DEATH IN SMALL DOSES (1957)

From a Saturday Evening Post exposé by Arthur L. Davis this film is based on factual accounts. The film was directed by Joseph M. Newman who had several notable B-movies already under his clapboard. A jazz-inspired score by Emil Newman and Robert Wiley Miller is used effectively over opening credits, all in modern, lowercase letters. This low-budget Allied Artists production is a well-cast “call to action” about the excessive use of addictive, mood-altering drugs. The viewer is locked in from the opening scene with headlights glaring down a dark highway. The theme is established as the driver, to stay awake, downs a handful of amphetamines, known as “bennies” (Benzedrine) or “co-pilots” to truck drivers. His subsequent hallucination drives him over a cliff.  As is often the case with any old movie, regardless of budget, there are a couple of unintentionally funny scenes of note.

Handsome, likable Peter Graves plays one of the numerous FDA agents sent undercover to find out who is supplying drivers the illegal pills. This may be the best B-movie production of his career as a man with undercover experience. His “off the top of his head” suggestion for a phony alias and routine cover for this sort of thing is pretty funny. And not even questioned by his supervisor. He decides to be a widower from...um... Indianapolis...um...who has been drifting for...um...five years working at various...um...jobs. Perfect!

You will not forget Chuck Conners' standout performance. One might think he is over-acting, but on the contrary, he sells the harmful effects of drug addiction vividly. Connors hams it up as a hopped-up-hepcat big-rig driver. He and “Bennie” can go the distance on the highway or the dance floor. His flirtations with the diner waitress, Merry Anders, is a favorite pastime. Sleeping is for losers, in his altered mind. When Graves becomes a border in the same house as Connors, the automobile buff will wonder who owns the Thunderbird convertible curbside. Once Connors “blows the cameraman off his feet” with his first appearance, the owner is revealed. His climatic, hallucinogenic ride, almost drives him insane, and nearly kills Graves in the process before getting him the medical help needed.

Mala Powers, who runs the trucker's boarding house, looks sheepishly uncomfortable when Graves checks in. Like she killed her dog a couple of hours before after he peed on the carpet. Graves' phony backstory plays to her emotions and they soon become attached at the lips. She will be quite surprised to learn he is just a professional doing his job. So there is little surprise for the moviegoer that they have no future together. Typically, Harry Lauter is just too nice as Power's thoughtful “brother-in-law.”

Routine stops at a service station introduce us to the owner, Robert B. Williams, as “Dunc.” The amiable character is the driver's primary pill physician, but he is not the kingpin. When the pill-pusher gang finds out the identity of Graves he is abducted and taken to a remote location. Against his will, Williams is also “taken for a ride” and then commanded to dig a grave for Graves. Sensing a chance to sway Williams' actions, Graves tells him he is also dispensable. “Dunc, you better make that two graves.” After that unintended pun, Williams places the shovel upside of the head of the drug kingpin. After a few stray and deadly bullets, Graves returns to town to wrap up his assignment. Powers' hysteria at the end is a bit much.