Sunday, December 21, 2008

Reefer Madness (1936)

66 minutes in B&W
Other Names: Dope Addict, Doped Youth, Love Madness, Tell Your Children, The Burning Question

Director(s): Louis J. Gasnier
Writer(s): Lawrence Meade, Arthur Hoerl, Paul Franklin

Propaganda 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.

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