The Road to Shame Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Road to Shame Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 18, 2024

Edouard Molinaro's "The Road to Shame" a.k.a. "Des Femmes Disparaissent" (1959) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The only bonus feature on the release is an exclusive new audio commentary by critic Adrian Martin. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

It is not a coincidence that Edouard Molinaro’s The Road to Shame and Henri Decoin’s Razzia sur la chnouf open with very similar text descriptions. A lot of French crime films that emerged during the 1950s have such text descriptions because they were meant to convince that their stories tackled important social issues. But this is not what was happening. These crime films were becoming rougher and more explicit, so to go as far as they wanted without getting in trouble, they pretended to be concerned and bold eye-openers. The sex trade, drug trafficking, the illegal arms trade, and the illegal diamond trade were their favorite subjects. But by the late 1960s, the text descriptions were already a thing of the past because the standards for what was acceptable in mainstream French crime films had evolved quite dramatically. (The same evolution occurred in Italy as well. However, it was a lot quicker).

The Road to Shame tackles the sex trade. On a warm night in Marseille, young lovers Beatrice (Estelle Blain) and Pierre (Robert Hossein) have an argument and part ways. Shortly after, Beatrice enters a modeling studio where she works with several of her girlfriends, while across from it Pierre fights with two gangsters who have been scouting the area for hours. As Beatrice and her girlfriends put on various new, very expensive dresses and prepare to leave the modeling studio, Pierre is badly beaten, robbed, and left unconscious.

An hour or so later, Beatrice and her girlfriends arrive in a lavish mansion somewhere on the outskirts of the city to party with several ‘businessmen’ who could launch their international modeling careers. According to the female hostess, Coraline (Magali Noel), who is supposed to have helped various other young models, the ‘businessmen’ are some of the very best in the fashion industry. Barely able to contain their excitement, the girls then engage the ‘businessmen’ and begin discussing what they could do for them.

But all of the ‘businessmen’ are human traffickers with plenty of experience in the sex trade, so after a while the girls are served spiked drinks to prepare them for their next destination. Before the drugs begin to work, a few of the ‘businessmen’ also decide to have a bit of intimate fun with their newest possessions. The party goes as planned until Pierre, who has recovered and outsmarted one of his attackers, unexpectedly appears in the mansion holding a gun.

Philippe Clay’s cool hitman is the most obvious clue that The Road to Shame was never meant to be a concerned and bold eye-opener. This is not to imply that without Clay it may have been difficult to figure out that it was so, but with him, the obvious becomes beyond obvious. In addition to being cool, Clay is frequently very funny too, so the contrasts that emerge because of his performance almost single-handedly destroy everything that has anything to do with realism.

But all of these contradictions, which stick out only because of the text description that precedes the opening credits, are one of the main reasons The Road to Shame works very well. Indeed, The Road to Shame is essentially an old-fashioned French crime film with a contemporary attitude, which means that it clearly describes and shows a little bit more than a classic French old-fashioned crime film would have. For example, the plan to turn the girls into sex slaves is not just suggested but casually discussed. Some of the ‘businessmen’ are seen abusing the girls. Women are seen tricking and abusing other women.

The action is old-fashioned, too. It would take another decade for the brawls to become more intense and the shootouts a lot more realistic. However, this also helps The Road to Shame look more stylish. In fact, French crime films from the 1940s and 1950s like The Road to Shame, which emulated the style of the classic American film noirs, are often worth seeing precisely because they look dated yet very stylish.

The Road to Shame boasts a top-notch soundtrack that is, unsurprisingly, very American. It mixes several fantastic jazz tunes composed by legendary drummer and band leader Art Blakey.

The Road 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, The Road to Shame arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release introduces an outstanding recent new 2K restoration of The Road to Shame. I am going to mention two things that could have been managed better first because everything else is either excellent or great.

It appears that the gamma levels are not set exactly where they need to be, which is why in some areas the dynamic range of the visuals is not as good as it should be. To be clear, this presentation is many times better than the one we saw for Witness in the City, but the issue is very easy to address. Unless, of course, the French master is done this way, which means that additional adjustments have to be made by the encoder to restore proper balance. Also, there is room for small encoding optimizations. I did not encounter any troubling anomalies, but if you have a very large screen, you will notice that in a few areas the grain is a somewhat loose. Everything else looks good because the work that was done during the restoration process is excellent. There are no traces of problematic digital corrections. Image stability is great. The entire film looks spotless as well. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Road to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

In the beginning of the film, while the credits appear, and right before they disappear, the audio is a bit too thin. It is the music that is affected the most. But this is very clearly an inherited limitation. Later, in a few other areas, dynamic intensity is very modest, too. This is also an inherited limitation. In fact, the very small dynamic fluctuations are undoubtedly on the soundtrack. I mention all of this in case you are wondering whether the audio might have been unintentionally compressed. It is not. The overall quality of the audio track is excellent. The English translation is excellent too, but I would have preferred bigger subtitles.

The Road to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critic Adrian Martin. There are a wide range of comments about the conception and style of The Road to Shame, the identities of the villains and some stereotypes that are avoided/kept, the jazzy soundtrack, trends in French crime cinema, etc.

The Road to Shame Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In the 1950s, French crime films underwent a rather remarkable but unavoidable transformation, as they slowly became more violent and explicit. Many of them did so by pretending to be concerned and bold eye-openers. (In America, a similar trend affected the classic film noirs and many became more political). Edouard Molinaro's The Road to Shame is one of these evolving crime films, and it is very good. It does not have any big international stars, like Love is My Profession, but unites two of post-war French cinema's greatest stars, Robert Hossein and Magali Noel. Kino Lorber's release introduces a very good recent 2K restoration. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.