Reefer Madness

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Movie
German title Reefer Madness
Original title Reefer Madness
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1936
length 65 minutes
Age rating FSK o.A.
Rod
Director Louis J. Gasnier
script Arthur Hoerl
Lawrence Meade
production George A. Hirliman
camera Jack Greenhalgh
cut Carl Pierson
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Sex Madness

Reefer Madness ( dt. About joint madness ), the originally Tell Your Children ( Tell it to your children ) to be called, is an anti-cannabis film from 1936.

action

The film tells the tragic story of good high school students who rape, drive irresponsibly, kill themselves and go mad after consuming cannabis .

The film is about Mae Coleman and Jack Perry, among others, who sell marijuana to children and young people.

Bill Harper and Jimmy Lane visit Jack, who gives Jimmy a joint. This causes Jimmy to drive away with his car a little later and catch a pedestrian in the process, whereupon he commits a hit-and-run, while the pedestrian dies a little later. This crime does not seem to have any consequences for Jimmy at first.

Bill starts an affair with Blanche while Mary, Jimmy's sister, is offered a marijuana cigarette by Ralph Wiley, a mentally ill dealer. A little later Ralph tries to brutally rape her.

At that moment, Bill comes out of the bedroom after drugged, lewd intercourse with Blanche and takes Ralph. A fight breaks out and in the course of it a shot goes off that fatally hits Mary. Jack puts the pistol in the hand of Bill, who is lost in marijuana intoxication, and wakes him up, whereupon the latter believes that he has killed Mary. He is being tried and although Ralph tries to testify on his behalf, he is convicted of having gone insane from his marijuana use.

Jack wants to kill Ralph, driven by marijuana-fueled hatred, so that Ralph cannot reveal his perpetrators. When he visits him, however, Ralph wins the upper hand and beats him to death in the marijuana frenzy.

Ralph, Mae and Blanche are then arrested: Blanche jumps out of the window in a drug intoxication and falls to her death. Ralph is locked away as a criminally insane for the rest of his life, while Mae's further life is not discussed.

Eventually the words Tell Your Children will appear on the screen.

backgrounds

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The film was originally funded by a church group under the title "Tell your Children" and was intended to bring parents closer to the alleged dangers of cannabis use as a modern morality . A short time after production, however, the film was bought by a distributor of exploitation films , which brought the film to the market under a new title and with additional inciting scenes.

The film is characterized by numerous exaggerations and untruths, for example cannabis is described as "more dangerous than cocaine and opium". After using the drug one would quickly become addicted and then morally, mentally and physically deteriorate.

According to some sources, the film was funded by Harry Anslinger's Federal Bureau of Narcotics , or even by anti- hemp lobbyists like DuPont or William Randolph Hearst .

Reefer Madness is available in the US public domain and online.

Trivia

  • In 2004 20th Century Fox released a colored version of the film on DVD.
  • In 2005 the musical film Kifferwahn (original title: Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical ) came out, which this film served as a template. The film starred, among others, Kristen Bell , Christian Campbell and Neve Campbell .

See also

Web links

Commons : Reefer Madness  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files