The Pill Pounder

In the dusty, aromatic confines of a provincial 1920s apothecary, Charlie—a man whose professional title as a 'pill pounder' belies his true vocation for clandestine leisure—navigates a precarious duality. The narrative unfolds within the claustrophobic tension of a small-town drugstore, where the protagonist attempts to perform the pharmaceutical rituals expected by his clientele while simultaneously participating in an illicit, high-stakes poker game in the shadowed backroom. This silent vignette captures the frantic choreography of deception; Charlie oscillates between the rhythmic grinding of the mortar and pestle and the silent, high-tension shuffling of playing cards. As the local gentry and eccentric neighbors drift through the front door, Charlie’s frantic attempts to maintain a veneer of bourgeois respectability are constantly undermined by the siren call of the gambling table. Featuring a nascent Clara Bow, the film serves as a kinetic exploration of the friction between social obligation and the subterranean impulses of the human spirit, all set against a backdrop of tinctures, tonics, and the flickering light of a bygone Americana.