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When country girl Jane (Lois January) helps gangster Nick (Noel
Madison) to give the law a slip, he thanks her by introducing her to
cocaine (claiming it's headache-powder), taking her to the big city
& marrying her. But soon she realizes life in the big city is
anything but heaven, as she soon has become a drug addicted laid-off
gangster's moll (& is now called Lil, to fit her status). Lil's
brother Eddie (Dean Benton) has meanwhile come to the city himself, is
working at a drive-in & intends to look for his sister in his spare
time. But his co-worker, good natured Fanny (Sheila Manners), who has
become enamoured of him, introduces him to cocaine, too, & so it's
not long before they find themselves in the vicious circle of drug
addiction, too: fired from their jobs & their respective lodging
they have to stay at a cheap appartment, and - because jobs are scarce -
Fanny soon has to take up a career in prostitution to be able to afford
the cocaine for herself & her boyfriend. But when Fanny tells Eddie
she's pregnant he loses his temper & leaves her in a rage to get
high at an opium den. She loses no time & immediately kills herself. Meanwhile
gangster Nick has laid his eyes on Dorothy, daughter of rich Mister
Farley (Frank Shannon) & loosely associated with the drug-taking
cycles, & he abducts her in order to present his boss as a gift in
order to ensure that man's trust and keep him from interfering with his
own schemes. Jane/Lil has in the meantime found her brother in the
opium den & is planning to send him home to the country before he
has to go the same road that she went. For that, though she needs money
& wants to ask Nick for it. Instead of Nick, though she finds
Dorothy, who promises her 1000 Dollars if she helps her escape. Seeing
an opportunity too good to let slip, she agrees & phones the
police. As Nick arrives ahead of the police though & wants to
interfere using brute force, she shoots him, 6 is soon arrested by the
arriving police. Then the big boss of Nick arrives, to, to whom Dorothy
was supposed to be presented as a sex slave, & he proves to be ...
Dorothy's own father, who is promptly arrested too, of course. &
while Eddie has to find his girlfriend dead in his appartment, only
Dorothy, who never really took cocaine despite her friends did,
experiences a happy ending, since she has fallen in love with one of the
cops who arrested her father. Despite the movie being rather
ridiculously simplistic & moralistic about drug use - it almost
certainly leads to unemployment, prostitution, pre-marital pregnancy
& suicide - Cocaine Fiends is not half bad, as some effort
was put into storytelling & characterizations, which puts the movie
above other anti-drugs movies of the same era (like Reefer Madness
or Marihuana, Weed with Roots in Hell).
At the same time, though, this movie is not as much of an unintentional
laugh. |