Synanon (1965)

A study of drug addicts in an real life treatment center.This is a good film with an interesting cast. Third billed Alex Cord is actually the main character, the weirdly named Zankie Albo, a slick braggart with an addiction to heroin. Stella Stevens (one of her best performances) is Joaney, a divorcee with a young son who resorted to prostitution to pay for her habit. She gets involved with the charming but dangerous Albo. Top billed Chuck Connors (fresh from The Rifleman) is Ben the ex con who kicked his "H" addiction but has to contend with trouble maker Albo, who was his cell mate in prison and has a beef against him. Oscar winner Edmond O'Brien is Chuck the head of Synanon, he uses tough talk and punishments like having heads shaved and wearing humiliating signs for breaking the rules. Other "dope fiends" are played by Richard Conte, Eartha Kitt and Bernie Hamiliton.Anyone who is interested in 1960s black and white films about lurid subjects or is a fan of any member of the cast should seek this one out.

Junkies helped by those who know what it's all about a recovering junkies-is the modus operandi for the titled organization located right on beautiful Venice beach. Expensive property to even stay at overnight now, it was quite wild during the days prior to the dawning of Aquarius. What could be preachy or a 60's version of a 1940's exploitation film ends up bring an engrossing drama with the usual variety if characters who come in every age, every gender, every nationality.A cast of veterans and newcomers mingle together in this raw expose of the counter culture that is still working overtime today to sober people up. Among the veterans are Edmund O'Brien and Richard Conte with Eartha Kitt at the height of her popularity, right before her real life controversy with President Johnson. Her character makes a speech in her very first scene that reeks of clichés and would be irritating and trite if it had been anybody else.The main story surrounds heroine junkie Alex Cord, coming down and desperate. By chance overhearing a public relations meeting going on, he is immediately drawn in, but angered to discover that one of the patient leaders is his former prison cellmate chuck Connors who planted heroine in Cord's locker. Falling in love with single mother patient Stella Stevens, Cord still won't open up, especially after he sees a Synanon meeting where Conte lays into Stevens, attacking her on every level that could insert a psychological knife with a squeeze of lemon following.While the elements of exploitation are overwhelming, there are subtle nuances that explore the vast insecurities and self hatred's of these pathetic characters. With film noir veterans O'Brien and Conte breathing down their charges necks, treating them like naughty children who need to be humiliated to do their chores. It's a mixed bag of serious human suffering and deliberate shock where the only way to cure them is to break them.

This is a very well made film about addiction and an early drug treatment facility in California. However, when I learned the FULL story about Synanon, it sure opened my eyes....but a bit about that later.I noticed that some reviews did seem to think that "Synanon" pulled a lot of its punches. While I would agree, on the other hand, for 1965, the film was VERY insightful and well done. I particularly liked the down-beat ending--it made the story seem more realistic as 'you can't win 'em all' when it comes to addiction. Plus, the acting was nice--with Edmund O'Brien, Chuck Connors and Alex Cord a turning in excellent and gritty performances. All this was very good and very watchable--and you certainly can't blame the film makers for what happened AFTER the movie based on the real Synanon treatment center was released. Here's where it gets REALLY intereststing. It seems in the 1970s, Synanon slowly transformed itself into a cult, of sorts--a very paranoid and violent one at that! Wild accounts of beatings, rattlesnake attacks(!) and, eventually, the leader (Charles Dederich) resuming his heavy drinking and the dissolution of the program! Although a VERY discouraging story, it is the real account of Synanon and would actually make a pretty exciting film. Still, as I said, they didn't know about any of this stuff that would one day happen when they made the movie--and, taken on its own, "Synanon" is a very good film.

***SPOILERS*** One of the first movies to take on the drug problem head on does have its merits but gets so tangled up in its own good intentions that it falls completely apart well before the ending credits."Synanon" has to do with the famous Synanon House in Santa Monica California that used tough love to help rehabilitate its many dope addicted members. The places founder ex-alcoholic Charles "Chuck" Dederich, Edmond O'Brian, used his own life experiences on those addicts in the plan to get them back into the real world of being hard working and productive citizens and off the dope that they got themselves into over the years.It's when transported New York City dope addict Zankie Albo, Alex Cord, dropped in one evening at the Synanon House to sleep it off that things started getting real dopey there. Not at all looking to help himself get off the stuff, heroin, Zankie in fact got to fellow Synonon House resident Joaney, Stella Stevens, who fell madly in love with him to take off and get high with heroin supplied to him by his good friend and drug dealer Hopper, Gregory Morton. While all this was going on reformed dope addict Ben, Chuck Connors, who served time with Zankie back east tries to get both him and Joaney back to Synanon House before they both end up dead from a hot load, drug overdose, or behind bars in the local "clink" if their lucky.***SPOILERS*** It didn't take long for Zankie to get in touch with Hopper at the Zanzibar Bar in downtown Santa Monice to get his desperately needed dope to shoot up with. Going to a local hotel to get high together with what looked like a blank eyed and zombie like Joaney Zankie shots up with a load of hot heroin and soon conks out before Ben can break into the place to stop him from doing it! To the shock of everyone in the hotel room, Ben Joaney & Hooper, Zaknie goes into convulsions and drops dead moments after he hit, with a needle, himself!The now hysterical Joaney seeing what dope can do to her, like in what it did to Zankie, finally sees the light and together with Ben heads back to Synanon House to save whatever is still left of her life to save from the ravages of dope addiction!P.S It was sad to see that even Synanon House's founder Chuck Dederich later fell back into his previous existence as an alcoholic as well was take up drugs,to expand his mind, by getting himself stoned almost daily on LSD. Dederich also went as far as trying to murder those who he considered his enemies by planting deadly rattlesnakes in their mail boxes that had him convicted of attempted murder! Dederich broken drunk and forgotten died in 1997 at age 83 but the good work he did, before he lost his mind, in saving hundreds if not thousands of dope addicts will always be cherished and remembered by them and their friends and family members in what a great job he did in saving their lives from the horrors of drug addiction when he was still normal.