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 1936 PG / Comedy PSA Directed by: Starring: |
- Women Cry For It - Men Die For It!
Summary Capsule
- A public service announcement that may indeed shock, frighten or terrify you... into laughter!
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Justin's Rating: Last dance with Mary Jane, one more time to kill the pain
Justin's Review: According to the 1936 informational film, Reefer Madness, marijuana causes the following effects:
2. Your eyes will sink into their sockets and your face begin to resemble a ghoul. At this point, you’re ready for a trip to Hot Topic.
3. You suddenly find girls attractive (if you’re a guy), or guys attractive (if you’re a girl), and wish to partake of lip-mashing with them. You have relinquished the ability to say no to sex from now on.
4. An insatiable love of jazz music, which must be danced to in a wild frenzy.
5. Drug dealers who dress up in fancy three-piece suits.
6. You find death kinda funny. Other people’s deaths.
7. Horribly fast driving (45 mph) and a terribly strong urge to aim for pedestrians.
8. Fist- and gun-fights. Get your mitts off of my reefers!
9. Suicide over your enormous guilt from using reefers.
10. Insanity, deserving of an extended stay in a mental institution.
11. Jail time and executions. And…
12. A decrease in study habits at school, in addition to missing a basket while practicing with the basketball team.
Now, not being a dope fiend myself, I shall only hazard a guess that the makers of Reefer Madness worshipped at the altar of exaggeration a slight bit. Yes, marijuana isn’t really that great for you — unless you are fond of cancer, short-term memory loss, and a craving for midnight munchies — but there’s something so erroneous in seeing a PSA that blatantly states that this is the most hideous, demonic drug ever produced, far worse than your kiddies’ crack cocaine, acid and meth.
This 70-minute masterpiece comes in the guise of a "shocking" and "daring" peek into the seedy underworld of reefer use. I don’t know how you imagine the drug culture to be, but I can pretty firmly guess that it isn’t contained to a middle-aged couple’s living room, where Fred and Wilma Smith seek to corrupt today’s youth (and make a bit of pocket change) by pushing the drug on teens they meet in the malt shop. There’s an overly long intro, both in the form of scrolling text and in a narrative device that has some pickled educator informing parents about how their kids are going to hell by Tuesday, at the latest, unless this marijuana mania is nipped in the bud. After that, however, we get to the good stuff — see above. It’s a cautionary tale that might as well been filmed in an alternate universe where the streets are made of Angel’s food coke and the sky coated with a glitter pen.
This film is so hilariously over-the-top that you can’t help, no matter what your stance on "reefers", to laugh at all the ways they try to scare you away. For me? It’s number four. There’s no way I would ever take a drug that would be a gateway to an appreciation of jazz. That’s a one-way ticket to hell, my friends.
 Step Two: auditioning for Michael Jackson's Thriller video
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- If you still frame the newspaper which flashes on screen just before the verdict is announced at the end of the film, underneath the headline is another front-page news story which bears the smaller headline: DICK TRACY, G-MEN LEAD SUCCESSFUL RAID.
- The kookiest jazz music hop you'll ever see
- Hey, that's pretty good "running over a pedestrian" effects
- The opening titles spelling it "marihuana"
Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
No! Quit your addiction to end credits!
Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]
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The origins of this film have been the subject of controversy for years. Some say it was produced by a church group, while others insist that it was made for the Army.
Although produced as a serious anti-drug exploitation film, it became a cult comedy hit during the late 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the earliest hits during the golden age of the "midnight movie" in which theaters, especially those near colleges, would run the film at special screenings late at night during weekends.
"Tell Your Children" was the original title of the film. The original film was much more tame, until one Dwain Esper found it, bought it and added a few scenes (mostly sexual stuff and skin) to repackage and resell it.
Groovy Quotes
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Jack: Oh, why don't you button up your lip? You're always squawkin' about something. You've got more static than a radio.
Jimmy: Let's go, Jack. I'm red-hot!
Jack: Better be careful how you drive, or the first thing you know you'll be ice cold.
Bureau Official: Here is an example: A fifteen-year-old lad apprehended in the act of staging a holdup - fifteen years old and a marijuana addict. Here is a most tragic case.
Dr. Carroll: Yes. I remember. Just a young boy... under the influence of drugs... who killed his entire family with an axe.
Mae: What do you want?
Ralph: Bring me some reefers!
Dr. Carroll: Failing this, the next tragedy may be that of your daughter's... or your son's... or yours... or yours... [points to camera] or yours!
Dr. Carroll: I'm going to ask you a straightforward question: isn't it true that you have, perhaps unwillingly, acquired a certain habit through association with certain undesirable people?
Opening crawl: The motion picture ou are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug - a violent narcotic - an unspeakable scourge - The Real Public Enemy Number One!
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This review page was last updated on 2.4.06
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