El cigarrillo de la locura

I doubt that anyone still takes this movie seriously these days but it's funny seeing how people went paranoid about pot in the 30's. There are lots of wildly exaggerated or plain wrong comments and accusations in it. Best among them are that pot is more dangerous than Heroin, it will make you violent and eventually incurably insane.

The film details how smoking pot changes the lives of a couple of all-american teenagers. In fact, they're so clean cut, nice to their parents and just plain perfect that you're actually happy when their lives turn bad. On the way there we see some really funny overacting and the way that middle America thought people behaved after smoking pot. A single puff immediately has you in hysterics, after a couple of minutes it's down to pre-marital sex (hey, that's enough to get me hooked!), followed by a violent paranoia and finally of course, insanity.

The film is fairly standard propaganda stuff and follows the three important propaganda ingredients to a T. It's badly acted, exaggerated in hammering home a couple of points and frightening the uninformed about the fact that no one is safe from this great danger. It is however fairly lengthy for a propaganda movie and it's not as ridiculous as I expected. Although there are some really funny scenes that rightly make this a classic.

Thelma White is the actress who really makes this anti-drug flick memorable. She portrays "Mae", who runs a drug den out of her late 30s apartment. Most of her scenes are shallow and brief but at the end she redeems herself in a memorable confession scene. The camera moves up close to catch her emotions and she really delivers when she says she didn't mean to hurt anybody to the DA. I don't know what happened to Thelma White before or after but she and the rest of the cast try valiantly to make this low-budget exploitation film work. "Reefer Madness" has become a joke movie--one everyone is expected to howl at and parody. That's unfortunate but understandable. I love to watch these roadshow exploitation movies from the 30s and early 40s and wonder about the fate of the cast and the crew, wonder about where they got their wardrobes and how were they hired? Was their a "Want Ad" in the Hollywood Reporter or did the film makers use their own friends, neighbors?

My review refers to the new, colorized version of REEFER MADNESS (released in April, 2004.) Originally called TELL YOUR CHILDREN, this 1938 movie's been known as REEFER MADNESS since at least the seventies. There are three very good reasons to watch this DVD: The colorization makes the bland visuals of this propaganda film bearable; the commentary track by members of the colorization team is informative and witty; and the other commentary track (by Mike Nelson of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000) allows the lone viewer to feel something of the effect of sitting in a room with a friend goofing on a movie. I have not watched the two other extra features, which are a new trailer for REEFER MADNESS and a new short called GRANDPA'S MARIJUANA HANDBOOK. I'll check out the new trailer, but the brief few seconds I saw of GRANDPA looked like pro-marijuana propaganda, which bores me. REEFER MADNESS is also presented in the original black and white version, so this is a truly complete DVD package. When the DVD menu is on the screen, marvelous recordings from the jazz-age play in the background. (The songs, of course, are related to marijuana, and they provide counterpoint to the put-your-blinders-on tenor of the movie. I wish there were a separate track consisting of such songs and that they were listed so as to be selected and played. For film buffs, the commentary on the colorization is the best part of this DVD after the colorization itself. Of course, the movie is unintentionally funny, and Bob Nelson's wisecracks are fun, but I loved learning the WHYs and WHEREFOREs of the restoration of this movie. The colorization is superb. Each character blows smoke of a hue to match his or her personality. Location shots show the garish colors of the depression-era billboards in the background. This restoration is vibrant. REEFER MADNESS is, as I've said, unintentionally funny, but it is also deeply dishonest, made, as it was, by people bent on bullying the young into behaving. Have the restorers painted a mustache on this monsterpiece? No. What has been painted on it is a warm smile. And that makes it worth watching, finally.

Oh my gosh, my post-war generation was still under the influence of this tripe and believed one puff would ruin a lifetime. No wonder the 60's generation talked about a credibility gap as they puffed away. This is a bad movie highlighted by the ridiculous, and no one in front of the camera or behind seems to care. Do the producers really believe this burlesque. Or maybe they're shilling for the liquor lobby then regaining its post-Prohibition popularity, or maybe the plastics lobby worried about the manufacturing possibilities of hemp oil.

In a way, it's too bad the movie comes across now as a joke. Pot may not be the Devil's brew, but it does dull awareness, and in that sense remains a risk. So hyping the effects has had a reverse effect that also needs to be considered. Nonetheless, the movie's smug authorities from school principal to courtroom judge to official narrator are enough to get me to light up and puff away. Plus they're not even good for a laugh.

Believe it or not, but I just bought this a couple of days ago on DVD for a little over six bucks! And trust me, Reefer Madness is worth the money, since it is one of the funnier propaganda films to come out of the 1930s. While the DVD doesn't contain a lot of extras, you do get a short biography on the star of the film, along with a look at the original poster for Reefer Madness and trivia questions! If you want to check this movie out some time, I would advise waiting until the Special Edition comes out in April. Why? Because MST3k host Mike Nelson will provide audio commentary for the film! I'll definitely have to get the new DVD if Nelson himself is involved. And really, this film is rife for commentary. Right from the start we got a pre-Star Wars crawl which basically states while the film's characters and plot are entirely fictional, they are based on a true story which could happen to you...or you...or YOU! It is here where I laughed the hardest, as later on things get pretty grim in a Days of Our Lives sort of way. I especially liked how the word "marijuana" was spelled "marihuana" in the film. I have no idea when or why the spelling of this word changed, but it was still amusing. Also, the DVD's scene index lists one of the scenes as "principle's office." They couldn't even spell the word "principal" right! I mean, you can't actually go to the office of a principle, can you? Darn right ya can't! Anyway, back to the movie. As I said, it's a very enthusiastic propaganda film which lies back and forth about the effects of "marihuana" so as to scare parents into discussing the drug with their children (hence the original title, Tell Your Children...think of them, please!!!). What are some of the effects of the deadly, demonic, and just plain EVIL marihuana? Well, first you laugh (gasp!), then hallucinate (double gasp!), and then you begin committing acts of random violence (triple gasp!). The teens are all portrayed by men and women with receding hairlines and wrinkles, making me quite confused. I literally sat there wondering, "Why would adults be hanging out with these younger kids? Oh...they're all supposed to be kids? Um, okay, sure. What the heck." The principal (principle?) in the movie is equally funny, as during the murder trial of a kid who smoked dope and supposedly shot his girlfriend he lists many instances when he thought the kid was high. His testimony: Bill started laughing during a very serious discussion on Shakespeare (blasphemy!), and also missed the ball by a good 3-4 feet during a tennis match (good holy gravy!). How would this kind of testimony hold up in court? Maybe the kid just remembered a good joke during class and isn't any good at tennis? Did anyone think of that, huh? Huh? As for the murder itself, it's also completely moronic and unbelievable. First off, the gun is aimed at the floor but somehow manages to shoot the girl in the back. Then when we see the wound it's about the size of a mosquito bite with no blood whatsoever. Ah, the wonders of 1930s Hollywood makeup! Much more awaits the viewer of Reefer Madness, including a crazed piano player who's "hot" on the "dope" and about to "crack" (these kids with their drug lingo!) and an odd scene where the main character's little brother pines about his model airplane for what seems like an eternity. Seeing as how this story is supposedly being related to us by the principal, why would he have bothered to include the aforementioned scene? And how did he know about it in the first place? Did he interrogate the little brother? Hoo boy, so many questions about continuity. Oh well, I guess I'll leave them to be answered by you good folks. Enjoy! 1/4 stars