Looking for: 16mm anti-drug film DEAD IS DEAD

This was harrowing for me in the 6th grade, and I'm curious to see it again. I've tried various online searches with little luck. Any leads for a 16mm print or VHS/DVD would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

It doesn't beat Red Asphalt for putting sheer "fear o' God" terror into the hearts of the American teenager.

 

Mechanized Death, anyone? Never heard of Dead is Dead - I imagine there's prints of it floating around, waiting to get posted on YouTube someday.

 

I may have seen something similar, if not exactly the same, at traffic court one night. Made me queasy. Dead is Dead put me off drugs. They used to show some heavy stuff to kids back in the 70's and 80's.

 

I don't know if this is the same film they showed us back in fifth grade, but I remember some junkie ODing in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I'm not sure I slept for a week.

 

Sounds like a good flick to watch with a buzz. (just kidding)

Seriously... any guess to what year "Dead Is Dead" was made?

 

It was shown to me around 1982. However, I remember it looking 70's-ish. If I recall correctly, it had a black male narrator whose mantra was "Dead is Dead". One scene was of a young girl who has picked up her mom's prescription drugs and takes them, and she throws up on screen. There may also have been footage of dead junkies and other unpleasantness. It was something.

 

Apparently it was made by the great comedian Godfrey Cambridge--the NY State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse has a VHS copy it rents for 10 bucks...

http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/video/catalog.cfm?category=11

 

These movies were great fun!

 

Thanks. Here's a little info I found:

The content of Dead is Dead is as coldly matter-of-fact as the title. Produced by actor Godfrey Cambridge, this informational video discusses drug addiction: its causes and its possible cures. Several real-life addicts are shown fighting their addiction by going through rehab therapy. This 21-minute reality dose is not designed to be pretty: Cambridge deals with a tough subject with commensurate toughness. The production date of Dead is Dead is uncertain, but we'll place it in the early 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

 

Something Weird Video has a whole 9 or 10 volume set of educational scare films.

 

That was going to be my suggestion, and I assume you've checked. If anyone was to have it, it'd be Something Weird.

 

They didn't have it, it turns out.

 

I've been trying to find that film on home video for years. Though I haven't seen it since 1978 or '79, I'll never forget it: the woman rolling around on the staircase, vomiting, as they're playing Bill Withers's "Lean on Me." And that song in the movie... "Stone junkie, stone, stone junkie." Scared the crap out of me and had its intended effect: I've never tried hard drugs.

 

Man, I love that link for NY Alcohol and Substance Abuse films; thank you!
However, the mention of Godfrey Cambridge has now sent me swirling down a rabbit hole of memories... I'll probably just start another thread under his name, once my research shows up something more. However, it's a mid-sixties flash of a bizarre benefit show at The Village Gate that I went to with my Mom. She was friendly with Soupy Sales, then at the height of his popularity, and I think he hosted the evening. I'm sure I have photos of Cambridge, who shocked the life out of me, because he was about 150 pounds lighter than I'd last seen him on the Sullivan show, and it seemed like that was only weeks before...
The biggest shock was yet to come, though - and I could kill myself because by then I was out of film! It was Andy Warhol, dancing with a whip with Edie Sedwick - I was always sure it was Edie, but it may have been Nico - (in a shocking ripped skirt, the first mini-skirt I ever saw!), in front of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable! As I say, I'll investigate, find whatever photos, & start a new thread! (Maybe this is still relevant here, though, as an further anti-drug testament!)

 

wooow

i have actually been trying to track this down for years myself! so many people i want to show it to because it has to be seen to believe. i have seen it in 6th grade as well and was traumatized into never trying anything "hardcore" either. i still remember the guy at the beginning convulsing on the toilet, the girl on the stairs throwing up to lean on me after drinking her mom's prescribed cough syrup, and the horrid photos of those that had died in od. i saw the 16mm in 6th, but i also remember my school showing it a second time two or three years later on vhs.

 

I'm still trying to find a 1967-1968 anti-drug film hosted by Sonny & Cher that I saw in school. Sonny later claimed that the music world never forgave them for preaching against pot and LSD, and the resultant backlash helped finish their 1960s music career. (He... "said.")

 

This sounds really intense. The only anti-drug film we got in health class was a filmstrip (synchronized to an LP) that was supposed to show the evils of LSD. It had an actual plot - a normal guy goes to a "cool" party and drops acid (it could have been a video for "Mama Told Me Not To Come"). The trip is "far out" at first ("I see a paisley dog ... barking flowers!"). But, of course, the trip turns bad and he ends up screaming like John Lennon on "Cold Turkey". I don't think it prevented too many people from trying hallucinogens.

 

"Nice paisley horsey! Give the horsey a sugar cube...."

 

They showed this to us in junior high in the late 70s (just Sonny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMj9-e48oVE

 

I remember that Sonny Bono film - he looks in the mirror after smoking a joint and sees the Devil... ridiculous. Too bad he didn't see that tree...

 

Our school must have gotten a wholesale deal on these things when I was in middle school, as for about a week we were marched into an empty classroom for one period a day and subjected to (literally) scores of these things. A couple of them stood out, but after seeing a hundred or so of them, they all became just one big blur. I kinda think that the mass overkill didn't really help, because it by the end of the week you were kind of numb to the whole message. Anyway, in the end I don't think it really mattered, as those kids who were inclined to do drugs still ended up doing them, while those of us who weren't, didn't.

Of course, in my case, my biggest incentive not to do drugs didn't come from a bunch of preachy, low-budget movies, but from the fear of getting my backside majorly kicked by my father.

 

I personally was a fan of the Drivers Ed films. "They thought they could beat the train..." Replete with State Troopers pulling burnt weenie corpses out of wrecks...

 

You can purchase the film "Dead is Dead" here:
http://www.avgeeks.com/wp2/dead-is-dead-dvd

 

such bad taste! Couldn't stop laughing.