CURFEW BREAKERS/ NARCOTICS SQUAD

US, 1957, 79 minutes, Black and white.
Paul Kelly, Cathy Downs, Regis Toomey, Sheila Urban, Alexander J.Wells.
Directed by Alex Wells.

A standard police investigation film from the mid-1950s. The focus is on a squad dedicated to investigating drugs, especially amongst high school students.

21st century audiences might be surprised by the prevalence of drug use in high schools at the time, statistics given for increases from the mid-40s to the early 1950s, the drug of choice being heroin. There are the dealers and the pushers, those luring high school students to experiment and get them hooked. In more recent decades crystal meth and ice could be substituted for heroin.

The film is very earnest in its presentation, clearly a film designed to educate as well as to warn teenagers against drugs, presenting vivid scenes of enforced cold turkey, the risk of incurring the wrath of criminals, being murdered for betrayals to the police, two young people desperate for fixes because when the drugs are removed from general use, prices go higher and there is a need for money, the two involved in a garage hold up, killing, a car pursuit, a crash. The film also highlights how the young people will pawn as much as they can get hold of or steal.

Veteran Paul Kelly plays the detective in charge, serious and earnest. Cathy Downs is the guardian of a young man who becomes an addict and is murdered. Regis Toomey is on the staff of the school, eager to help in eradicating the drugs.

While the film works well within its limits, it is of interest historically as a dramatising of the drug issues in the United States in the 1950s.