The Pace That Kills

Also known as 'The Cocaine Fiends' this film is actually rather dull, and the quality of prints available for viewing now are fairly poor. The story of Jane Bradford's fall from grace after she takes a 'headache cure' isn't really that interesting, or played particularly well.

If you've seen 'Reefer Madness', which is something of a companion piece, then you've seen the better film of the two. And that should not be taken as a recommendation! The 1930s exploitation films, setting themselves out as some kind of public education, are all appalling and really have no relevance today unless they can amuse or intrigue. 'The Pace That Kills' can do neither.

Cocaine Fiends is one of the movies from the 1930's drugsploitation sub-genre. This, along with the superior Reefer Madness, simultaneously condemned and celebrated - intentionally or otherwise - the then taboo subject of drug abuse. Where Reefer Madness works as an unintentional comedy, Cocaine Fiends adopts a less overblown approach and, as a result, is liable to be much less entertaining to today's audiences. The production values are very low but the acting is OK. The story is exaggerated but there are no over-the-top scenes of drug-induced insanity. The film is best appreciated as a time capsule from the 1930s. It provides an insight into the attitudes of the time to drug use and its consequences. It does not, unfortunately, provide much in the way of laughs.

Also, the sound quality of the release I saw was was fairly horrendous. It was very hard at times working out what was being said. Ironically, this, coupled with the very flickery picture and deranged editing, produced the effect of watching the movie on drugs. But not very good drugs.

... and I think people are too quick to look at a camp classic like "Reefer Madness" that shows people smoking one joint and becoming, simultaneously, great piano players, sex fiends, and trigger happy, all while maniacally laughing and think that this film is like that one. You'd be wrong.

Alternatively titled "Cocaine Fiends", this is pretty realistic in showing the effects of cocaine on people and how the addiction is slow and subtle, creeping up on you until you are hooked. The bad guy is Nick, who, on the run from the police, ends up in a diner and gives the girl running it some "headache powders" for her headaches. He woos her with promises of marriage, and gets her to come to the big city with him. Today this all looks pretty obvious, but pre WWII, most people lived in rural environments and trusted one another. Needless to say, the girl gets none of her promises kept once she gets to the city, and is so addicted to cocaine she simply just can't leave.

In the meantime her brother is looking for her after she basically disappears with no letters back home, but he runs into a partying crowd and ends up addicted too.

There are the cheap rented rooms, women being driven to the oldest profession to survive, the flop houses where addicts get their fix and then recover, implied kidnapping and forced prostitution, and strangely enough a rich girl who keeps turning up in scenes who winds up having to do with a bigger story - the search for a "Mister Big" who is directing Nick and head of the drug and prostitution rackets. The story unwinds in an interesting and even pretty well acted way given I had never heard of any of the players. It must have been pretty hard dodging the censors and yet having a realistic story. Maybe that's why a rather contrived happy ending is tacked on to the end, although it seems out of place in the midst of all of the tragedy.

I'd recommend it. Just realize that I don't know of any good quality copies in circulation and the film "skips" so at times pieces of conversation are lost.

1st watched 1/27/2007 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Wm. A. O'Connor): Actual attempt to make a good movie from a 1930's public service announcement premise is rather shocking in it's portrayal of addicts in the mob world of drugs, for it's time. Despite this, it's flaws include silly entertainment thrown in near the end, quick changes in people's characters(it's almost as if they ripped out sections of some the character's development) and a sometimes overdone emphasis of the complete moral decay of those involved in the use of dope(as they call it in the movie) to the point of forgetting their past life. The movie is ultimately about the demise of a sister and brother after initially being tricked to use a "headache powder" which is really cocaine. The mobster's, leading the way, use every kind of trick in the book to hook the person on the drug, and then they rule their lives from this point on. Again, for it's time, this movie does a pretty good job of showing the horrors without being campy(like other movies of this type) but a good try is still not quite good enough, though.

This was the first of those 1930s drug-scare exploitation movie I ever saw. I hadn't even seen Reefer Madness. I just knew a little about the genre and figured this would be an amusing little romp.

Well, it wasn't exactly. At points it was funny, but mostly it was boring and slow. It did provide a fairly candid view of every day American life in the thirties. Since the makers of this film clearly didn't have the finances that MGM or Universal lavished on their pictures, there aren't any striking Art Deco sets of Adrian gowns. Speaking of which, the set's are some of the most stark and unconvincing pieces of dressing ever to go before a movie camera. And, since the filmmakers probably didn't even have the kind of money that Continental or Majestic spent, you have to wonder if this movie wasn't shot the way Little Shop of Horrors was. I think of that roadhouse set and wonder "What lost and forgotten B movie was that really built for?"

A note of interest: Do you know that scene in Wizard of Oz where everybody's getting sproused up and some attractive supporting actress sings "We can make a dimpled smile out of a frown"? Well, that chick is the star of The Pace That Kills! Her name is Lois January and she's not a bad actress either.