Sid Davis Productions presents a movie warning against the dangers of drug use: “Seduction of the Innocent” (00:22). This classic 1961 anti-drug movie was produced with the cooperation of the Santa Monica Police Department (00:29). The film’s narrative uses the idea of the “slippery slope” of drug use, with the message being that the use of marijuana or other non-narcotic drugs can lead to heroin addiction. The film’s protagonist starts recreational use of “reds”, “pep pills”, and marijuana, only to finally wind up on the streets working as a heroin-addict prostitute.
A woman writhes in agony on a thin mattress behind bars (00:44). This is America in the second half of the 20th century. The woman, Jeanette, is a slave by choice. A close-up shows her face and hair wet with sweat; eyes closed, teeth clenched in pain (00:56).
Young adults swing dance by a swimming pool (1:01). A woman floats in the pool in a miniature boat. Jeanette changes the music at 1:11, and smiles as a shirtless young man approaches her. They begin slow dancing. Four teenagers enjoy a ride in an open 1957 Lincoln Premiere convertible (1:21). The young man offers Jeanette pills, but she passes (1:29). Her friend takes, washing it down with 7 Up, then gives one to her driving friend. Hesitant, Jeanette tries her first pill, with 7 Up (1;46). The teenagers snap their fingers to music (1:56). Jeanette and her new boyfriend, Mike, are asleep, still in the backseat (2:02). Money and pills exchange hands at 2:16.
Three teenage girls stand chatting at a school (2:35). Distracted, Jeanette walks off alone. Her smile fades. She approaches Mike sitting with a paper bag (2:52). They look around at 2:57, before Mike shakes a few pills into Jeanette’s cupped hands. Schoolmates are walking about in the background. Jeanette shoots a glance to the side before taking a pill (3:05). They leave the bench.
Jeanette and Mike walk up a grassy hillside to their car (3:16). Jeanette gets in. Mike reaches down to pull something out of his sock, showing it to Jeanette. At 3:42, Mike indicates to Jeanette to roll up her window. He lights a joint with a match. This is Jeanette’s first time trying marijuana. She takes a puff, looking tense (4:08). She coughs, unhappy. They continue to smoke.
Jeanette stares off, and the camera cuts to some trees in the distance (4:29). Jeanette closes her eyes, letting her head fall back (4:38). The ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway are off in the distance (4:46). The camera zooms in, illustrating impaired depth perception, before cutting back to the sluggish-looking couple. Jeanette quarrels with her father (5:09). She runs to her bed, sobbing.
Cut to a shabby-looking door at the end of a shabby-looking stairway (5:41). The camera approaches it, unsteady, as if handheld. Behind the door is Eric (5:55), already smoking.
Eric finally introduces the young couple to heroin (6:28). He pulls opens the bottom of a birdcage. Hidden there is a small white packet. Eric prepares the heroin on his table. Jeanette unhappily protests at Mike; the camera cuts back to the complicated heroin preparation (6:46). Eric fills a hypodermic needle (7:08), and walks toward Jeanette. He injects her; she grimaces in pain (7:28). Mike is injected swiftly after.
They are now reliant on heroin. Behind Eric’s birdcage, they pay cash for more supply (7:43). The couple steps out into the sunlight (8:03). From 8:23 a montage of petty theft follows. They rummage through unattended items, remove hubcaps, and steal through open car windows. They covertly obtain more drugs (8:33).
As the narrator describes withdrawal, Jeanette reads, yawning, in bed. Cigarettes and violent sneezing distract her (8:37). At 8:56 Jeanette writhes terribly, until she falls asleep.Jeanette watches Mike get caught from her car (9:25). Back at Eric’s door, she begs for help, but is rejected. She sobs, pounding the wall with a fist (9:33).
Jeanette looks through the classifieds for a job (9:52). At 9:58 she curls her eyelashes, then, in a dress, embraces a man in her room, smile-less. She is now a call girl or prostitute, putting makeup on a deteriorating face. At 10:12 she is walking the streets. A man in dark sunglasses finds her interesting. At 10:37 we’ve returned to Jeanette in her prison bed, eyes closed. “Lost to society,” says the narrator, “she’ll continue her hopeless, degrading existence until she escapes in death.”
Sidney “Sid” Davis (b. 1916) was an American director and producer who specialized in social guidance films.
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