The Devil's Sleep

This independent stinker of a film is on the order of Reefer Madness. Done in the spirit of that cult classic it's a public service film warning of the dangers of addiction to prescription meds. It stars one of Charlie Chaplin's ex-wives, Lita Grey Chaplin and why she did it God only knows. She couldn't act worth anything.

But that does not separate her from most of the rest of the cast. Most of them you've never heard of, most only did this film maybe one or two others. Only villain Timothy Farrell and John Mitchum have some appreciable screen credits. Brother Bob Mitchum did a few clinkers in his career, but he must have razzed his brother something awful about this one. John Mitchum appears briefly in the role of a doctor.

Farrell who is a modern gangster type took his acting lessons from the Snidely Whiplash school of villainy. Judge Chaplin who now heads the town's juvenile court, once sent him to prison.

Farrell now runs a health club as a cover from which he can sell his pills to fat ladies trying to reduce, but that ain't enough profit. Gotta get those kids hooked and he decides that maybe if he can get Chaplin's daughter hooked he'll have had his revenge.

What can I say, the direction is non-existent, the film looks like it was shot with my father's old Bell&Howell home movie camera, the production values are nil.

But some might fine some humor in The Devil's Sleep's very awfulness. Ed Wood might hold his nose on this one.

I was shocked to discover this little gem on my 100 mystery movie collection. This is good stuff here, lots of skimpy outfits, fat jokes, sight gags, brief nudity, horrible acting...the whole thing!

I realized something was up when the leading man from Test Tube Babies walked on stage as the hunky hero. This guy should have given lessons on how to be a horrible actor. He is almost as wooden and lifeless as the guy who plays Ridge on The Bold and Beautiful...almost anyhow.

This film is a lot of fun. It's stupid, campy, and downright weird and pointless. A good one. Definitely one of the better examples of the genre!

Our kids are in trouble, as Judge Lita Grey Chaplin explains, but it's not their fault. There are adults who take advantage of them, people like Timothy Farrell, who makes his money selling "goofies".

You know there are some issues with a movie when Timothy Farrell gives the best performance. Here, he's the owner of a workout gym, contemptuous of the middle-aged women (thirtyish, I'd guess) who are his overweight clientele. They look fine to me. Farrell plays it smarmy, and he's very good at it, as the guy who uses his gym as a front to push his bootleg prescription drugs; they'll take the weight off you in a flash, but don't use them if you have heart problems. Lita Grey is top-billed, which shows you how desperate for star power this production was. The compositions were suitable for girlie magazines, and the film's 'serious message' is delivered by a man playing a doctor, droning along.

Clearly an exploitation picture, this was the sort that distributor Screen Classics might have "four-walled": rent a theater, cover the town with pamphlets and keep all the receipts themselves.

Devil's Sleep, The (1951)

** (out of 4)

Incredibly silly "drug warning"/exploitation film from legendary producer George Weiss (Glen or Glenda?). A pusher (Timothy Farrell) is selling pills to fat women in a gym and the school kids. A tough as nails Judge (Lita Grey Chaplin) wants to hammer him down but her daughter gets set-up and now the pushers blackmail the Judge with a nude photo. Poor acting, poor directing and a poor script adds to the overall "so bad it's good" nature of this film. There's some insanely funny dialogue that matches Ed Wood, especially one un-PC scene where the overweight women are the "butt" of all the jokes. Very funny throughout and contains some of the same sets as Glen or Glenda?. Lita Grey Chaplin was the former wife of Charles and it's clear he wasn't teaching her how to act. Also contains some full frontal nudity, which certainly wasn't the norm for 1951.

"There is a terrible scourge running through the community in the form of pills be pushed to the youth through a local women's health club. A female judge, with the aid of a police detective, looks to crusade against this problem in the community and eliminate it. Unfortunately, the drug ring has some compromising photos of the judge's daughter they hope to use as an advantage against her," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. For producer George Weiss, Timothy Farrell's sleazy "Umberto Scalli" makes his debut.

This isn't a movie as much as it is a chance to for the producer to show off as many muscles and midriffs as he could manage to get away with. Bikinis and briefs abound. "Mr. America of 1948" George Eiferman appears as a women's exercise instructor. And, put your "headlights" on "high beam" for the skin scene highlight, when a towel-clad woman shows everything she can, before stepping into a steam bath. The movie ends with one of those preachy "messages", so you won't feel too bad about enjoying the flesh.

Top-billed Lita Grey (as "Judge" Rosalind Ballentine), one of Charlie Chaplin's wives, contributes little; her best line is, "Somehow all of this has a familiar smell." Harold Lloyd's wife, Mildred Davis (as Tessie Tallulah Tesse) makes an arguably embarrassing "talking pictures" debut; her best line, considering her 51-47-64 measurements, is "Ain't two Tessies enough?" But, hey, whoever hired Stan Freed (as Hal Holmes) to play a hopped-up Benzedrine dealer had a sense of humor, since he went to town as "Hoppity" (1941).

*** The Devil's Sleep (5/18/49) W. Merle Connell ~ Timothy Farrell, Hal Holmes, Lita Grey Chaplin