Death in Small Doses

A federal agent, Tom Kaylor (Peter Graves) is posing as a long-haul truck driver because of the damage being done by truck drivers using amphetamines in order to work their exhausting hours. The only really obvious lead is a trucker named 'Mink' (Chuck Connors), a guy who very obviously uses pills because he's perennially giddy and the acting is WAY over the top! But Mink won't talk and so Tom needs to keep his eyes open and be very, very careful because whoever is supplying the junk is more than willing to kill to keep this secret...and they soon end up beating Tom's co-driver to death because he asked too many questions!

While occasionally the film is obvious and anything but subtle, it is entertaining and does provide a public service. I just wish they'd made Mink semi-realistic and explained that most Amphetamine users do NOT have hallucinations or end up in the Psyc Ward! It's not nearly as silly as films like "Reefer Madness" but if should have been a tad less goofy. It's really a shame, as the topic is an important one AND most of the movie was very good. Still, overall it is never dull and certainly is entertaining!!

This movie is considered a "classic" in my family; my Dad was the agent (brilliantly acted by Peter Graves) on whom the title character was based. Hollywood added a romance but other than that they got the story (based on a series of articles about my Dad in the Saturday Evening Post) right. Some message boards about the movie criticize Chuck Connors for over-acting, but he didn't; that's how it was. This movie is a good reminder of what we owe to a lot of America's unsung heroes who have taken on messy tasks over the years to make America a safer place. Thanks to my Dad and other agents the movie now looks like a dated "period piece" portraying world with which we do not have to be familiar.

Peter Graves is dispatched by the FDA to go undercover as a truck driver to uncover where drivers are getting amphetamines that they are taking while operating their rigs and causing accidents. Chuck Connors is the standout in the cast as a whacked out driver in a very unusual role for him. Mala Powers is attractive as the owner of the boarding house and eventual love interest for Graves. Graves is too obvious in his pursuit of information. Otherwise fairly predictable until a somewhat unexpected finish.

Truckers depend on illegal amphetamines to stay awake over long distances, causing a number of road accidents. So the government assigns an undercover agent to expose the criminal connections.

I expect this film amounts to an offspring of 1955's Man With a Golden Arm, the first post-war film to deal seriously with drug addiction. More directly is 1956's Bigger Than Life that dramatizes the maddening effects of a new prescription drug on an over-worked schoolteacher (James Mason). Up to 1955, drug addiction was pretty much taboo among non-exploitation filmmakers. So this minor oddity was dealing with an unusual topic not conventionally seen on the screen. (As a teen seeing the movie on initial release, I recall being puzzled by the topic).

The movie itself is standard Hollywood expose—the clean-cut gov't agent (Graves), the nefarious criminal ring, a mysterious headman, plus a winsome romantic interest (Powers). Still, the director is Joe Newman who could occasionally rise above the potboiler as I think he does here with some effective touches. Note the well-played surprise twist, along with pill-popping Chuck Connors, a really long way from his sober-sided role in The Rifleman. In fact, I wouldn't have believed Connors' giddy performance if I hadn't seen it.

Thanks to the several twists, unusual subject matter, and the manic Connors, the movie remains an oddly memorable potboiler, despite the lowly origins.

Going way back to the days of my youth a 'benny' was short for benzedrine, one of those amphetamine laced pills you needed to keep awake. Kids took them to cram for finals and they were real popular with truck drivers making those long hauls in those big rigs. They can be mighty addictive.

In Death In Small Doses Peter Graves plays a narcotics cop who's given an assignment by his superior Robert Shayne to find out who's selling and distributing these pills which are causing the deaths of so many drivers.

This is a nicely done B noir film from Allied Artists and Graves gets some good support from two females in the cast with substantial roles. Mala Powers plays the landlady who has a boardinghouse catering to truckers where Graves stays and Merry Anders plays a hashhouse waitress.

Best support of all comes from Chuck Connors who plays an amphetamine addicted driver and he plays it broadly and to the max. He's also real terrifying when he freaks out.

Some good work was done by all the cast members in Death In Small Doses.