Julie (Jamie Karson) is a truck stop waitress who is raped by her sleazy alcoholic boss. She then runs off and marries her photographer boyfriend Brad (Alan Jeffory) in Vegas. When his model is a no-show for his new photoshoot, he asks Julie to pose for him ON THEIR WEDDING DAY! But it gets worse for poor Julie. The no-good lout runs off on her the very next day! Stranded in Vegas, she tries to get a job as a showgirl but is accosted on the casting couch before getting Shanghaied into a life of prostitution.
And I thought my week was bad.
The Velvet Trap isn’t as tawdry as some of the sexploitation dramas from the era, but the fine location work makes it a cool little time capsule of Las Vegas in the mid ‘60s. Scenes take place at the old McCarran Airport, the Stardust pool, and there’s a montage set on Fremont Street. If you’ve watched so many of these things that take place in crummy New York apartments, the Vegas scenery will offer a nice change of pace.
Although the skin quotient is kind of low for this sort of thing, The Velvet Trap is nevertheless engrossing, if only to see what predicament our poor heroine will find herself in next. Try to keep track of all the times she goes out of the frying pan and into the fire. It’s enough to make your head spin. It all culminates in one of the bleakest and most depressing endings I’ve seen in a long time. That’s saying something.
Karson is very good as she tries her damnedest to stand up to her tormentors but just can’t seem to ever catch a break. She only appeared in one other film, which is unfortunate. Based on her work here, she could’ve gone places.
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