Assassin of Youth

One does not view poverty row pictures and road show exploitation flicks with the expectation of witnessing fine acting, directing or writing--after all, that's the charm. The relative inexperience or stiffness of performances allows the modern movie-goer to concentrate on the dated situations and propaganda--both of which offer a clearer window to the cultural mores of the era than acknowledged works of classic cinema: pop culture has always been more visceral than what we choose to elevate as high art. This film is enjoyable on several levels--as a societal time machine, a "campy" exploitation flick, and even as a basic B movie romance/courtroom drama! Quirky details abound--the town gossip bears a striking resemblance in face and deed to Margaret Hamilton's "Miss Gulch", for example, though she rides a scooter instead of a bicycle/broom! And of course, the drug references to insanity-inducing marijuana go a long way in explaining why the tobacco industry has had such a long stranglehold on American lungs... Watch "Assassin of Youth"--you'll triple your entertainment without the use of mood enhancers!

"Assassin of Youth" aka "The Marijuana Menace" is a cheap exploitation movie, obviously filmed quickly with low-paid actors. However, unlike the worst of such films of the era, there are some legitimate acting talents in this one. The lovely Luana Walters, who in my opinion should have become a much bigger star in Hollywood, has substance and screen presence while being able to actually act. Despite her talents she was often wasted in typical Hollywood fashion in low-budget westerns simply because she had some genuine horsemanship ability, having grown up around horses. Its sad that the movie industry has used and thrown away so many talents for such superficial reasons. Another cast member with a long Hollywood career was the multi-talented Fay McKenzie, who portrays the evil cousin with verve and impact. But in this movie you mostly encounter laughably bad acting by unknown actors being handled by the director in hurry-up fashion.

Another distinction of this particular exploitation movie is that marijuana is clearly portrayed as a threshold drug and not a "Deadly Narcotic" as is so forcefully stated in bold headline letters in the ridiculous and preachy "Reefer Madness". Marijuana is portrayed here as being used to introduce youth to hard drugs, and the hard drugs are being purveyed by hardened organized career criminals, as they were then and still are today.

So this film is old, cheap, bad and all that. But it has a few redeemable qualities that made it at least watchable for me.

What a disappointment for peek-show fans. The best this exploitation flick could manage is a couple hiked up skirts and a bout of implied nudity. Big deal. I could get as much from old I Love Lucy skits. And what about the hysterical effects of the demon weed. The best they could do here is roll around the floor like a bunch of happy worms. Even the acting from the main actors is too good to be laughable. Actually the best part is gossipy old lady Henrietta zooming out of her drive-way on a gas belching putt-putt, like some Hell's Angel on training wheels. Oh sure, there's some of what you'd treasure from these goofy films—bad acting, worse dialogue, and uptight moralizing, but basically the production is too good to be good.

Just like many young people, a group of teenage friends enjoy a partying lifestyle, drinking, dancing and smoking weed. However, the devil of the drug starts as a bit of fun but soon they are living the consequences. During a night of partying that leads them to naked frolicking on the beach, one girl drowns while another ends up pregnant from a moment of casual sex. The pregnant girl gives up her baby as unwanted and continues her lifestyle, getting into harder drugs and getting more and more into the world of her dealer.

Unlike many other viewers on this site, I did not deliberately turn to this film to have ironic laughs at it but more out of interest. I had seen clips of this film played in modern documentaries (Grass for example) and easily derided and, in fairness, it is easy to do because they are dated and rather corny but just to watch it with an agenda to mock it is to do the film (and yourself) a disservice. It is easy to forget that this was one of many attempts to control drug use in the 1930's, the Government turned to movies as part of trying to educate the public. Looking at it now of course, the film is pretty extreme in its depiction of the consequences– it does show the vague good side of drugs, the feelings that it gives you etc but it makes the partying out as a bad thing and ignores that the consequences for every user will not be as extreme as this film tries to portray as the norm for even an one-time casual user; like Bill Hicks said 'never robbed nobody, never shot nobody, never lost one single job. Laughed my *ss off, and went about my day' (I'm paraphrasing).

In terms of its value as a film, it is of course pretty weak. The direction is OK but the production values are low even for the period; some shots are really badly lit, the film crackles and jumps around a lot due to frequent dropped frames and the soundtrack cuts in and out quite badly. The acting is also only average; it would be easy to criticise the actors for how quickly they take their characters from clean cut down to junkies but that is not their fault – they were only doing what they were told and I did think that they did do an OK job. Let's not forget that this is not a movie – it is an educational film and even today the production values and acting within educational films is still pretty dire; the last one I was a short film on confined space entry with William Shatner – hardly a piece of art!

