DEATH IN SMALL DOSES 1957 PETER GRAVES CHUCK CONNERS AMPHETAMINE NOIR DVD-R!

A decade before Peter Graves snooped for the government as part of the Impossible Missions Force, he played an FDA agent in the wild DEATH IN SMALL DOSES. He infiltrates the Los Angeles trucker scene as a student driver named Tom Kayler. His mission: find out who’s furnishing semi drivers with deadly amphetamines that cause one to hallucinate during an overnight run and run his rig over a cliff. His first day, an old dude freaks out, wounds a man with a baling hook, and dies. It seems unlikely speed affects people the way director Joseph M. Newman (THIS ISLAND EARTH) and screenwriter John McGreevey (HELLO DOWN THERE) think it does, but this is fun stuff.

McGreevey’s tough dialogue is great with characters tossing around tough slang like “co-pilots” and “riding with Benny,” like a pulp paperback crinkled by too many nights in someone’s back pocket. The best reason to watch is Chuck Connors’ hilariously jacked-up performance as a pill-popping hepcat with the awesome name of Mink Reynolds who lives down the hall from Graves at a rooming house owned by Val Owens (Mala Powers). You probably haven’t seen the Rifleman grinning, dancing, jumping around, and swinging, man, swinging like Mink does.

Graves is dull, of course, but his square-jawed hero turn works as an amusing contrast to Connors, particularly a possibly improvised bit in which a speeded-up Connors downs some bennies and tosses his crumpled paper cup off the noggin of an irritated Graves. Newman directs this Allied Artists exploitation with a sure hand and even some excitement. Merry Anders adds femme appeal, and Robert “Inspector Henderson” Shayne sends Graves on his assignment. Black-and-white photography and film editing are top-notch.