Marihuana

Marihuana

Marihuana

Marihuana

This film surprised me, the script, as far as literary prowess goes, is actually very well done. Amazingly, the more things change, the more some things stay the same...like the hellish descent into drug addiction. Pot is really not the focus here. The focus is on one woman's downward spiral as she slowly becomes consumed by drugs. It starts out as one big party, everyone having fun. They are skinny dipping, going to clubs, dancing...hanging out in lover's lane. Then it starts to fall apart. One girl drowns at a beach party and shorty afterwards the leading character discovers that she is pregnant...most likely having gotten that way at one of the pot parties her new "friends" (insert dope dealer here) have generously provided for one and all. Her boyfriend vows to take care of her and get a job. Of course he goes to work for the drug dealer and gets himself killed. The girl puts the kid up for adoption and becomes a dealer and addict herself. Later, she conspires to kidnap her rich sister's kid only to discover that the child she nabs is her own biological daughter. The end is swift and ugly. One thing that caught my attention right away is the portrayal of the characters. They aren't one dimensional bad guy/good guys. Everyone is portrayed as being a real person. The baddies have some redeeming qualities and the good guys make lots of bad decisions. This film has some depth to it...quite a bit actually. Its also a pretty accurate take on the drug culture...I know, I've been there. Its really not a silly film at all but a pretty stark example of the hell that your life will become if the party doesn't end in a timely fashion. I liked this film quite a bit. The scene where the boyfriend got killed is still relevant today. Lots of young guys getting gunned down for the sake of people getting a buzz. Just a fact. That was a powerful couple minutes of film. An intelligent person can take more than he might expect from this movie.

Just about everyone's heard of the film "Reefer Madness", but back in the Thirties there was a whole slew of these 'educational' drug flicks - "The Marijuana Menace", "She Shoulda' Said No", "Cocaine Fiends", and this one - "Marihuana". They're all pretty much on a par and picking a 'best' one pretty much becomes a function of which one you just watched. It's been a while now since I saw the others I've just mentioned, but as always, you have to wonder what audiences of the era must have thought about this kind of stuff. It all translates rather hokey and over the top today, especially in the connections made between smoking marijuana and immediately falling into a life of depravity and decadence. Sometimes you know, it takes a little longer. The hook for this flick without question is the unrestricted nudity by the giggle girls who take it all off and go for a midnight swim at the beach. Given the year it was made, you might think that there would only be mere flashes of selected body parts to titillate the viewer, but breasts and behinds are right out there in all their glory. One girl even does a complete twirl at a distance from the camera, so you might say there's even some frontal nudity on display, but that's probably a stretch. Still, there's not a lot left to the imagination. As in all these stories, things happen at a pretty rapid pace once things start to go south for the main character. In this case, teenager Burma Roberts (Harley Wood) smokes a joint, gets pregnant, suffers her best friend's death by drowning, gets married, gives up her baby for adoption, starts dealing dope and eventually gets hooked on heroin herself. If that's not enough, she concocts a scheme with her pushers to kidnap her sister's adopted daughter. One guess who that adopted daughter really is. Well the opening narrative states that this story was drawn from an 'actual case history', and if it was, fine, but I get the impression that all of these exploitation flicks were made on the fly without too much thought to get in the way. Like this one, they're all a hoot and a half, and even though they might have been intended to make you get serious about the subject matter, it's hard to imagine today that they had any effect at all on the intended audience. If you've never seen one you really owe it to yourself to check out what the fuss was all about back in the day.

This film is pure propaganda. It pretty much over exaggerates how marijuana (or marihuana) can ruin lives and cause kids to do all sorts of lewd things. Hogwash! This film came at a time when the federal government was looking for something else to blame the problems of the country on, so they picked marijuana. Also, this film plays like a bad version of Stella Dallas when Burma has to give up her daughter to give her a better life. This film also suffers from bad acting, a bad script and even bad jokes (check out the scene where the drunk spills his beer at the beginning).

Can anybody identify the dance they were doing in the opening scene? The film opens with some brief but beautiful cinematic dance moments. It's not nearly as well-shot or dynamic as some of the Lindy Hop footage that turns up later in the 20th Century. But it is some of the best dancing done by such staid characters Iv'e seen in an American movie. The American men danced like Europeans or South Americans. It's all for naught though. That little two-step marijuana mania ultimately leads to lies, cheating, stealing, fighting, death and ironic tragedy. I appreciate the plot devices employed by early directors who could not rely on CG and explosions every act. There is a nice bit of storytelling going on here in spite of the moralizing and *-shaming.

For the first 10 minutes of this film about the "dangers" of pot- smoking, we see a group of fun-loving white kids in a tavern, getting drunk. There we meet our central character, Burma (or is it Myanmar now?), a beautiful teen-aged blonde. After she and her boyfriend Dick get good and smashed, they go out parking, at which point he literally tries to rape her. A justifiably angry Burma storms out of the car and starts to walk home, but soon gets back in and snuggles up to her smug, entitled, *-grabber of a Dick. The next night, Burma and company discover "giggle weed," the smoking of which causes them to make out with strange men at a party, then strip naked and go swimming in the ocean, laughing uproariously the whole time. Problem is, one of the girls doesn't come back until her drowned corpse washes up on the beach. Next thing you know, Dick's dick has gotten Burma knocked up. Desperate for a job to support his soon-to-be family, Dick goes to work for the local crime boss as a marihuana dealer and is shot to death on his first run. After that, things pretty much go to hell for Burma. Made the same year as the much better-known REEFER MADNESS, but without half its camp value, MARIHUANA takes a darker turn in which smoking a joint or two leads to sexual promiscuity, alcoholism, heroin addiction, unwanted pregnancy, and ultimately a gun battle with the cops. And all because Burma was jealous that her family's attention went to her big sister Eileen. I half-expected Burma to shout, "I accuse my parents!"

An Innocent young woman is seduced into pot parties,a wedlock baby, and eventually, into pushing drugs for a professional ring. Naturally, no one expects artistry from these exploitation flicks. Instead, audiences expected more titillation than usually allowed under Hollywood's restrictive Production Code. Of course, the liberties were granted under the guise of educating the public on the menace of demon weed. However, I doubt anyone went to see this epic for its hyped-up pot warning. Instead, Dwain Esper's mid-1930's production has more peek-a-boo than usual, with a lot of * scampering and uplifted skirts. Surprisingly, however, it's a better movie than at least I expected. Except for the exaggerated pot party, it plays pretty much like a standard Hollywood cheapie of the time. Actress Wood does a good job going from innocent fun-loving teen to hardened drug pusher. At the same time, director Esper adds some nice unexpected touches, such as Burma's descent reflected in her choice of shoes, a bad guy joining the innocence of the little girl, plus the final symbolic shot of the door closing. Also, the script integrates its central twist effectively into the narrative. Of course, these are minor virtues in an otherwise shoddy production. Still, they should not be overlooked. All in all, this cheapie plays more legitimately than most of its competitors from that campy category of sex, dope, and retribution.

Teenagers beware! It could happen to you! Mix alcohol and the evil giggle weed and you could end up dead. Or even worse, you could become a hard-core drug pushing heroin addicted drug dealer! So is the moral of the 1936 exploitation film "Marihuana". We even get to see a little bit of 1930's T&A! Now what more could you ask for?? :) I enjoyed watching Burma (Harlene Wood) go from happy go lucky teenager -to pregnant misfit- to "Blondie" the drug dealer, all in less than an hour! A fun little film and certainly a time capsule of days long past! For fans of these types of movies, this film is a classic and a must see!