Browse: Home / Year of the Month: REEFER MADNESS

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright
  • Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Let's Get Weird
  • The High and Low of Flaherty's 20s: NANOOK and MOANA
  • New Hollywood Got Old

Year of the Month: REEFER MADNESS

Posted By Anthony Pizzo on September 24, 2019 in Features, Short Articles | Leave a response

“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!”

 

Everything about Reefer Madness exists in the realm of a fever dream, a mix of surreal half-truths (eight-truths?) and an ever-shifting reality that extends from the text of the film to the metatext surrounding its very creation. For example: no one is certain when the movie actually came out. It says 1936 on the title card, though some sources insist it didn’t see daylight until 1938. Regardless, there are suggestions that the version of the film we all know today is the result of reshoots after the film was bought by an exploitation filmmaker known as Dwain Esper, who bought the original version sometime after its release and re-released the new version in either 1938 or 1939. I can find nothing to indicate just how much of the film is the result of reshoots, and whether the film as we know it is different enough from its alleged original to disqualify it as a 1936 film. Then again, for a film so unconcerned with the truth this is perhaps a moot point.

 

Because, naturally, this film is full-to-bursting with shit, although you may notice that the opening crawl makes no claims to any kind of factual basis. As with a lot of right-wing nonsense this is a story not about what is true, but what feels true, the old “Truthiness” that has become the bane of our existence in 2019. It would be a waste of time to break down every falsehood in the film, but it is worth pointing out two of them. First: “marijuana/marihuana” was never a an actual word associated with the cannabis plant, and seems to have been concocted wholesale by anti-drug advocates of the time looking to add a little xenophobic spice to their moralistic crusade. (The now out-of-place H is a dead giveaway, since they had no idea how Spanish worked)

 

The second, even more interesting falsehood: about halfway through the movie the so-called doctor from the wraparound segment appears in the film, and has this exchange with a Bureau Official.

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. 
Apparently, despite sounding utterly Made Up, this little anecdote has some basis in truth… albeit a truth already saturated with fiction. The case they are alluding to is that of Victor Licata, a 21-year old boy who murdered his 5 family members (parents, two brothers, 1 sister) with an axe on October 16, 1933 in Tampa, Florida. You’ll notice the age discrepancy right away, of course, because a young boy committing such an act works up more unadulterated outrage than an adult man doing the same. (Bonnie and Clyde were 24 and 23, respectively, when they were murdered by police the next year) As for the marijuana angle: in the immediate aftermath there were unattributed claims of an addiction, and afterward both press and police stated that it may or may not have been a factor, but we should probably ban it anyway, just to be safe.
Hilariously enough, the film’s tendency to play fast-and-loose with the truth is what ultimately caused it to become a ward of the public domain. It was during the 1970s when the film had been rented to be shown during a pro-marijuana fundraising event that someone noticed the film had an improperly-filed copyright. (No wonder, what with the film’s alleged exploitation overhaul) It’s a fitting end for a patched-together film built on lies and shoddy filmmaking. I didn’t even get into the particulars of the film, but they’re secondary. Besides, if you haven’t seen it, you wouldn’t believe me if I just told you about it. This is madness you’ve got to experience for yourself.
Posted in Features, Short Articles | Tagged 1936, Bad Movie, Cannabis, Marijuana, Reefer Madness, year of the month

About the Author

comicgenious2000@yahoo.com'

Anthony Pizzo

Anthony Pizzo was born, and has filled the years that followed with books, film, television, and Internet. He went to college at Florida State University and majored in film at the College of Motion Picture, Television, & Recording Arts, where he made several short films with titles like “This Is A Fill Up” and “Morgue: a love story with guts.”

He is a writer, editor, and cartoonist, writing and drawing the webcomic “Safety Goggles,” about a group of future mad scientists going to college that can be found at http://www.anthonypizzo.com/html/safetygoggles.html

Related Posts

Walt, barely old enough to be her fatherDisney Byways: Alice Comedies→

Year of the Month: Désirée I. Guzzetta on the Infectious Complexity of THE HOST→

Year of the VAMPIRE WARS: BATTLE FOR THE UNIVERSE Previews→

Year of the Month: Haley Ioppini on HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30651 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26383 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18883 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17643 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9537 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • The two Charlies

    Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

    May 21, 2022 / Gillianren
  • Because people will take pictures of everything

    Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music

    May 20, 2022 / Gillianren
  • Tunnel vision.

    The Friday Article Roundup: Let’s Get Weird

    May 20, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • Flaherty of the Slightly Lower North.

    The High and Low of Flaherty’s 20s: NANOOK and MOANA

    May 19, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • It's all art

    New Hollywood Got Old

    May 18, 2022 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright - https://t.co/vbiIwSb677, 4 hours ago
  • Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music - https://t.co/RFbAVEsBBN, May 21
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Let’s Get Weird - https://t.co/wSqIzaXLpE, May 20

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!