Directed by Bamlet Lawrence Price Jr.
Written by Bamlet Lawrence Price Jr.
1955/USA
Bamlet Price’s master’s thesis at UCLA
First viewing/Amazon Instant
“KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT! You will not be able to see his eyes because of the Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension …. He will stagger and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command-including yours. BEWARE. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immediately. One stitch in time (on him) will usually save nine on you. Good luck. -The Chief†— Hunter S. Thompson
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good “bad” drug exploitation movie. Â This one filled the bill nicely.
The story is told in flashback and relates the saga of Cassandra Leigh. Â We watch her go from troubled teen to motorcycle gang member to pothead to unhappy wife to prescription drug abuser to heroin addict to pusher and on to yet another stint in jail. Â Her life is suitably lurid and punctuated by harrowing withdrawal scenes. Â Poor Cassandra.
This was the director’s film school project and was made for $11,000.  Budget constraints meant that the movie was dialogue free.  The whole tale is told via voice-over narration from a narcotics detective with some post-synchronized Foley sound effects and rudimentary music.  All considered, it kept my interest for its 60-minute running time.  I didn’t think it was too terrible for what it was.
Trivia: Â The director was married to contract actress Anne Francis at the time.
No clip but the entire film is on YouTube.
Sort of a discount version of The Man With The Golden Arm?
More like Reefer Madness without the orgies.
I wasn’t sure I’d seen this because it’s been a while since I saw any of the “teens gone wrong because of drugs” films of the 1950s and the lurid titles are pretty interchangeable.
But then you mentioned there’s no dialogue and it all came flooding back! I saw it under the Teenage Devil Dolls title. Yeah. Wow. It’s … a movie, I guess.
Worse than The Violent Years. That’s quite an accomplishment!
I like to see how these people get around their budgets. Some are better than others.
I’ll have to admit that I wasn’t bored with Teenage Devil Dolls. It was kind of fascinating to watch. I sometimes find it hard to rate some of these films on IMDB. They are so wretchedly made and so awful, and yet fascinating. If any movie deserves a “1” for being totally inept, it would be Robot Monster, but I would probably give it a “9” or “10” for being so persistently entertaining.
I gave The Bowery at Midnight a “10” and I don’t feel the least bit embarrassed about it.
I almost put Robot Monster on my 10 Favorites list for 1953 but I figured I would lose all credibility! There’s nothing like a good bad movie to lift my spirits. And Robot Monster is almost endlessly rewatchable. I have to try The Bowery at Midnight. I have The Violent Years on my list for 1956.
The only Bela Lugosi movie I’ve seen more times than Bowery at Midnight is Dracula. Well, maybe The Corpse Vanishes.