The opening scene of "The Psychiatrist" shows two teenagers in the town of San Sebastian, Teddy Keller (John Rubenstein) and his girlfriend, Kendall Scofield (Joy Bang) racing toward a teen hangout, the local sawmill. Once inside, Keller pulls out a hypodermic needle and shoots up, then injects his girlfriend in her leg.
A friend, Fritz Greenfield (Barry Brown) joins them and tells them about "Apple", another friend, with whom Fritz has been doing drugs on the beach. Just then, an ambulance pulls up and the blankly-staring "Apple" is loaded inside.
At the hospital the doctor tells "Apple's" mother that his catatonia is due to a bad amphetamine reaction.
In Los Angeles, Casey Poe (Peter Duel) is wandering the tenderloin district. Seeing a drug dealer, Casey scores a "red" (secobarbital) capsule for a "dime" ($10).
Paranoid, Casey scrambles wildly through the streets, into a ghetto church. Dashing into a restroom, he cooks the drug and starts to shoot up until interrupted by a small boy, who flees.
Poe smashes the needle, lurches out into a phone booth and fumblingly tries to dial a number. The little boy's mother(knowing Casey's a junkie) makes the call for him.
A group therapy session of psychiatrist Dr. James Whitman (Roy Thinnes) is interrupted by Casey's frantic call, begging Whitman to pick him up. Whitman retrieves Casey, takes him home and castigates him about his unresponsiveness to therapy.
The doctor tells Poe that if he does not continue with him (as a condition of Poe's parole), Casey's next sojourn will be in a state hospital. Frightened, Casey capitulates.
Whitman meets a colleague, Dr. Bernard Altman ((Luther Adler) who is enraged over the San Sebastian parents refusing to believe that drug abuse is rampant in their community. Altman asks Whitman to accompany him there for a town meeting.
At the meeting, the sheriff (Norman Alden) expresses helplessness about curbing the drug problem; the townsfolk (fearing higher taxes) vote down funds for a drug task force.
In a local café, Drs. Whitman and Altman observe the drug-fueled antics of Teddy and Fritz, who smear Kendall's face and hamburger with condiments. The teenagers leave unsteadily before they are thrown out, and Dr. Altman growls about the local parents' denial of the problem.
In Los Angeles at a therapy session, a prostitute rants over the junkie boyfriend who had her street walking for his drug money. Poe attacks her as a hypocrite, and the two have to be separated before they kill each other.
Back in San Sebastian, Kendall visits the still-unresponsive "Apple" and plays him a haunting tune on her flute.
Later that night, an exuberant Fritz (on LSD) leaps from the sawmill to his death.
The tragic news spurs Dr. Whitman to return to San Sebastian. Making Casey Poe his "technical assistant", they arrive in San Sebastian that evening.
Casey Poe has staked out Teddy and Kendall, and follows them to their sanctuary. He finds a needle in Keller's shirt pocket and seizes it.
Next day, while attending Fritz's funeral, Whitman and Poe hear Keller deliver an impassioned eulogy for his dead friend, Fritz. Fritz's mother angrily interrupts Keller's peroration and denounces him and the others for having murdered her son with drugs.
After the funeral, Poe accosts Kendall and takes her to the beach to enlist her help. He shows her the scars on his arms (a legacy of 8 years' drug addiction), and Kendall agrees to set up a meeting for Casey and her friends.
Poe meets at the sawmill with the teenagers and their leader, Teddy Keller - a mouthy, self-important teenager who torpedoes the discussion by spouting 60's psychobabble about "power trips" to justify his own drug abuse. Keller ends his diatribe by challenging Casey to deliver him a "perfect world", which will change his mind. Casey, disgusted at the boy's callowness, storms out.
Disconsolately, Casey Poe meets Kendall on the beach and collapses. Kendall attempts to seduce Casey, who, repelled by the under-aged girl's promiscuity, chases her onto the highway. A patrol car happens on the scene, and Poe is seized and arrested.
Dr. Whitman (out of town on an emergency) returns and bails Poe out of jail. Then, the police chief receives a call that Kendall is missing, and Poe urges Whitman to go to the sawmill.
Kendall (strung out on LSD) wanders around, hallucinating the dead Fritz, laid out among an elaborate arrangement of candelabra.
As Whitman and Poe pull up, Kendall is dancing precariously upon an outside conveyor belt, high above the ground. Poe rushes upstairs and pursues the terrified Kendall, grabbing her just in time to keep her from falling.
The final scene shows Casey Poe back in Los Angeles, in Whitman's therapy group. Poe now admits that he is an ex-addict, and had turned his own dead wife into a streetwalker to pay for his drug habit. The movie ends, just as the story begins...
This movie is a cautionary tale about twin evils: the evil of drug abuse, and the evil of deliberate denial of this serious problem.
Ironically, this movie featured two promising young actors, one at the end of his career (Peter Duel) and one at the beginning (Barry Brown).
