The Devil's Sleep

Unintentionally hilarious, The Devil's Sleep is almost as funny as Reefer Madness, another exploitation film about drugs made in 1936. This one was made in 1949 and there are more amateurs in this film than there are in the Olympic games.

Let's begin with the horrendous production values. Probably spent less than $100 on those. No lighting, sound or prop care. The direction is so bad it makes Wood movies seem professional. I really don't want to use the words actors or actresses, either, as that would be an insult to the profession at large.

Suffice it to say that the acting is so bad, I am sure no one read their lines in advance. Speaking of lines, there are a few good cracks in the film "The exercise I'm giving these fat dames won't reduce a fever" was pretty funny, and when the Judge says at a gathering "I'm glad this is over", truer words were never spoken. The fighting? Sequence looks like it was done for Pee Wee's Playhouse.

And the lead gangster? Onions Oregano was more convincing as a gangster in Soupy Sales than this turkey. None of these people were ever heard from again in film, or at best, were used when there was no one else available. See it for a laugh.

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.

This is the second film I've seen from director Merle W. Connell. The other one was Test Tube Babies which was a hilariously schlocky movie about artificial insemination. The Devil's Sleep is another 40's exploitation flick along similar lines. This one combines the drugsploitation angle personified by films such as Reefer Madness and Cocaine Fiends with the youth gone wild narrative of the likes of Delinquent Daughters and The Violent Years. Like most exploitation films from the time it's a lot more fun to watch that most boring poverty row flicks. I love these movies pretence at preaching against social evils while blatantly throwing as much sleaze at their audience as they could get away with. Obviously the films of the 40's were very tame but this one like most of its ilk manages to include scenes of semi-nudity. Always very welcome in these old flicks thank you very much. While the drug taking angle is covered by an unscrupulous health club manager pushing bennies onto vulnerable youths and women. The scenes in the health club are cheerfully sexist in that 1940's-political-correctness-hasn't-been-invented-yet-guv kind of a way. Also, the chief drug pusher is played by none other than the legendary anti-actor Timothy Farrell who is always a very welcome presence.

While this isn't as funny as either Reefer Madness or Test Tube Babies, it's still something of an entertaining time-capsule movie. It's entirely ludicrous of course. And its exploitation efforts are commendable – women seem to strip down as much as possible at every given opportunity – while it's heroically bad acting is a delight to see, with some characters clearly reading their lines off bits of paper. All-in-all, a good laugh.

Wow, Mr. America of 1948. What a big lunk. I guess Laurence Olivier wasn't available for this film. They don't get much more preachy and dumb than this one. The authorities are so dull, most of the kids would have died of boredom rather than from the drugs presented. It is the tale of youth running rampant, doing things because they have been given drugs. They are holding up banks, burglarizing houses, doing lewd things in public. Then there's the old health club with its reducing drugs. Of course, all these drugs cause memory loss so people have trouble trying to figure out what they did. The circuit judge's daughter gets something in a coke and poses nude. One thing I did notice is that there are some pretty risqué little scenes here. That surprised me. It's cheesecake that must have got the censors involved to some degree. Just plain awful in a Reefer Madness kind of way. Don't miss the doctor's speech at the end. At one point he squints to read the card in front of him.

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.