Synopsis
Today's Moral MENACE !.. Daring expose of the devil drug traffic in 'Bennies', 'Goofies' and 'Phenos' as it really exists.
Innocent youth trapped in a hopped-up hell.
The Devil's Sleep
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Theatrical
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USA
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USA
18 May 1949
- Theatrical
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High school teens, hopped up.
Timothy Farrell's at it again. In The Devil's Sleep he portrays Umberto Scalli, a curly-haired criminal scumbag who runs a health club as a front for peddling drugs to housewives and teens.
The health club scenes offer many glimpses of beautiful women with shapely torsos and shapely legs lounging about in various states of undress: workout clothes, towels, and even a brief glimpse of nothing at all.
There's a pool party scene where we get brief flash of derrière when a young lady, who's lost her dress, gets thrown into the water. The inadvertent naked bottom leads to a bit of blackmail.
The Devil's Sleep is more about juvenile delinquency than it is about drugs.…
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It's a scandalous film, so no doubt the hiring of Lita Grey was deliberate. This film was almost as much of a disaster as her underage marriage to Chaplin (though, none of those her fault, in case that's what people think I mean). But it's a rare chance of hearing her speak, and what a thick voice. I almost though it was Marjorie Main talking! Less said about the rest of this film the better.
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This George Weiss (producer of Glen or Glenda) production features a knockout cast: Lita Grey (Charlie Chaplin's onetime child bride, billed here as "Lita Grey Chaplin"), John Mitchum (Robert's brother), George Eiferman (the 1948 Mr. America, playing himself), and Timothy Farrell, in the first of three films in which he would play crime boss Umberto Scalli (the others: Dance Hall Racket and Racket Girls) - an interconnected cinematic universe to rival Marvel.
Grey stars as a judge investigating a dope racket run by Farrell, who criminal operation has two hubs: a gym/health spa where he hooks women on diet pills, and a mansion where he hooks teens at wild poolside parties. The major plot complication comes when Farrell snaps a…
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"Last one in is a sissy!"
Bring all the dames to the phenobarbital pool party tonight, see? I'm looking to slip Ethel a couple of goofies in her whiskey highball so's we can play Blind Man's Bluff in the buff and...Cheese it- the cops!
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A narcotics detail is going after a benzedrine-plus city racket, and Mr Scalli (Timothy Farrell) seems to be running things efficient enough, to make his low-rent syndicate of hoods, a tough nut to crack.
Mr Scalli got himself a gym as a business front, enhancing the weight-loss program in full effect and thriving, with his own supply of synthetic protein drinks.
Innocent teenagers in naive pool parties, loaded with bourbon, spiked with Bennies & Phenoes are all the rage. But a determined judge - who's prolly too busy with the law books - as her teenage daughter starts skiiny-dipping and getting a little loopy & goofie around the pool) who along with the local authorities is now on to Scalli.
The youth-perverting… -
I expected a drug scare flick but got a juvenile delinquency one. In fact, there's no drug use until the 42-minute mark, when a young girl is given a spiked bottle of soda.
Not very engrossing, there's only one scene I really enjoyed, concerning an overweight woman joining a gym. It's like the film stopped being a drama and became a comedy skit for a few minutes, which was light and pleasant. The actress has no other credits, but I'll bet she was a comedian. Mr. America's scenes were pretty funny, too.
And the fashion, specifically the gentlemen's, is laughably baggy. I suppose, though, it wouldn't be fair to knock the film for this. Maybe they were making up for the amount of skin the ladies were showing?
As a bonus feature on Kino's blu-ray of She Shoulda Said 'NO!' or as a free stream on YouTube, it's acceptable. 💊
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A sleazy drug pusher (Timothy Farrell) sets up inside a health spa to pass out pills to women looking to lose weight. Soon a judge (Lita Grey-Chaplin) decides to bring down the racket but her young daughter gets dragged into the mix with some nude photos.
THE DEVIL'S SLEEP is yet another "warning" picture that is nothing more than an exploitation movie that tries to tell a message only so that it can get away with some more naughty bits that wouldn't be allowed in most Hollywood movies. There's really not too much going on here but there are enough decent elements that make the film worth watching if you're a fan of the genre.
There are a couple draws…
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Impoverished delinquent melodrama was probably scandalous stuff back in the day, but it's pretty tame now. Creaky, with plenty of heavy-handed moralizing, but breezy and enjoyable.
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I went into W. Merle Connell's The Devil's Sleep expecting to see yet another drug scare film, especially since it was paired with Wild Weed in the sixth volume of Kino Lorber's Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture collection. The subject matter of the film certainly suggested that that was what it would be about, and it does actually delve into drugsploitation on several occasions.
But for the most part, this is actually more of a juvenile delinquency film than anything else. Drugs are typically limited to passing mentions, and the first instance of onscreen use doesn't actually happen until a little over halfway into the film. Even when that does finally happen, we never actually see…
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This is a truly awful film. The acting was so poor that I spent the film imagining people standing beside the cameras holding up lines for the actors to read and the story (about the dangers of illegal drugs) was uninteresting. The only people who would have enjoyed this were 1950s teenage boys because of the "almost not there" outfits the women wore.
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not just another drug scare picture, this one's also got fat-phobia and nudie cuties! low budget, low talent, edited as haphazardly as just about anything ive seen. but hey theres a little skin and its blessedly short, so not all bad.
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When they remade this as REQUIEM FOR A DREAM the camera work was better but it just wasn’t as fun.