Both were alcoholic, and both committed suicide by shooting themselves (Duel in 1971, Brown in 1978.) Hollywood lost two great talents.
While dated, the timeless moral lesson of "The Psychiatrist" makes it a "must-see" picture.
A friend, Fritz Greenfield (Barry Brown) joins them and tells them about "Apple", another friend, with whom Fritz has been doing drugs on the beach. Just then, an ambulance pulls up and the blankly-staring "Apple" is loaded inside.
At the hospital the doctor tells "Apple's" mother that his catatonia is due to a bad amphetamine reaction.
In Los Angeles, Casey Poe (Peter Duel) is wandering the tenderloin district. Seeing a drug dealer, Casey scores a "red" (secobarbital) capsule for a "dime" ($10).
Paranoid, Casey scrambles wildly through the streets, into a ghetto church. Dashing into a restroom, he cooks the drug and starts to shoot up until interrupted by a small boy, who flees.
Poe smashes the needle, lurches out into a phone booth and fumblingly tries to dial a number. The little boy's mother(knowing Casey's a junkie) makes the call for him.
A group therapy session of psychiatrist Dr. James Whitman (Roy Thinnes) is interrupted by Casey's frantic call, begging Whitman to pick him up. Whitman retrieves Casey, takes him home and castigates him about his unresponsiveness to therapy.
The doctor tells Poe that if he does not continue with him (as a condition of Poe's parole), Casey's next sojourn will be in a state hospital. Frightened, Casey capitulates.
Whitman meets a colleague, Dr. Bernard Altman ((Luther Adler) who is enraged over the San Sebastian parents refusing to believe that drug abuse is rampant in their community. Altman asks Whitman to accompany him there for a town meeting.
At the meeting, the sheriff (Norman Alden) expresses helplessness about curbing the drug problem; the townsfolk (fearing higher taxes) vote down funds for a drug task force.
In a local café, Drs. Whitman and Altman observe the drug-fueled antics of Teddy and Fritz, who smear Kendall's face and hamburger with condiments. The teenagers leave unsteadily before they are thrown out, and Dr. Altman growls about the local parents' denial of the problem.
In Los Angeles at a therapy session, a prostitute rants over the junkie boyfriend who had her street walking for his drug money. Poe attacks her as a hypocrite, and the two have to be separated before they kill each other.
Back in San Sebastian, Kendall visits the still-unresponsive "Apple" and plays him a haunting tune on her flute.
Later that night, an exuberant Fritz (on LSD) leaps from the sawmill to his death.
The tragic news spurs Dr. Whitman to return to San Sebastian. Making Casey Poe his "technical assistant", they arrive in San Sebastian that evening.
Casey Poe has staked out Teddy and Kendall, and follows them to their sanctuary. He finds a needle in Keller's shirt pocket and seizes it.
Next day, while attending Fritz's funeral, Whitman and Poe hear Keller deliver an impassioned eulogy for his dead friend, Fritz. Fritz's mother angrily interrupts Keller's peroration and denounces him and the others for having murdered her son with drugs.
After the funeral, Poe accosts Kendall and takes her to the beach to enlist her help. He shows her the scars on his arms (a legacy of 8 years' drug addiction), and Kendall agrees to set up a meeting for Casey and her friends.
Poe meets at the sawmill with the teenagers and their leader, Teddy Keller - a mouthy, self-important teenager who torpedoes the discussion by spouting 60's psychobabble about "power trips" to justify his own drug abuse. Keller ends his diatribe by challenging Casey to deliver him a "perfect world", which will change his mind. Casey, disgusted at the boy's callowness, storms out.
Disconsolately, Casey Poe meets Kendall on the beach and collapses. Kendall attempts to seduce Casey, who, repelled by the under-aged girl's promiscuity, chases her onto the highway. A patrol car happens on the scene, and Poe is seized and arrested.
Dr. Whitman (out of town on an emergency) returns and bails Poe out of jail. Then, the police chief receives a call that Kendall is missing, and Poe urges Whitman to go to the sawmill.
Kendall (strung out on LSD) wanders around, hallucinating the dead Fritz, laid out among an elaborate arrangement of candelabra.
As Whitman and Poe pull up, Kendall is dancing precariously upon an outside conveyor belt, high above the ground. Poe rushes upstairs and pursues the terrified Kendall, grabbing her just in time to keep her from falling.
The final scene shows Casey Poe back in Los Angeles, in Whitman's therapy group. Poe now admits that he is an ex-addict, and had turned his own dead wife into a streetwalker to pay for his drug habit. The movie ends, just as the story begins...
This movie is a cautionary tale about twin evils: the evil of drug abuse, and the evil of deliberate denial of this serious problem.
Ironically, this movie featured two promising young actors, one at the end of his career (Peter Duel) and one at the beginning (Barry Brown).
Both were alcoholic, and both committed suicide by shooting themselves (Duel in 1971, Brown in 1978.) Hollywood lost two great talents.
While dated, the timeless moral lesson of "The Psychiatrist" makes it a "must-see" picture.