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2.8 KiB
Plaintext
1 line
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
Why no one changed their name after appearing in "Tell Your Children," aka "Reefer Madness," I'll never know. Perhaps some of them did - I only checked a few names.<br /><br />This is possibly the worst acted, campiest, most absurd movie ever made, a laugh riot from beginning to end. A cautionary tale is told to parents of high-schoolers (who must have all married late - they looked really past it) about the dangers of marijuana use among the young. Marijuana here is spelled marihuana and is described as worse than heroin or cocaine - one puff and you're hooked. The description of the symptoms is that first you break into uncontrollable laughter, then you become frenetic, and then, your mind altered, you do insane things. In this story, there was a hit and run where this kid just mowed down somebody in the street as if he wasn't there, a near-rape, and an accidental shooting blamed on an innocent young man who is brought to trial.<br /><br />Well, I'm from the '60s, so right away, you know I'm howling at this thing. This marihuana must have been laced with amphetamine, because one thing you never see in stoned people is frenetic behavior unless it's toward food. It's mind-altering, all right - you totally zone out. These kids were dancing like maniacs. Also, there were no deep intakes of the weed which is then held a bit before expelling the smoke - no, these people were smoking this stuff like cigarettes except they weren't inhaling. At all. You never saw so much smoke.<br /><br />Now to the performances. Let's start with handsome Dave O'Brien as Ralph, one of the older procurers of the young, who then introduced kids to this powerful substance. O'Brien is one who DID change his name when he turned to comedy writing. I would have done it right after this film. He had the uncontrollable laughter down pat - he did it constantly. And the film was made so cheaply, every time he took a puff, the exact same clip of him laughing was shown again. It was a totally unbelievable laugh, too. By the end of the movie his eye makeup was smeared so he looked like a raccoon. I'm not sure what that look was supposed to represent. I was actually going to write more about the performances. I'll just leave it that they were horrible and amateurish.<br /><br />I gave this a 4 for camp value ONLY. It is a ridiculous movie. I am not a believer in smoking marijuana, I am not a believer in substance abuse, and our kids have enough trouble living their lives without getting into problems with marijuana, drugs, or alcohol. However, did people really believe this to be the truth in 1936? Or was this movie deliberately done as a gross exaggeration? If so, it is unconscionable, not to mention misleading, particularly to tell people that marihuana is worse than cocaine and heroin. Give me a break. I can only hope that when this film was released, people laughed as hard as I did. |