Narcotics: Pit of Despair (1967)

This is a scared straight educational film directed at high school teens. John Scott (Kevin Tighe) is a clean cut all-American student. He's under pressure with his academics and his athletics. He runs into old classmate Pete who turns out to be a drug pusher. Of course, the gateway drug is the devil's weed and John is forced to partake due to peer pressure.

Tighe is a Hollywood veteran and it's interesting to see him as a young man doing young acting. This is pure old style anti-drug educational film. It is everything wrong with this type of movies with its old man narration and old world thinking. This is a great example of the pure stuff.

The grainy 16-mm print only adds to the raw starkness of this powerful narrated educational film that was shown to schoolkids from 1967 through about 1970. Considered "dated" by contemporary standards, although some very graphic and disturbing scenes can still make one grimace even today. One especially stomach-turning scene of the young heroin addict played by Kevin Tighe rolling in withdrawal agony on a dirty bed in a squalid room. This extremely obscure movie, although dated, should still be shown in schools today, in this author's opinion. Four Stars.

Narcotics: Pit of Despair is an overall typical late 60s era anti-drug piece with a few genuinely moving scenes. It features a typical hard sell drug dealer who lures a clean cut young man into a world of addiction.

The main problem with films such as this is that their depiction of drug dealers is completely misleading, leading young viewers to expect rather obvious fast talking con men, when the actual gateway to drugs could be their friends. The depiction is so inaccurate as to be laugh inducing.

However, the film does benefit from a truly grueling scene of heroin withdrawal. Had the rest of the film been up to this level, it might actually have been effective.

Wow, this was dated even when it came out. Not so much over the top like reefer madness, but more like the incessant lecturing that you saw in the worst Dragnet episodes from the 1960s. It appears to be made in 1967 but it has the look of boys and girls a few years earlier. The party scenes are hilarious. I assume these types of films were shown in schools, although I was in middle school in 1967, and never saw this. What a difference in 55 years. Now we have crack and legalized pot. I saw this on TCM. I wonder what the cast thinks of this film, seeing it today. I would like to see this done by Rifftrax.

Mental hygiene Classroom Films 1945-1970

"Benefits of looking ahead--Habit patterns--Shy guy--Live and learn--What about juvenile delinquency--Molly grows up--Dating: do's and don't--Narcotics: pit of despair."

This is a compilation of America's social guidance films, 10-minute celluloid treatises on proper dating, good table manners, the evils of dope, and what happens to teens who drive too fast on prom night. Thousands of classroom films were made between 1945 and 1970 and seen by millions of American baby boomers."

The nice kid who turns junkie in "Narcotics: pit of despair." is Kevin Tighe from EMERGENCY! (Paramedic Roy DeSoto)