The Cocaine Fiends (1935)

The Hays Code was introduced in 1934 to put a form of censorship over Hollywood. It was a code of conduct for the filmmakers. The people in charge of the code, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), wanted to make sure that Hollywood kept up a moral integrity for all audiences. They wanted to remove what they thought was immoral to keep everything as wholesome as possible. Or as wholesome to their interests as possible.

The MPPDA was founded in 1922 as a trade association for the various studios who signed up. One of their major platforms was always to keep a clean moral code in the films being released by the Hollywood studios. In 1927, a list of Don’ts and Be Carefuls was proposed for filmmakers to follow when they made their movies. Some items included “Don’t show the illegal traffic in drugs,” “Don’t show white slavery,” and “Be careful with the use of the flag.” A stricter, more well laid out version of this code would be The Hays Code, which was introduced in 1934 and strictly followed by Hollywood through the 1950s before being dropped in the 1960s.

Hollywood stuck to the code. Independent artists, however, sometimes skirted the code to get racier material onto whatever screens they could. They wouldn’t have the same distribution avenues as the bigger, code-friendly, Hollywood pictures, but they would gain notoriety through what kept them from earning the MPPDA’s approval. The birth of true exploitation films was here.

Exploitation films in the 1920s and 1930s were basically a way to gain attention for a movie that wasn’t going to get approval from the MPPDA. Filmmakers could exploit a specific taboo subject so that people would notice the movie. Anything that was censored through the Hays Code, or the earlier Don’ts and Be Carefuls, would be brought in as a part of the movie to get people interested. Sex, drugs, and foul language were frequent subjects that could come up in exploitation flicks. The topics might have changed as the sensibilities of the world, the audiences, the filmmakers, and the MPPDA changed, but exploitation films would always exploit whatever subjects were risqué at the time they were made.

Drugs were one of the biggest sources of story elements for exploitation films in the early Hollywood years. There were a couple reasons for that. One was the aforementioned attention that they would get from audiences. People didn’t get to see drugs in the big Hollywood movies because of the censorship from the MPPDA. The other reason was that, if the drugs were seen in a negative light, the movie could be positioned as an educational cautionary tale, allowing for a potential MPPDA approval. They could avoid the censorship by claiming the movie was for educational purposes.

One movie to come out of the drug exploitation of the early Hays Code days was The Cocaine Fiends. The film had a bunch of history, including three different releases with three different cuts. The 1935 release was the most well known. Jane Bradford (Lois January) lived in a small town. She was offered an opportunity to go to the big city and make some money for her family. She went, became hooked on cocaine, and dropped off the face of the earth. Her brother Eddie (Dean Benton) was sent to the city to find her. He also became addicted to cocaine. Their lives fell apart and people ended up dead.

The Pace That Kills was a 1928 silent film that served as the basis for what would become a 1935 remake. It followed Eddie instead of Jane, Jane’s name was Grace, and the ending was different. The overall story was the same, though. Grace had gone to the big city and disappeared. Eddie went to find her. They both ended up addicted to drugs before some bad stuff happened. It was a cautionary tale about drugs that was remade into a cautionary tale about drugs. In 1937, the 1935 version of The Pace That Kills would be re-released with a few extra scenes, taken from the original. It was, essentially, a mixture of the two movies. That was when it took on the name The Cocaine Fiends.

The tone of The Cocaine Fiends was more serious than other drug exploitation films of the time. There wasn’t an inherent, unintentional comedy coursing through its veins in the same way that a movie like Reefer Madness portrayed pot smokers in the 1930s as insane killers. The Cocaine Fiends told a dramatic story in a dramatic way. Sometimes it may have even gone a little too dramatic in the storytelling, bordering on full melodrama.

The over-the-top, yet serious, nature of the movie started early on. Jane was working her diner job when a man named Nick (Noel Madison) came in. He was the villain of the film, basically a devil in human form. Jane mentioned that she had a headache, to which Nick offered her a powder that could get rid of it. He didn’t tell her it was cocaine. The camera looked away from Jane as she took the drug, instead lingering on Nick’s face, pleased that she was going to be hooked. He then took her away from her family to the big city, where her life would spiral downward.

One of the big moments in The Cocaine Fiends was the scene where Jane found out what was happening. She was getting a little anxious and asked for some more of the headache powder that Nick had given her. She was told that it wasn’t headache powder. It was dope. She gasped, then the woman she was talking to started to list off different nicknames for the powder. It was as though the filmmakers wanted to be sure that everyone watching knew the street slang and what terms to look out for. Nick walked in and Jane confronted him, but it didn’t really go anywhere until the end of the movie.

