Sol Madrid

Cinema in the Year 1967 was in Somewhat of a Turmoil or Change. The Motion Picture Code was Disintegrating and Filmmakers were Caught in a Sort of Limbo Trying to Figure Out What was Expected, Acceptable to the Movie Going Public and Just How to Approach Previous Subject Matter Taboos and So Forth.

In This one the On Screen Subject of Heroin and Heroin Addiction, Drug Trafficking and Related Events was Open for New and Previously Unexplored Content in Terms of "Entertainment". You Can See that in This Film it is a Fairly Realistic if Superficial Account of the Subject. But You can Also See the Restraint and Some Reluctance for the Sake of Good Taste and Caution.

As a Movie it is Not Bad but Not All That Good. There is some Gritty Stuff Here and There and it is Handled Mostly as a Crime Thriller Story. Elements of Law Enforcement and the Mob are at the Forefront and the Tone and Style are Not Much More than a Ramped Up TV Show with Splashes of Big Screen Realism.

Stella Stevens Shows Some Acting Chops, Especially in Her Drug Induced Stupor and David Mccallum is OK but there are No Signs that He Would Become a Major Star After His Run on the Man from U.N.C.L.E (1964-68). Actually, His Co-Star on the Series Robert Vaughn had a Much More Lucrative Movie Career. Telly Savalas and Ricardo Montalban did Go On to Some Success Outside Television . Mccallum did Continue to Work Mostly in Television to This Day.

Overall, the Movie is Worth a Watch to Witness the Changing Face of Cinema as the Code was Crumbling, and for a Look at Some Very Popular TV Actors on the Big Screen Early On. But the Film is Objectively Not Much Better than Average Despite an Attempt at Exploring the World of Smack and its High-Level Distribution.