Whether or not you agree, I have seen some of this type of film that actually do show the appeal of drugs in a reasonable fashion (The Pace That Kills did OK I felt) but this one is just far too one sided. The nearest it gets to actual thought is to begrudgingly admit that the kids have a good time, but that's it, no other though as to the reasons or the appeal and it obviously ignores the fact that bad things won't always happen. The film is clearly aimed at parents more than children because I can't imagine many teenage boys watching a group of girls get naked and being very open to ideas, who would say 'parties with naked girls? Nope – not for me thank you'! If I had been told that weed brought you into this sort of party then I would have started puffing a lot sooner than I did – all it does for me is make me sleepy, hungry and laugh, with rarely a naked 19 year old girl anywhere to be seen.

It does what it intends to do – scare without anything in the way of actual information and in doing this it damages whatever good it could have done. I'm sure that even in the 1930's people looked at this and saw it as a very one-sided morality piece as opposed to an educational film. Imagine doing one about alcohol and suggesting that even one drink (not intentionally excessive drinking) would lead you to bar fights, unemployment, broken marriages and homelessness! This is not to ignore the fact that drinking can destroy lives (or even nights out) but to pretend that it is not generally OK would damage your case and it is the same here. It comes across as moral hand wringing and, even though its intentions and aims are good it just becomes heavy handed and really poor both as a film and a piece of social education.

Overall, this is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, but if you only watch it to get ironic laughs while you smoke some puff then you are not giving it a chance or meeting it on its own ground – that of the mid-thirties. The production is average at best – poor lighting, a poor script, simplistic characters and a real biased spin to the story and, by being so blindly one-sided, it damages its value both at the time and now. A cheap, terrible film – but I could have forgiven it that if it had had educational value and had done some good – it didn't.

This is a bad movie that purports to be an educational film designed to warn America about the menace of marijuana use. However, like almost all the so-called "educational" films of the 30s and 40s, it was really a shabby little film designed to be snuck past the censors of the Hays Office. In 1934, the major studios all agreed to abide by the dictates of a stronger Production Code--eliminating sex, nudity, cursing and "inappropriate" plots in films (these had actually been relatively common in films in the early 30s). However, in an effort to sneak in smut, small studios created films to shock adults when they learn about terrible social ills, though they were REALLY intended to titillate and slip adult themes past the censors! Such films as CHILD BRIDE, MAD YOUTH, REEFER MADNESS and SEX MADNESS were all schlocky trash that skirted past the boards because they were supposedly educational. Even though they were laughably bad, they also made money due to low production costs and because they offered nudity, violence and sordid story lines--all in the name of education!

ASSASSIN OF YOUTH is a bit more watchable and entertaining than the average grade-z expoitational film. While it DOES feature a brief glimpse of nudity and plenty of over-the-top scenes, it also occasionally actually has some decent acting (I love the old man who owns the soda fountain--he's great) and writing that make it rise slightly above the rest of the films of the genre--particularly towards the end.

It's the story of two sisters--one is wild and the other just really stupid. The really stupid one is the heir to her grandmother's will and she stands to inherit a lot of money--provided she stays out of trouble and is a "nice girl". If not, then the local drug-dealing skank (her cousin) will inherit it because no one knows that this blonde floozy is evil. So it's up to this rotten cousin to do everything she can to destroy the stupid lady's reputation. First, when the stupid lady falls in the lake (thus allowing the audience a cheap thrill when she flashes her boobs), the bad cousin pushes the stupid girl's clothes into the fire (where the had been drying). As a result, she had to go home in only a coat. Second, on two separate occasions, the cousin slips her drugs and makes everyone in town think she's an addicted slut. However, when a nice reporter gets involved, he is able to rush in and save the day at the end--convincing everyone that the lady is only a dim-wit, not a slut or drug user!!

So let's talk about the bad--because after all, that's why people today would approach this film--wanting to see and laugh at the bad. There is a very prudish character who at first glimpse looks a lot like Margaret Hamilton from THE WIZARD OF OZ. Again and again, they show the exact scene of this old biddy on her motor scooter and it's super-reminiscent of the scene of Hamilton riding her bike (all that was missing was the ominous music). Her silly performance and the frequent use of this footage became comical. Second, the dialog in this film by the dumb girl is among the funniest in film history. Here is just one example:

Dumb Girl taking a sip of a spiked drink--"Gee this tastes funny". Sleazy Guy--"Don't worry--just drink it". Dumb Girl--"Okay". (as she sucks down a mickey).

With dialog like that, is it very surprising that again and again this idiot gets in trouble and nearly loses her inheritance?

Now understand that the Dumb Girl doesn't get all the rotten dialog--there's plenty for others as well. Such as when the doctor is called because the Dumb Girl's sister is "in a bad way" after using pot. When her mother asks the doctor how the girl is, he declares "she's a hopeless psychopath"--all because of the evils of marijuana!!

Sadly, there might have been a good reason to make such a film--after all, drugs do make people really stupid and ruin a lot of lives. But this film is so anti-marijuana that is tells us that it is much worse than heroin or pills. This over-statement might have potentially encouraged kids to avoid the dreaded pot and stick with "safer" drugs, like morphine, heroin or god knows what!! My assumption, though, is that most pot-heads just watched the film for a good laugh.