Absolutely Fantastic

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Using the famed drug rehab center of SYNANON as a backdrop seems like a sure fire hit, but this film misses more than it scores. Alex Cord is a junkie who seeks help at the center and finds himself at odds with former prison crony Chuck Connors. He also finds himself smitten with sexy fellow addict Stella Stevens. A film of such noble bearing is difficult to criticize but it is a shame that director Richard Quine infuses the story with such cliché-ridden melodrama. The acting is mightily uneven with Stevens and Connors coming off best. Cord is far too dull a screen presence to be truly compelling and, as the founder of the program, Edmond O'Brien recites each and every line as if he's addressing an assembly. He's so didactic it's impossible not to snicker at his verbose delivery. There's some great B&W cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr. and some very odd pseudo-jazz music by Neal Hefti. The supporting cast includes Barbara Luna, Alejandro Rey, Eartha Kitt and Richard Evans as "Hopper," Cord's demented junkie pal.

This is a very well made film about addiction and an early drug treatment facility in California. However, when I learned the FULL story about Synanon, it sure opened my eyes....but a bit about that later.I noticed that some reviews did seem to think that "Synanon" pulled a lot of its punches. While I would agree, on the other hand, for 1965, the film was VERY insightful and well done. I particularly liked the down-beat ending--it made the story seem more realistic as 'you can't win 'em all' when it comes to addiction. Plus, the acting was nice--with Edmund O'Brien, Chuck Connors and Alex Cord a turning in excellent and gritty performances. All this was very good and very watchable--and you certainly can't blame the film makers for what happened AFTER the movie based on the real Synanon treatment center was released. Here's where it gets REALLY intereststing. It seems in the 1970s, Synanon slowly transformed itself into a cult, of sorts--a very paranoid and violent one at that! Wild accounts of beatings, rattlesnake attacks(!) and, eventually, the leader (Charles Dederich) resuming his heavy drinking and the dissolution of the program! Although a VERY discouraging story, it is the real account of Synanon and would actually make a pretty exciting film. Still, as I said, they didn't know about any of this stuff that would one day happen when they made the movie--and, taken on its own, "Synanon" is a very good film.

***SPOILERS*** One of the first movies to take on the drug problem head on does have its merits but gets so tangled up in its own good intentions that it falls completely apart well before the ending credits."Synanon" has to do with the famous Synanon House in Santa Monica California that used tough love to help rehabilitate its many dope addicted members. The places founder ex-alcoholic Charles "Chuck" Dederich, Edmond O'Brian, used his own life experiences on those addicts in the plan to get them back into the real world of being hard working and productive citizens and off the dope that they got themselves into over the years.It's when transported New York City dope addict Zankie Albo, Alex Cord, dropped in one evening at the Synanon House to sleep it off that things started getting real dopey there. Not at all looking to help himself get off the stuff, heroin, Zankie in fact got to fellow Synonon House resident Joaney, Stella Stevens, who fell madly in love with him to take off and get high with heroin supplied to him by his good friend and drug dealer Hopper, Gregory Morton. While all this was going on reformed dope addict Ben, Chuck Connors, who served time with Zankie back east tries to get both him and Joaney back to Synanon House before they both end up dead from a hot load, drug overdose, or behind bars in the local "clink" if their lucky.***SPOILERS*** It didn't take long for Zankie to get in touch with Hopper at the Zanzibar Bar in downtown Santa Monice to get his desperately needed dope to shoot up with. Going to a local hotel to get high together with what looked like a blank eyed and zombie like Joaney Zankie shots up with a load of hot heroin and soon conks out before Ben can break into the place to stop him from doing it! To the shock of everyone in the hotel room, Ben Joaney & Hooper, Zaknie goes into convulsions and drops dead moments after he hit, with a needle, himself!The now hysterical Joaney seeing what dope can do to her, like in what it did to Zankie, finally sees the light and together with Ben heads back to Synanon House to save whatever is still left of her life to save from the ravages of dope addiction!P.S It was sad to see that even Synanon House's founder Chuck Dederich later fell back into his previous existence as an alcoholic as well was take up drugs,to expand his mind, by getting himself stoned almost daily on LSD. Dederich also went as far as trying to murder those who he considered his enemies by planting deadly rattlesnakes in their mail boxes that had him convicted of attempted murder! Dederich broken drunk and forgotten died in 1997 at age 83 but the good work he did, before he lost his mind, in saving hundreds if not thousands of dope addicts will always be cherished and remembered by them and their friends and family members in what a great job he did in saving their lives from the horrors of drug addiction when he was still normal.

Dramatization of real-life Synanon House, a Santa Monica-based rehabilitation center for hardcore drug addicts (many of them recent parolees). Heroin-user Alex Cord butts heads with former prison adversary Chuck Conners, while Stella Stevens sorts out relations with her ex-husband and struggles to stay off the streets. A bit glamorous in its depiction of life in the gutter, perhaps due to the kicky fashions and the ocean-front locale, though director Richard Quine is quick to underline the narrative with bitterness and regret. Not as moving as it should have been, but still quite potent. Harry Stradling Jr.'s black-and-white cinematography is excellent, as is Neal Hefti's jazzy score. **1/2 from ****