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Just perfect...

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A federal agent, Tom Kaylor (Peter Graves) is posing as a long-haul truck driver because of the damage being done by truck drivers using amphetamines in order to work their exhausting hours. The only really obvious lead is a trucker named 'Mink' (Chuck Connors), a guy who very obviously uses pills because he's perennially giddy and the acting is WAY over the top! But Mink won't talk and so Tom needs to keep his eyes open and be very, very careful because whoever is supplying the junk is more than willing to kill to keep this secret...and they soon end up beating Tom's co-driver to death because he asked too many questions!While occasionally the film is obvious and anything but subtle, it is entertaining and does provide a public service. I just wish they'd made Mink semi-realistic and explained that most Amphetamine users do NOT have hallucinations or end up in the Psyc Ward! It's not nearly as silly as films like "Reefer Madness" but if should have been a tad less goofy. It's really a shame, as the topic is an important one AND most of the movie was very good. Still, overall it is never dull and certainly is entertaining!!

Truckers depend on illegal amphetamines to stay awake over long distances, causing a number of road accidents. So the government assigns an undercover agent to expose the criminal connections.I expect this film amounts to an offspring of 1955's Man With a Golden Arm, the first post-war film to deal seriously with drug addiction. More directly is 1956's Bigger Than Life that dramatizes the maddening effects of a new prescription drug on an over-worked schoolteacher (James Mason). Up to 1955, drug addiction was pretty much taboo among non-exploitation filmmakers. So this minor oddity was dealing with an unusual topic not conventionally seen on the screen. (As a teen seeing the movie on initial release, I recall being puzzled by the topic).The movie itself is standard Hollywood expose—the clean-cut gov't agent (Graves), the nefarious criminal ring, a mysterious headman, plus a winsome romantic interest (Powers). Still, the director is Joe Newman who could occasionally rise above the potboiler as I think he does here with some effective touches. Note the well-played surprise twist, along with pill-popping Chuck Connors, a really long way from his sober-sided role in The Rifleman. In fact, I wouldn't have believed Connors' giddy performance if I hadn't seen it. Thanks to the several twists, unusual subject matter, and the manic Connors, the movie remains an oddly memorable potboiler, despite the lowly origins.

This movie is considered a "classic" in my family; my Dad was the agent (brilliantly acted by Peter Graves) on whom the title character was based. Hollywood added a romance but other than that they got the story (based on a series of articles about my Dad in the Saturday Evening Post) right. Some message boards about the movie criticize Chuck Connors for over-acting, but he didn't; that's how it was. This movie is a good reminder of what we owe to a lot of America's unsung heroes who have taken on messy tasks over the years to make America a safer place. Thanks to my Dad and other agents the movie now looks like a dated "period piece" portraying world with which we do not have to be familiar.

Note this commentary may contain a ***SPOILER**Another one of those "B" 1950's crime thrillers "...ripped from the pages of todays headlines." This film was inspired by a Saturday Evening Post expose about the use of amphetamines of long haul truck drivers. In this film, Peter Graves plays an FDA agent who goes undercover as a truck driver in order to get the goods on who is supplying the drivers with "bennies". Chuck Conners plays a hip talking truck driver hooked on the pills and freaks out and almost kills Peter. Mala Powers plays the widowed boarding house owner that caters to truck drivers whom Peter becomes romanticly involved. Too bad Peter never learned never to trust grieving widows who wear cocktail dresses. Robert Shayne has a small part as Peters boss. Graves gives his usual dependable performance as the determined agent. Its amazing how many of these forgotten low budget films Graves made in the 1950's. Chuck Conners however, goes way over the top as the hip talking, jazz loving amphetamine hooked truck driver. Mala Powers is attractive.