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Distinguished Public Service by the L. A. Anti-Narcotic League

Human Wreckage is a movie of the drug traffic. The producers would have us believe that the traffic is national; in fact, that the nation is moving down a one-way street to a Potters' Field for dope fiends.

This thesis might be set down as film fatuity and the picture destined simply as another flyblown feature, if it were not for the name of WALLACE REID woven in lurid letters throughout its manufacture. Wallace Reid, screen star, died last Fall from the effects of a drug habit contracted among the noisome swamps of Hollywood Society. Human Wreckage is produced by " The Los Angeles Anti-Narcotic League " as the moral epitaph to round out the cheerless fable of Reid's death. Mrs. Wallace Reid is the production's star.

Wallace Reid was, in, his own manner, an artist. Certainly there are few to dispute the statement that he was a cardinal leader of effective entertainment. Accordingly his wife and the Los Angeles Anti-Narcotic League might have spared his memory the fitful fever of an opiate post mortem. Each Human Wreckage witness will take back to the salesdesk, the farm or the schoolroom a graven imprint of Reid the addict--not the actor.

The perpetrators argue that the picture will be a club to beat back the rising trade in dope. Horror stares from the club, from handle to head. Yet horror and fear are ineffective deterrents because they dwell in the back of the mind, while material temptation stares directly in the eyes

A word for Mrs. Reid. Seeing the film, one can hardly question her sincerity. She probably believes she has chosen a path where others may see her walking and heed the solitary figure as a warning. Yet her advisers all along have dressed the proceeding with most offensive taste. The strident commercialism of their advertising thrusts the bitter story on every billboard in the country. At the New York opening was included the " dance of the Addicts "; a group of figures writhed and postured under lights of ghastly green, adding a final touch that seemed almost to turn again the turf above a grave.

Sunday evening Mrs. Reid delivered a dignified talk on the narcotic situation from the pulpit of a Methodist church in the Bronx. A large crowd--" composed partly of curiosity seekers"