Our film begins with a slow pan of a city, a city like any other city. A city that could be mine, or yours -- or any 1950’s era police drama. We zoom in on a hospital where the narrator quickly introduces us to the main players in our melodrama as they are escorted to a waiting police car. First is Cassandra Lee (Barbara Marks). Cassie has just been through a three-year ordeal of crime and drug addiction, and is in the process of being transferred to a federal narcotic hospital for rehabilitation. While her mom (Lucile Price) and most recent step-dad accompany them, Lt. Jason (Robert Sherry) provides the police escort to the train station -- and will also serve as the narrator, a vital role as there is almost no dialogue in this whole film. As they leave, Jason spots Cholo Martinez (B. Lawrence Price), Cassandra’s former boyfriend and heroin supplier, following them. The target of several outstanding warrants, Jason calls for back-up to take the pusher down. Not wanting to tip his hand, Jason trails him along to the train station, seemingly unaware, but fears Cassie might tip-off her former lover before help can arrive. As the dragnet closes in, Jason decides to tell us about Cassie's journey from normal everyday teen to heroin addicted drug-pusher.

Uh-oh, flashback...

Good god, can’t anyone tell a linear story anymore?!?

...As we turn back the clock, we find out that Cassandra doesn’t have a happy home life. Taking the Elizabeth Taylor approach to marriage, Mom hasn’t set a very good example. And since her life hasn’t been fulfilled, she takes it out on her daughter. Working at Mom’s store, that's close to a motorcycle-repair shop, Cassandra quickly falls for a tuff named Packard (William Kendall). Mom refuses to let her ride with him, so Cassie immediately hops on and away they go. As Cassie begins running with Packard's crowd -- the wrong crowd, they meet and smoke some reefer. At first, Cassandra resists but eventually caves to pressure and tokes up. 

Typical cinematic marihuana reaction: Hysterical giggling followed by a glassy, thousand-yard stare. Which is totally unbelievable because not a one of them gets the munchies.

These extracurricular activities have an adverse effect on her schoolwork. She flunks out and loses all her old friends -- except Johnny (Robert Norman), who always had a crush on her. Eventually, he sways her back to the straight and narrow. They even get married, but she doesn’t adjust well to domesticated life. And it isn’t long before Cassie’s running off with Packard and toking up a storm. Johnny -- being the dope that he is -- sticks with her. He gets her a psychiatrist, sedatives and a new puppy. But they don’t work, and Cassie appears to be headed for a nervous breakdown. As the home life continues to crumble, it gets so bad that Johnny is sent home from his workplace to straighten out his wife. When he arrives, he discovers Cassie has forged her own prescription refills, is addicted to goofballs, and in the middle of a suicide attempt! Finding her over-medicated and tripping out in the yard, Johnny heads inside to call for help. Cassie, meanwhile, crawls to their car, cranks it up, and proceeds to wreck it. 

After serving a brief sentence for DUI, Cassie is released into the custody of her parents and her husband, but none of them appear to be too happy that she’s out. Looking to link up with Packard, Cassie immediately violates her probation and runs away. It is here where she meets Lt. Jason, posing as buyer, who's looking for Packard to bust him for pushing drugs. He puts Cassie under surveillance in hopes that she will lead them to him. She gets a job as a car-hop at a drive-in restaurant, but it’s all a front as she delivers drugs to customers taped to the bottom of the food trays. And Cassie does such a good job that the big boss promotes her to an apartment where kids can come to get high. (Oh, no. It’s turning into Reefer Madness.) The only problem is, Cassie uses all the drugs for herself. And little did she know, but the apartment had been staked out for a months. When the place is raided, the evidence is ground up in the garbage disposal before the police can seize it. They still have enough to convict Cassie, but instead, Jason decides to put her on probation (Again?) and turn her into an informant. He knows she’ll accept the offer because all junkies really care about is the next fix, and their survival instincts are to watch out only for themselves.

While on probation, Cassie rats out a few pushers but nothing really substantial. As soon as her probation ends, she disappears again. Stumbling upon a Marge Rossi (Elaine Lindenbaum) in an alley, while both go through heroin withdrawal, the two hit it off and soon go into business for themselves pushing reefer. They create a monopoly (Jason says it’s because people enjoy the novelty of getting their drugs from two women), but piss off the wrong people -- and one in particular: a Sven Berman a/k/a the drug king of this unnamed city. Rounding the girls up, Sven (Joel Climenhaga) forcefully re-addicts Marge to heroin -- but Cassie gives herself willingly to the needle. Four months later, she’s found in another alley going through withdrawal. This time, her parents commit her to the psycho-ward, but Marge manages to sneak her in a heroin fix.

