Death in Small Doses (1957)

A drugs movie with a difference. This B-Movie was designed to show the dangers of prescription drugs, in this case amphetamines such as Benzedrine or 'bennies' as they are called here. Joseph M Newman was a better director than he was given credit for and he handles the somewhat sensationalized material well enough. The cast, (Peter Graves, Mala Powers, Chuck Connors, Merry Anders) are strictly bargain basement and the script is something of an embarrassment but it's nicely shot on location by Carl Gutherie and there is some decent stunt driving and as the bottom half of a double bill it's not that bad.

DEATH IN SMALL DOSES is an American B-movie crime thriller set in the world of truckers and trucking. It's nowhere near as good as that British classic HELL DRIVERS, but the plot is unusual enough to keep you watching and it could be a lot worse. Future MISSION IMPOSSIBLE star Peter Graves is tasked with investigating the prevalence of illegal amphetamines which truck drivers have been taking to keep them awake during long drives. Unfortunately the side effects include hallucinations and death, so Graves must find the supply chain and nip it in the bud before anybody else dies.What follows is your usual second-tier story with a little mystery, a little suspense, and a handful of action scenes. Graves is a perfectly likable hero but the real scene-stealer here is Chuck Connors as a beatnik-inspired loudmouth who lights up the screen whenever he appears. Mala Powers is particularly stunning as the love interest of the piece, and the stunt scenes, while hampered by the low budget, keep the production moving along nicely. The twist ending is a strong way to end the film too.

This movie is considered a "classic" in my family; my Dad was the agent (brilliantly acted by Peter Graves) on whom the title character was based. Hollywood added a romance but other than that they got the story (based on a series of articles about my Dad in the Saturday Evening Post) right. Some message boards about the movie criticize Chuck Connors for over-acting, but he didn't; that's how it was. This movie is a good reminder of what we owe to a lot of America's unsung heroes who have taken on messy tasks over the years to make America a safer place. Thanks to my Dad and other agents the movie now looks like a dated "period piece" portraying world with which we do not have to be familiar.

Capable genre director Joe Newman directed this magnetically tawdry tale of a federal agent trying to crack a drug ring that preys on long-haul truckers. This is no French Connection, but it's a fascinating glimpse of a bygone era, and if one has a taste for low-budget AA features of the fifties this one is definitely worth a look. Peter Graves makes a fine Viking hero. There's a pseudo-adultness here of the sort one used to find in cheap paperback novels that were basically semi-porn but masquerading (or trying to) as exposes of one sort or another. As with Dragnet, one has to have a certain kind of empathy to get into the spirit of this sort of thing. If you do, this one will reward you handsomely.