Peter Graves enacts a federal investigator, Tom Kaylor, assigned to bust the supplier of illegal amphetamines in the film, Death in Small Doses (1957). He poses as a trucker because the “bennys” are being purchased by truckers intent on receiving pep for their long drives. But deaths are the consequence and the pushers are shady.

With acceptable direction by Joseph Newman. the movie is an almost too earnest entertainment item with energetic drama. Finally, though, it goes off a cliff; the writing by John McGreevey flops. Tom’s love interest, Val, is played by Mala Powers, a woman with an exquisite face and excellent breasts. However, the Val of the film’s first half is not at all consonant with the Val of the second half, and it hardly helps that Miss Powers plays her ineffectually. As for Graves, he fills the bill, but Chuck Connors is shallow. The thrills of the first two-thirds of Death made me glad I could see the picture on Amazon Prime.