Meanwhile, the city is tired of the growing drug epidemic, so the police start "Operation: Clean Up." A massive round-up of all drug pushers ensues, but Sven evades capture. Thinking Marge ratted him, he kills her. Time passes, but Cassie still hasn’t learned her lesson and has now taken up with Cholo and his partner Sanchez. (What happened to Sven? I don’t know. I might have dozed off. Sorry everybody.) Together, they’ve formed a car-theft ring that exchanges the stolen autos for heroin down in Mexico. Again, they don’t realize that they are under the watchful eye of the police and are the victims of a trap about to be sprung. When they snatch another car and head for the border, Jason tails them, hoping to nab the Mexican drug source. At a gas station near the border, they close in and make their move. The cops nail Sanchez, but Cholo and Cassie manage to escape. The police cover all roads into Mexico and soon discover the couple's abandoned the car - and there stash of heroin - and it appears they escaped into the desert on foot. Jason almost feels sorry for them, stuck without their junk, going through withdrawal out in that heat.

Shaking and baking, Cholo and Cassie manage to find some shade but can’t escape the effects of heroin -- and soon they both go bonkers, flying into a raging, foaming-at-the-mouth fit. And since the film’s barely broken the 45-minute barrier, (yep, all a that in under 45 minutes), we get a long sequence of the local posse combing the desert looking for them. Fifteen padded minutes later, they find Cassie barely alive, but Cholo has given them the slip again. (And I think I know why. More on this later.)

Thus endeth the flashback...

...As the train pulls up, the police quickly nab Cholo without incident. (Rather anti-climatically, I might add.) Cassie and her mother get on the train, and as it departs, there’s almost a happy ending until Jason adds that there is no guarantee that Cassie will get better. (And judging by her history, I kinda doubt it.)

The end

A harrowing tale of a girl led down the path of addiction and self-destruction -- that started with a simple motorcycle ride -- Teenage Devil Dolls was the actual inspiration for this J.D.’s and Rocket-Bras retrospective. The film is nothing but one long narrative by Lt. Jason doing his best Joe Friday imitation. Alas, Robert Sherry is no Jack Webb, but he tries his damndest to match Webb's matter-of-fact cadence and brow-beating cynicism. He’s very straightforward while spouting pop-psychology and describing the slang terms used by the junkies. He also ends every sentence with an aside of moralistic indignity about the entire goings on. (An aside of moralistic indignity? Did I just type that? What does that even mean?)

Again, I find it funny but it appears that every single person in town -- aside from Johnny and the police force -- is addicted to something. This is hilariously brought out during "Operation: Clean Up" as the town -- deprived of its drugs -- goes through one mass withdrawal. People collapse everywhere: In phone booths, on the streets and in the parks -- and everyone one of them reduced to quivering and foaming idiots. So while this film basically covers the same ground as The Violent Years, it isn’t quite as much fun. While Devils Dolls -- also known as One Way Ticket to Hell -- is an educational film against the horrors of narcotic addiction, The Violent Years is an exploitation film disguised as an educational film.

Note how when we begin the flashback, Jason says Cassie went through a three-year ordeal. Each step he takes us through, he gives us the dates and places -- and if you add it all up it equals to, oh, about twenty years. Also, check out the soundtrack. If it sounds familiar it should. It’s the same incidental music you hear in all those old Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Space Ghost, The Herculoids and Scooby Doo -- Zoinks!

B. Lawrence Price Jr. can join the ranks of Ed Wood and Orson Wells as he wrote, produced, directed and starred all in the same film. The thing is, not only does Price play Cholo, I’m pretty sure that he also played the Sheriff with the eye-patch down on the Mexican border. So we cut immediately from scenes of him as Cholo wigging out, to him as the Sheriff searching. (No wonder he never found himself.) I think he also found parts for several other family members as the credits are littered with Prices.

And the moral of Price's story? (I mean besides that there’s more than one way to pad out a film.) Don’t accept motorcycle rides from strangers. Avoid vagrants in the alleyways. And contrary to popular belief, a new puppy will not break someone of their dope-addiction.

More J.D.'s and Rocket-Bras!

Posted: 10/28/00. Copy and paste at your own legal risk.

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