BigList
Login / Sign up
Monkey on My Back (1957)

Monkey on My Back (1957)

Drama

SHOCK by SHOCK...It Jabs Like a Hopped-Up Needle!

Release Date: 1957, May 29
Directors: André de Toth
Countries: United States of America
Production: Edward Small Productions
Cast: Kathy Garver, Jack Albertson, Cameron Mitchell, Barry Kelley, Paul Richards, Scotty Beckett, Lisa Golm, Dianne Foster

Overview:

The painfully true story of welterweight boxing champion Barney Ross is detailed in Monkey on My Back. Cameron Mitchell stars as Ross, whose meteoric ring career is interrupted when he joins the Marines at the outset of WWII. A highly decorated hero, Ross contracts malaria oversees and is given morphine to assuage the pain. By the time he returns to the states, Ross is a confirmed drug addict. Before he can rise to the top again, he must hit rock bottom and his descent into the hell of narcotics dependency is graphically illustrated (so much so that the film was almost denied a Production Code seal). Though a cured Barney Ross served as technical advisor for Monkey on My Back, he ended up suing the producers for defamation of character -- and lost.

Keywords:

drugs