This is one of those hysterical 70's anti-drug movies made by people who obviously had little or no experience with real-life drug abuse. If you have never seen on of these, I urge you to do so (preferably stoned).The drama begins when the seemingly innocent sixteen-year-old daughter (Deborah Winters) of a middle-class family is found whimpering in her closet and tripping her face off. The cantankerous father (Eli Wallach) quickly blames his long-haired musician older son (Stephen McHattie) and kicks him out of the house, while the mother (Julie Harris) recedes into a kind of a hysterical, walking coma. But like all virginal, middle-class girls in these movies, once she gets her first taste of drugs, the daughter is soon shacking up with a skeezy biker and putting every substance imaginable into her nubile, young body. Meanwhile, the father confides in his doctor friend next door(Hal Holbrook), who seems to have the perfect All-American family in wife ( ) and clean-cut son (Don Scardino), but there's a twist there which you'll doubt see coming from a mile away.
I expected this to strictly be a TV movie, but actually it started out as that in 1968 before being remade as this theatrical feature, complete with some mild sordidness, fairly graphic drug use, brief nudity, and actual cursing. Eli Wallach is great as the cantankerous, bigoted father who is almost certain to get some kind of comeuppance. Harris and McHattie are adequate, but don't have a lot to do as most of the scenery around them gets pre-shredded by their fellow thespians. The latter's band actually isn't bad, and that is probably the "hippest" aspect of this generally "square" movie. Hal Holbrook has an interesting role as he starts out playing his usual type (the kindly father figure),but ends up going very much against type. Obscure 70's TV actress Deborah Winters (who isn't remotely believable as sixteen year old) gives a wide-eyed, completely over-the-top performance that will probably provoke more laughter than anything else, but she is very cute and does have a nude scene (only brief, but she's all drugged-up and throwing herself at her own father at the time, so. . .).
The director of this, David Green, was British and made several interesting theatrical films in his home country like "I Start Counting", "The Strange Affair", and "The Shuttered Room". This was the beginning of his long descent into 70's American television (a similar fate befell other talented Brit directors like John Moxley, Gordon Hessler, and Robert Fuest). This isn't a spot on his earlier theatrical work, but it's much better than his later made-for-TV stuff like "Vacation in Hell". See this with your favorite controlled substance.
