The Terrible Truth

The Terrible Truth is a 1951 American anti-drug documentary film created by Sid Davis Productions. The film contained messages such as "marijuana has similar properties to amphetamines" and "the Soviet Union was pushing drugs in America".[1] The film follows William B. McKesson (to become Los Angeles County District Attorney in 1956) who interviews a young woman about her use of marijuana as a gateway drug to intravenous use of heroin.[2] McKesson states at the end of the film "Some say that the Reds are promoting drug traffic in the United States to undermine national morale."[2]

The Terrible Truth
StarringWilliam B. McKesson
Production
company
Sid Davis Productions
Release date
  • 1951 (1951)
Running time
10 minutes

The film has been called "faux documentary ... ironic, naïve, campy",[3] and according to Edward Brunner in Postmodern Culture, one of the "scandalous examples of how thoroughly the media environment has been penetrated by schemes for social engineering".[4] It can be found alongside famously bad movies like Reefer Madness on popular film lists, for example those found at thefix.com as one of the five worst anti-drug works of the past century, and The Atlantic where it is described as "hysterical" and "cartoonish".[5][6]

The film is included in the Prelinger Archives, a scholarly collection of film related to U.S. history.[7]

References
  1. "The Terrible Truth" – via filmow.com.
  2. Roger M. Grace (June 9, 2008), "Supervisor's Lobbying of Colleagues Brings McKesson Unanimous Vote to Fill DA Vacancy", Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Los Angeles, PERSPECTIVES #63
  3. Null 2009, p. 9.
  4. Brunner, Edward (January 1998), "Ersatz Truths: Variations on the Faux Documentary", Postmodern Culture, 8 (2), doi:10.1353/pmc.1998.0001 quoted in Null (2009)
  5. Keri Blakinger (February 17, 2016), The 5 Worst Anti-Drug Ads in the Last 100 Years
  6. Brian Resnick (April 20, 2015), "Four Vintage, (Unintentionally) Hysterical Anti-Marijuana Films: Movies about the dangers of marijuana have often depicted the drug in cartoonish terms", The Atlantic
  7. Prelinger Archives. The Terrible Truth, OCLC 860691153

Book sources
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