Mortal Moonshine: Treasury Agents Take On Backwoods Bootleggers

In past blog posts, we’ve highlighted some of the favorite films of Motion Picture Preservation Lab staff. Because the motion picture holdings at the National Archives and Records Administration are so voluminous, we are always encountering new films that jockey for the top spot on our list of favorite things. One Time Too Often, a 1969 crime drama featuring Treasury Agents chasing down moonshine bootleggers and an appearance by Raymond Burr, is the latest of these.

Treasury agents stake-out moonshine bootleggers.

The agents see a still made from old car parts.

A sweaty moonshine peddler is taken into custody.

When a man turns up dead, ATF agents take down a moonshine still.
(Stills from One Time Too Often)

One Time Too Often, presented by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF, now in the Department of Justice), tells the story of a man who gambles his health one too many times by consuming illegal moonshine whiskey. His death due to lead salts poisoning launches an ATF investigation, which tracks the moonshine to its source: a sketchy backwoods still. The ATF agents raid the still, resulting in a gun battle and car chase as a saxophone wails on the soundtrack.

Although the film is shot like a stylized television show, lead salts poisoning from carelessly-produced illegal moonshine has long been a real problem. As it distills, moonshine can leach lead from the still components, which sometimes include lead-soldered pipes and automobile radiators in place of copper condensers. There is also a risk that the moonshine may be contaminated by toxic levels of methanol. Even today, government continues to target illegal moonshine production, as seen in this May 2014 news article from Alabama.

There’s no question that One Time Too Often is a highly entertaining film—especially for those nostalgic for television programs of the 1960s and 1970s—but how was it originally used by the ATF and Treasury Department? In so many cases we lack the documentation that would give us these answers. Fortunately, we know one way that One Time Too Often was used. A 1976 press release on the United States Mint website reveals that it was to be presented daily, along with other Treasury-produced films, as part of a new display in the Department of the Treasury’s exhibit hall. Other items on display included currency presses, half a ton of gold bars, and a moonshine still.

One Time Too Often came through the lab as part of the preparation for Spirited Republic, an upcoming exhibit at the National Archives Museum. Another film digitized by our Lab is 1973’s America on the Rocks. Featuring narration by Robert Mitchum, the film addresses the issue of alcohol abuse, using a creepy carousel as a visual metaphor for alcoholism. After the creation of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1970, educators produced many films about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. The Institute cooperated with Airlie Productions on this film, which was a CINE Golden Eagle winner.

Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History will open March 2015 at the National Archives in Washington, DC. We hope to see you there!