1951 Amazing Anti-Drug Film – Part 1 of 3

www.webalice.it Drug Addiction (1951) Producer: Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Inc. Marty, a “good boy,” experiments with marijuana and experiences “profound mental and emotional disturbances”. As in all anti-drug films of this vintage, marijuana leads straight to “H”, and Marty’s decline continues until he is busted, rehabbed and reformed. Drug Addiction’s stilted view of the urban drug culture and unrealistic portrayals of stoned slackers make it entertaining viewing today. It belongs to that little-known “second wave” of anti-drug films, the postwar scare stories about middle-class kids overcome by junkiedom. What this wave of films reveals is that drugs were an issue for white adolescents long before the psychedelic Sixties, and that the official response to the threat expressed a general, not specifically targeted paranoia. This film chronicles the decline and fall of “Marty”, a “good boy” who becomes a junkie. Marty’s experimentation begins with marijuana, which produces “profound mental and emotional disturbances”. Marty then goes straight to “H”, which he buys from Louie, the local dealer (who keeps his stash in a lamp base). Marty is caught, sent to a drug rehab center (where he cuts down dead corn stalks and plays checkers), and reforms. The scene where Marty and some of his stoned friends drink out of broken Pepsi bottles is memorable. As in all anti-drug films, the marijuana sequences are the most entertaining. “Thoughtless curiosity can lead to a lifetime of …