The Pace That Kills is a 1928 American silentexploitation film directed by Norton S. Parker and William O'Connor. The film tells the story of two young people who get involved with a drug dealer and become addicted to opium and cocaine. The plot also dealt with amorality and prostitution.[1] Similar to other movies of the genre, the final film was redone as a film of the same name in 1935 in a sound or "talkie" film format. Footage from The Pace That Kills was incorporated in the later film.[2]
Plot
Eddie Bradley (Owen Gorin), a young farmboy leaves for the big city to get a job and find his sister, Grace (Florence Dudley). Eddie finds work in a department store and meets Fanny O'Rell (Virginia Roye), a city girl who introduces him to narcotics, and he falls into the clutches of drug dealers.
Now an addict, Eddie loses his job. He finally finds Grace but she has also become an addict and a prostitute to pay for his habit.
Both of them get involved with drug dealers and become opium/cocaine addicts, financially dependent on their dealers and in need. Grace is jailed and Eddie is hospitalized, where, after months of agony, he is cured of his habit and allowed to return home to his family and his childhood sweetheart (Thelma Daniels).
Cast
Owen Gorin as Eddie Bradley
Thelma Daniels as Mary Jane, Eddie's Sweetheart
Florence Turner as Mrs. Bradley
Florence Dudley as Grace Bradley
Harry Todd as Uncle Caleb
Arnold Dallas as "Handsome Nick"
Virginia Roye as Fanny O'Reilly
Production
The Pace That Kills was typical of the other films that Willis Kent produced during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s that were a string of low-budget westerns and exploitation films, thinly disguised as cautionary tales.[3]
Reception
The Pace That Kills was released and distributed via "State Rights", where local sales agents would then sell rights to individual theaters. The theater operators could play the film as often as they desired in an attempt to make as much profit as possible.[4] The film was redone in 1935 as a sound film with the same title, and then re-issued in 1937 as The Cocaine Fiends.[3]
Preservation status
A print of The Pace That Kills is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.[5]
^Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress 1978, p. 135.
Bibliography
Catalog of Holdings, The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress. Los Angeles, California: American Film Institute, 1978. ISBN978-0-8018-5315-9.
Cripps, Thomas. Hollywood's High Noon: Moviemaking and Society Before Television. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ISBN978-0-8018-5315-9.
Hall, Sheldon and Stephen Neale, Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2010. ISBN978-0-8143-3008-1.
