La reine du narcotique

An Innocent young woman is seduced into pot parties,a wedlock baby, and eventually, into pushing drugs for a professional ring.

Naturally, no one expects artistry from these exploitation flicks. Instead, audiences expected more titillation than usually allowed under Hollywood's restrictive Production Code. Of course, the liberties were granted under the guise of educating the public on the menace of demon weed. However, I doubt anyone went to see this epic for its hyped-up pot warning. Instead, Dwain Esper's mid-1930's production has more peek-a-boo than usual, with a lot of nude scampering and uplifted skirts.

Surprisingly, however, it's a better movie than at least I expected. Except for the exaggerated pot party, it plays pretty much like a standard Hollywood cheapie of the time. Actress Wood does a good job going from innocent fun-loving teen to hardened drug pusher. At the same time, director Esper adds some nice unexpected touches, such as Burma's descent reflected in her choice of shoes, a bad guy joining the innocence of the little girl, plus the final symbolic shot of the door closing. Also, the script integrates its central twist effectively into the narrative.

Of course, these are minor virtues in an otherwise shoddy production. Still, they should not be overlooked. All in all, this cheapie plays more legitimately than most of its competitors from that campy category of sex, dope, and retribution.

A young woman slowly becomes a dope pusher.

Most people have heard of "Reefer Madness". But if you wanted to see another film that was anti-marijuana in 1936, look no further than "Marihuana", which (not surprisingly) was made by some of the same people.

This film is not the cult classic of its step-brother, and with good reason. It is far less humorous, with the only really notable thing about it being a nude swimming scene that never would have passed the censorship code. In fact, the film is not even really about marijuana so much as a drinking party gone wrong and the bad choices made after the fact.

Based on the script and technical aspects of this film, I should have rated it "one star." But I'm giving it a five because it's so campy that it's worth a few laughs. And I am not a doper...I've never even inhaled! This is definitely the poor relation of "Reefer Madness," which has higher technical quality and is more entertaining overall. "Marihuana" is just jaw-droppingly awful, with weed blamed for virtually all vices, many of which are shown on screen (including...gasp...spraying a woman's backside with soda!). The budget was so low that the producers used classical music clips instead of a real soundtrack, so the dangers of dope are underscored by Strauss, Liszt, and others.

This is just a nasty little low-budget exploitation film, using the dope scare as an excuse to titillate the audience.

**SPOILERS** One of the many exploitation movies made in the 1930's about weed pot or marijuana the film "Marihuana" is mostly about a sibling rivalry between two young sisters Berma and Eline who come from one of the towns most upright and blue blood families.

Eline is engaged and to be married to local rich well connected and also blue blood Morgan Stuart while Berma is in love with a local boy who's both poor and out of work Dick Collier. With Eline being her moms favorite Berma rebells by partying and going out with the wild crowd who drink and do pot and have naked sex parties at night.

One Saturday evening after having a wienie roast on the beach the roast turns deadly when one of the girls Joann, Berma's best friend, who was drunk and butt naked runs into the ocean and drowns. Meanwhile back at the beach house the rest of the girls at the party undress and run naked out on the beach skinny dipping into the cold waters with their boyfriends, fully dressed, chasing them. Alone and by themselves both Dick and Berma has a sexual tryst which later results in Berma getting pregnant.

With the news of Joann's tragic death the local pot dealer Tony Sentello tells the young people at the party, who looked like they were in their early twenties at the least, to keep their mouths shut if they don't want to be taken away from their parents and put into a local orphanage.

Dick wanting to get married to Berma and give their expecting child a proper name as well as a family gets a job working for Tony as a drug runner. On Dick's first day on the job he's shot and killed by the police as he picked up some pot from Tony's sidekick Nickie Romero, who's a dead ringer for actor Andy Garcia,on the waterfront. The very day that Dick was shot and killed Eline and Morgan were happily married at the town church.

Giving her baby up for adoption Berma went to work with Tony and Nickie in their pot selling racket and later even went into selling the hard stuff, heroin, which she herself soon got addicted to. Leaving an apartment house after selling some heroin to a desperate woman, who gave up her engagement ring for the dope, Berma sees her Sister Elaine with her husband Morgan and their little girl Gloria. Berma gets this idea to kidnap Gloria and hold her for a ransom of $50,000.00 from her rich parents knowing that both Eline and Morgan wouldn't want this to become public with the person responsible for the kidnapping being a close family member.

Going to get in touch with Morgan to get the ransom money Berma get the startling news from her brother-in-law that Gloria is not his and Eline's real child but she was adopted from an underground baby selling mill and she's really Berma's child that she gave up for adoption some three years ago.In a state of shock and emotionally destroyed Berma realizes that the one thing that she had over her hated sister Eline, a child of her own, she unwittingly gave away to her.

Going back to the apartment hideout where her partners in crime, Tony & Nickie, were holding her daughter Gloria hostage Berma gives herself a "hot Load" injection in her leg. As she enters the apartment Berma finds that the police raided it, and arrested both Tony and Nikie, and rescued Gloria. With the drugs taking affect Brma slowly goes into shock and collapses and overdoses from "the hit" that she just gave herself.

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!

Many will no doubt watch this film because they are hoping for a similar film to REEFER MADNESS (one of the most laughably bad anti-drug films of all time). While it isn't quite as dopey and unintentionally funny, MARIJUANA is probably a worse film when it comes to being exploitational all in the name of educating our parents. While on drugs, the characters don't madly play the piano or run amok quite as much as they do in REEFER MADNESS--but they DO run amok in the most ridiculous manner. Once they begin puffing this "wacky tobacky", all the characters begin laughing non-stop and acting like total idiots. In addition, the ladies respond by taking off all their clothes and running nude along the beach at night!! And, because of this, the film is very, very explicit--showing lots of "naughty bits" (A Monty Python term for nudity). This film would probably receive an R-rating today if shown in the theaters because of the nudity--and this must have been VERY shocking to audiences of the day. However, audiences today would also be a bit shocked at how extremely unattractive and unappealing these ladies were--I kept wanting to yell at the characters to "put it back on--PLEASE!!". If you are looking for a cheap thrill, this film won't provide it!

Now when they aren't showing people running amok, the film actually is much more watchable. Those who sell the drugs are indeed users, but they manage not to behave like morons, so they are more convincing. The story of one of them, Blondie, is somewhat compelling and mildly interesting--though not nearly enough to make up for the rottenness of the rest of the movie.

This film is so bad that I would recommend it for a bad movie festival you can stage with your friends. You know, the ones where you laugh at just how bad and stupid films can be. They didn't even bother trying to get decent music for much of the film--using classical tunes that were completely inappropriate just because they were in the public domain.