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Storyline
Film that relates the story, as told by high school principal Dr. Carroll to parents at a PTA meeting, of the scourge of marijuana. The tale revolves around Mae and Jack, accomplices in the distribution of marijuana, who manage to entice the local high school kids to stop by Mae's apartment to smoke reefer. The lives of all who are involved with this menace are inevitably shattered. One man becomes so addicted to the killer weed that the guilt over framing a teen for murder causes a judge to order him to be committed for life to a mental hospital. Dr. Carroll closes by advising us to not incur the same tragedy.
Written by
Rick Gregory <rag.apa@email.apa.org>
Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
The Sweet "Pill" That Makes Life BITTER!
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Did You Know?
Trivia
The origins of this film have been the subject of controversy. Although this film is not in the copyrighted registry, the opening card reads: Formerly "Tell Your Children" - An G and H Production - Copyrighted" (though without a copyright date). American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films 1931-1939 establishes its production date as 1938, even though some erroneous modern sources, including IMDb, apparently confusing it with some similar film, occasionally, but erroneously, give 1936. Some say it was produced by a church group in the wake of the Victor Licata 1933 murder case.
Dwain Esper sued a distribution company in the 1960s, claiming that he had produced the film for the US Army and that he was the legal copyright owner. He lost the case.
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Goofs
In the very first street scene, extras in the background are waiting for their cue to walk along a side walk in the background.
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Quotes
Mae:
What time is it?
Jack:
Time to get up and give this place the goin' over. It looks like the marines have landed.
Mae:
Well, that bunch last night was high enough to take over the marines and the navy!
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Crazy Credits
FOREWORD: The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently 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! Its first effect is sudden, violent, uncontrollable laughter; then come dangerous hallucinations - space expands - time slows down, almost stands still ....fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances - followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions... leading finally to acts of shocking violence... ending often in incurable insanity. In picturing its soul-destroying effects no attempt was made to equivocate. The scenes and incidents, while fictionized for the purposes of this story, are based upon actual research into the results of Marihuana addiction. If their stark reality will make you think, will make you aware that something must be done to wipe out this ghastly menace, then the picture will not have failed in its purpose.... Because the dread Marihuana may be reaching forth next for your son or daughter....or yours....or YOURS!
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Connections
Referenced in
Docventures: Hamppu (2013)
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Because of 70's NORML propaganda falsely claiming that the FBI sponsored Reefer Madness, most viewers believe that this Exploitation classic was meant to be taken seriously. Not so! Thelma White (Mae) has noted in interviews that the producers and director Louis Gasnier asked the cast to "hoke it up." The famous "Faster, Faster" scene is, in fact, a direct parody of a similar scene in the classic musical 42nd Street (a scene in which Dave O'Brien--Ralph in Reefer Madness--played a chorus boy).
So why make a cautionary tale, but do so tongue-in-cheek? Simple. To get around the Hays Code and show more skin than the Code allowed...but also to capitalize on the public's fear of drugs. Either way, the producers made a ton of money on the Exploitation circuit--more than covering their costs for this relatively expensive sub-Poverty Row production.
Made over the course of 3 weeks (most Exploitation films were shot in a few days), using an experienced director and a couple of talented actors who went on to have respectable careers in Hollywood, Reefer Madness is quite simply the finest Exploitation film to come out of the 30's.
The film's funny, is it? Well, the folks who made it thought so too. And they laughed all the way to the bank.