The Narcotic Story (DVD)

Made in 1958, a few years before the drug explosion of the Sixties, this grim expose plunges into the shadowy world of hop-heads, pill-poppers and junkies, as well as the police who maintain a constant vigil against them. Free of the melodramatic histrionics of such exploitation films as Reefer Madness (1936), The Narcotics Story strives for gritty realism. The film-makers follow a troubled teen-aged girl's harrowing descent into addiction, as cigarettes and alcohol give way to marijuana, barbiturates and ultimately to the dark lord of drugs - heroin. Close attention is paid to police procedure as narcotics officers conduct their exhaustive investigations. The very disturbing scenes of addiction and withdrawal that unreel before the camera are meant to scare the public away from the seductive allure of the deadly fix.

• exploitation