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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
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Did You Know?
Trivia
The film became one of the earliest cult comedy 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.
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Goofs
During the high-speed drive immediately preceding the pedestrian accident, the car passes the same tire shop three times and the same billboard and gas station twice.
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Quotes
[
last lines]
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]
Dr. Carroll:
or yours!
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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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Alternate Versions
Two scenes take place in the apartment shortly before Mary's death. In the first, Blanche takes Jimmy into Jack and Mae's bedroom and seduces him. The second came a few minutes later, after the act has occurred, and both act groggy, as though sex while high gives you a hangover. Both of these scenes were often removed because of regional obscenity laws, but they survive today seemingly intact.
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Connections
Referenced in
Van Nuys Blvd. (1979)
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Well last night my friend and I smoked some of the demon weed and watched Reefer Madness. It was so obvious that it was made by people who had not only never been stoned, but had never even seen someone who was stoned. For a start the dancing in the apartment; Impossible! I couldn't move my legs. My friend and I figured out that the only way someone smoking dope could rob somewhere would be to go into a shop to buy munchies, pick up a banana and absent mindedly hold it like it was a gun, then get distracted by the sweets at the counter. When the cashier asked if they wanted anything else they stared at the sweets and said "Give me everything".
While I know from my own research that Cannabis has been linked, however tenuously, to certain mental problems so has sugar, coffee alcohol and television. But what I do know for certain is that while on dope you are incapable of hurting anybody else, even if they are hogging all the munchies.