Confessions of an Opium Eater [Evils of Chinatown] ** (1962, Vincent Price, Linda Ho, Richard Loo) – Classic Movie Review 10,112

Director Albert Zugsmith’s 1962 black and white mystery crime drama Confessions of an Opium Eater [Evils of Chinatown] stars Vincent Price, who gets to go over the top again as 19th-century adventurer Gilbert De Quincey, the black-garbed sailor out for kicks, who gets involved in a Chinese tong war and helps slave girls escape a tong in 1890s San Francisco.

This weird, drug-themed cheap exploitation movie, written by Robert Hill, loosely based on the 1822 autobiographical novel Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by opium-taker Thomas De Quincey, is interestingly and amusingly daft enough to have a little cult following. An involved Price gets involved a surprising amount of physical action and also narrates.

Also in the cast are Linda Ho as Ruby Low, Richard Loo as George Wah, Philip Ahn as Ching Foon, June Kyoto Lu [June Kim] as Lotus, Yvonne Moray as Child, Caroline Kido as Lo Tsen, Terence de Marney as Scrawny Man, Gerald Jann as Fat Chinese Man, Geri Hoo as Second Dancing Girl Vivianne Manku as Catatonic Girl and Victor Sen Yung.

It is also known as Souls for Sale and Secrets of a Soul.

Confessions of an Opium Eater [Evils of Chinatown] is directed by Albert Zugsmith, runs 85 minutes, is made by Photoplay, is released by Allied Artists Pictures (1962) (US) and Continental Art Films (1963) (UK), is written by Robert Hill and Seton I Miller, based on the autobiographical novel Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey, is shot in black and white by Joseph F Biroc, is produced by Albert Zugsmith, is scored by Albert Glasser, with production designs by Eugène Lourié and Edward Morey Jr.

It is released by Warner Archive Collection in 2012 in the US on DVD.

Albert Zugsmith (April 24, 1910 – October 26, 1993) .

Albert Zugsmith’s films as director: The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), College Confidential (1960), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), Dondi (1961), Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962), The Great Space Adventure (1963), When Strangers Meet (1964), Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1964), The Incredible Sex Revolution (1965), Psychedelic Sexualis (1966) (uncredited), Movie Star, American Style or; LSD, I Hate You (1966), The Chinese Room (1968), Two Roses and a Golden Rod (1969), The Very Friendly Neighbors (1969), The Phantom Gunslinger (1970) and Violated! (1974).

Zugsmith’s most memorable films as producer are: The Incredible Shrinking Man, Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind, High School Confidential and The Girl in the Kremlin.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,107

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com