Before that, though, Eddie came into the picture. He was Jane’s brother, sent to the big city to find her a year after she left their small town. He got a job at a drive-in to make some money while he was in the city. That was where he met Fanny (Sheila Bromley), one of the waitresses. They started a relationship, which also led to Fanny getting Eddie addicted to the same cocaine that his sister was involved in. It was a tragic story of boy goes to find sister, boy meets girl, girl gets boy hooked on drugs.

The final duo in the story was Dorothy Farley (Lois Lindsay) and Dan (Charles Delaney). They were introduced when Dorothy was a customer at the drive-in. She had lots of money thanks to her wealthy family and was willing to spend it on other people. The drugs affected her life differently. It was something that came up in the final minutes of the film, and something that changed the lives of everyone involved. Except for Eddie and Fanny, I guess. Their story had already come to its conclusion.

Eddie and Fanny’s relationship bled into the melodrama that was bubbling under the surface of The Cocaine Fiends. It was a very co-dependent relationship. Fanny was in love with Eddie and depended on him for any degree of happiness. Eddie was addicted to cocaine and Fanny was the person who got it. At one point, Eddie had a breakdown in her arms as he came to the realization that he was a “hophead.” He needed to do better. He needed to get out of the relationship. Fanny told him she was pregnant. He said he didn’t love her and never had. He left. Fanny was heartbroken. She was so heartbroken, in fact, that she took the kettle off the stove, blew out the flame, and suffocated as the gas filled the room. That was their story.

The rest of the climax hinged on a final confrontation between Nick and Jane at Dorothy’s home. Jane was talking to Dorothy when Nick walked in. Because of the drug trouble Nick had caused her, Jane threatened to shoot him. When he approached her, she pulled the trigger and Nick went down like a bag of rocks. She confessed to the police and they took her away. They then arrested Dorothy’s father, who had been the dope kingpin the entire time. Dan was the lead detective, which shocked Dorothy, but they kept their relationship going anyway.

There was a clear, serious tone throughout The Cocaine Fiends, which set it apart from some of the other drugsploitation films of the 1920s and 1930s. There were only a few moments where things went a little off the rails, performance-wise. There was the devilish glee that Nick had while giving Jane the cocaine. There was the scene where Jane found out it was cocaine and was given a list of nicknames for the drug. There was the scene where Eddie broke down because of his addiction and wept in Fanny’s arms. And, of course, there was the big suicide scene for Fanny. Outside of these moments, the movie played everything fairly straight.

Drugsploitation was a big deal in the 1920s and 1930s as a way to gain attention while skirting the censorship of the MPPDA. Movies like Reefer Madness, Marihuana, and The Cocaine Fiends positioned themselves as educational to get an audience. They were rarely educational. They glorified the lows that drug use could take a person to. They exploited addiction for money. It was a risqué topic and the filmmakers used it to get interest and ticket sales, though they lost out on the Hollywood distribution. They stuck it to the man while showing things that weren’t allowed in the typical Hollywood fare.

The Hays Code came into effect in 1934. It put limitations on what Hollywood studios could present in their movies. It was strictly followed by the studios for a few decades before falling by the wayside as new filmmakers and international influence came into play. But, as always, there were filmmakers working outside the system who wanted to push boundaries. They wanted to show things and tell stories that were frowned upon under the Hays Code. These exploitation filmmakers were telling the down and dirty stories that the Hollywood studio system wasn’t willing to. And they influenced the grindhouse and exploitation filmmakers who followed. It all stemmed from skirting the MPPDA.

Now for some notes to finish this thing off:

• Reefer Madness (week 339) was brought up in this post.
• Marin Sais was in both The Cocaine Fiends and ReeferMadness (week 339).
• Have you seen The Cocaine Fiends? Have you seen any other 1930s exploitation movies? Let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter.
• You can also go to Twitter or the comments if you want to suggest a movie for me to watch in the future. I take all suggestions into consideration when scheduling for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts.
• Sunday “Bad” Movies is on Instagram. Head over there to check out all the fun stuff I post during the week.
• Finally, it’s time for a look forward at what’s to come in Sunday “Bad” Movies. Next week, I’ll be taking a look at one of the most infamous bad movies ever made. Manos: The Hands of Fate will be coming up in seven days’ time. I hope you all return to see what I thought about the movie. I’ll see you then.