments the owner will accuse her of stealing from the register, Aggie will take care of the ‘stolen money’, and then, while leaving, casually invite her to visit London where she could start a new life. The naïve girl will accept, leave France, and a few weeks later learn from Biaggi that she has to find a ‘husband’ if she plans to follow her dreams.

This is the brothel where eventually Malou will begin working as a prostitute for Biaggi. Right now, Malou thinks that Aggie owns the place and is letting her stay there until she gets used to life in London, but soon she will discover that her host is neither a lady nor her friend and oversees the business for Biaggi. After she marries her British ‘husband’ Malou will attempt to run away, but Biaggi’s men will remind her that like every other girl in the brothel she can reclaim her freedom only after her financial obligations from the ‘marriage’ have been met.

In this nice looking office Malou will meet McVey and after they sign the necessary paperwork the two will become husband and wife. McVey will get paid by Biaggi’s men, while Malou will have to start paying them back.

Let’s pause now. Passport to Shame sure sounds like a rough film, a hard-hitting eye-opener that must have shocked audiences that saw it in the late ‘50s. Also, it has quite a cast of big-name actors that should have made it famous, right? So, how come the film isn’t better known?

There are two reasons why you probably have not heard of it. First, immediately after the marriage ceremony Rakoff switches to safe mode and wipes out the roughness that would have made his film memorable. So, instead of a hard-hitting eye-opener you are left to endure a conventional soapy melodrama about a French girl discovering true love in the most unusual of places. Second, there is such an awkward shift in the personalities of the bad characters that the ways in which they eventually compromise each other look utterly ridiculous, and this is precisely why they are instantly forgettable.

Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Passport to Shame arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Network Releasing.

The release is sourced from a pretty good recent 2K master. It looks slightly softer than it should after the makeover -- and again because some light but unnecessary noise reduction adjustments were applied to rebalance the visuals -- but there are no distracting anomalies. In fact, I think that balance is quite good, especially in darker areas where some traces of age-related anomalies emerge. Delineation and depth are not optimal, but they are no problematic either. Generally speaking, the entire film has the slightly softer look that you would expect from a second generation element, like an interpositive. The grading job is convincing, but ideally there should be expanded and better balanced ranges of grays and whites. Image stability is very good. All in all, while the makeover could have been more convincing, this is still a pleasing organic presentation of the film. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The lossless track is very nice. The dialog is clear, stable, and properly balanced with the music. There are is some dynamic unevenness that pops up during the mass footage -- for example, the big fire in the brothel at the very end -- but as far as I am concerned this is an inherited limitation. There are no audio dropouts, distortions, or encoding anomalies to report in our review.

Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Image Gallery - a collection of vintage promotional materials for Passport to Shame.

• Booklet - 14-page mini booklet with vintage promotional materials for Passport to Shame.

Passport to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The melodrama that takes over the narrative after the fake marriage damages the integrity of the film in the worst possible way. It forces the bad characters to undergo transformations that are so cliched that everything they say and do becomes painfully predictable. I can't say that I disliked the film, but considering the type of rating it received when it was released theatrically and the big-name actors that contributed to it, I expected a lot more. Network's release is sourced from a decent recent 2K master. RECOMMENDED only to fans of the film.