A study of drug addicts in an real life treatment center.This is a good film with an interesting cast. Third billed Alex Cord is actually the main character, the weirdly named Zankie Albo, a slick braggart with an addiction to heroin. Stella Stevens (one of her best performances) is Joaney, a divorcee with a young son who resorted to prostitution to pay for her habit. She gets involved with the charming but dangerous Albo. Top billed Chuck Connors (fresh from The Rifleman) is Ben the ex con who kicked his "H" addiction but has to contend with trouble maker Albo, who was his cell mate in prison and has a beef against him. Oscar winner Edmond O'Brien is Chuck the head of Synanon, he uses tough talk and punishments like having heads shaved and wearing humiliating signs for breaking the rules. Other "dope fiends" are played by Richard Conte, Eartha Kitt and Bernie Hamiliton.Anyone who is interested in 1960s black and white films about lurid subjects or is a fan of any member of the cast should seek this one out.

***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 ****

One of the first movies to show drug addicts & their attempts to 'get clean'. Main character 'Joaney' played by the great STELLA STEVENS is an addict that is trying to straighten out her life and get custody of her son. She is attending counseling sessions at the famed SYNANON HOUSE in sunny California. Lots of good acting support from off-key sources like EARTHA KITT. Overall, film is average.