One Too Many (DVD)

A respectable suburban family is torn apart by a mother's descent into alcoholism. Helen Mason, formerly a top concert pianist, is now a devoted wife and mother to loving daughter Ginger. But her obsession with the bottle begins to take control of her life. When she nearly kills Ginger while driving on a drunken binge, husband Bob realizes that some serious intervention is called for.

This groundbreaking film deals honestly with a taboo subject of the 1950s. In an era when drunkenness was considered a criminal behavior, One Too Many presents a revolutionary concept - that alcoholism is a disease that needs to be treated as such. Fine performances led by Ruth Warrick and Richard Travis are expertly directed by Erle C. Kenton (Island Of Lost Souls), while exploitation king Kroger Babb both produced and wrote the original story.

• drama