Curfew Breakers (1957)

Police struggle to stem the tide of teenage drug addiction in this vintage exploitation drama, which combines the procedural style of Dragnet with the hopped-up hipster undertow of The Cool and the Crazy. Lieutenant Lacey (Paul Kelly), a police detective who heads up the narcotics squad, has been a busy man since dope dealers began targeting the students at a local high school. Coach Bettger (Regis Toomey) begins to suspect something is amiss when one-time star athlete Ray Bowman first loses interest in sports, and then disappears. Bettger turns to the police, who interview Ray's aunt, who has been taking care of the boy since the breakup of his parents. While the aunt has a hard time believing Ray is up to anything dangerous, she discovers how wrong she is when Ray turns up dead after running up a debt with Jimmy, a 21-year-old pusher who delivers fatal "hot shots" to customers who can't pay their bills. Eager to make new customers, Jimmy persuades his sexy girlfriend, Julie (Sheila Urban), to lure straight-laced BMOC Dick Williams (Cullen Wheelas) away to a party where she'll introduce him to "joy popping," but undercover cops are following Jimmy and Julie's trail, with a strung-out delinquent becoming a convenient informant against his former suppliers. Curfew Breakers was also released under the title Narcotics Squad, and has appeared on DVD under another re-release title, Hooked. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi