Narcotic

Narcotic

Narcotic

Narcotic

Moviecut—Narcotic

Harry Cording, best known for playing heavies, has the lead as a doctor who opens a free clinic, then discovers he is running out of money. His Chinese friend, named Gee Wu, thinks that Cording needs some relaxation, so he takes him to the local drug den where they smoke dope. Cording then invents something called "Tiger Fat," which is supposed to cure everything. Too bad it doesn't work on bad acting, directing, writing, editing, and photography. Cording hawks his "cure" in a few scenes, interspersed with some other scenes of his distraught wife, played by Joan Dix. If you're like me, you've never heard of Dix, probably because she can't act. There is a dope party where everyone gets loaded, some by snorting, others by smoking, and/or injecting. Several people take a "bang," and one guy tells a dame not to get the "ding." None of this nomenclature made any sense to me. Characters simply appear out of nowhere, and we have no idea who they are. Several scenes are obviously taken from silent films because they are sped up. One snake eats another snake. Gee Wu takes Cording's wife to some guy who looks like Mark Twain, in an attempt to help Cording - which makes no sense, since Wu got Cording in this mess in the first place. And on it goes. The actor playing Gee Wu (J. Stuart Blackton Jr.) looks like Spock from the original Star Trek TV series.

Another "message" film by Dwain Esper, also written by his wife, Hildegarde Stadie, as was Maniac. It is an example of pre-code Hollywood, and has a place in film history. The message, is, of course, about the evils of drugs. It is interesting that the Asian in the film was play by a Caucasian, none other than J. Stuart Blackton Jr., who, along with D.W. Griffith, was a pioneer in the development of the motion picture art. The film also features Jean Lacy, who as Jeanne Gray, had her own talk show on TV from 1949-51. She didn't like the way the young announcer introduced her, "And Nowww, Thhhe . . . Jeeeeannne . . . Graaaay . . . " Thayoung announcer, who wanted his own show, was none other than Johnny Carson. At least it wasn't as silly as Reefer Madness.

Of the various low-budget exploitationers of the 1930s, I was only familiar with the similarly drug-related TELL YOUR CHILDREN (1938), better-known by its alternate title REEFER MADNESS – actually produced by Dwain Esper, the co-director of this one and a film-maker whose notorious reputation (for lack of talent) rivals that of Ed Wood himself! Here, then, we ostensibly have the case history (cue exhaustive exposition in the form of title cards) of a doctor who indulged in various types of drugs, starting out with opium (suggested by the stereotypical wise-yet-evil Chinese) but soon progressing to heroin…all of which ends with him losing everything (living in a two-bit dive and eventually turning a gun on himself!). While I was expecting horrific hallucinations or (unintentionally hilarious) hyperbolic reactions resulting from the intake of drugs, all one got is an excess of dull talk which quickly exasperated this viewer long before the film's brief 57 minutes were up! Still, there were at least three scenes which have to be seen to be believed: a chauffeur popping pills while driving gets his car smashed by an oncoming train; the lengthy "drug party" itself with the participants freely sniffing coke and injecting heroin while dancing and bickering amongst themselves; and a completely irrelevant bit (obviously stock footage) of a couple of snakes fighting capped by the victor literally swallowing up the defeated reptile!

Dwain Esper produced this film in 1933 or 34, using a script written by his wife, Hildegarde Stadie. Hildegarde had baised it on the life of a sort-of great uncle of hers, Dr. William Davies, a drug addict and peddler of the cure-all "Tiger Fat." Her dialoge is actually pretty good for an exploitation film, yet the actors go through it too fast for it to register with the viewer. Narcotic is a really unique movie. For an exploitation film, it treats the subject matter with unheared of sincerity. Rather than showing teenagers as victims, this movie depicts adults, and follows one in particular, William Davies, though a good thirty years of his life. In other features like The Pace that Kills (1935), characters duck out of frame when they go to snort drugs. In a long party scene, a number of differant characters snort crack on camra (probably really sugar or something, but oh well), and there's even a painful close-up of a needle going into a vein to mainline. One also has to marvel at the production values. There's a number of complex shots throughout the movie, looking down from high angles at characters, looking straight up from the ground, looking into a room though the back of a blazing fire place. Scenes are shot from all differant angles and most use some sort of stock footage that doesn't match with the action. Nothing is seemless, and it's really hard to loose yourself in it. Yet that's the mark of Esper. Clearly he, or Vival Sodar't, was just directing under impulse, without worrying whether or not it would cut together smoothly. Concerning the stock footage, one scene that really stands out is a scene where a car collides head-first with a train. It was obviously shot in the early twenties (you can tell by the women's clothes) and was probably taken from another drug film: 1923's Human Wreckage. If this is the case, than it would be the only footage that survives from that film. All-in-all, Narcotic is an interesting slice of drug life in the thirties.

Although this movie is supposedly based on actual events, the production values of the film betray that it is yet another old exploitation film--the sort that were produced by fly-by-night production companies to prey upon the public's fear AND fascination with sex and drugs. But, since such topics could not generally get past the censor boards of each state, they were marketed as "educational" and shown to adults-only audiences. Some of the obvious problems with the film are the use of silent film footage (when shown on a normal projector, it runs too fast and looks odd), clips of a baby being delivered by c-section (for little apparent reason other than they happened to have the film and decided to shove it into the movie) as well as choppy editing and poor acting. It's obvious th was NOT a large budget production, but made 'on the cheap', so to speak. After showing a lot of seemingly irrelevant stock footage, the story begins. A Chinese man who looks about as Chinese as Eddie Murphy is talking with a couple American men. Later, one of them approaches this 'Asian' and requests that they do some opium together. So, they go to an opium den and hit the pipe. While this is pretty cheesy since the Chinese guy obviously ISN'T, the way they demonstrate opium and the paraphernalia is surprisingly accurate compared to the information you usually get in such films. Soon you see the two drift into a blissful stupor. Later, the American guy goes back for more and he's obviously hooked. How this turns him into a man who sells patent medicines is beyond me. The rest of the film is jam-packed full irrelevant film footage--including odd clips of sideshow freaks, speeding cars and, cats staring at snakes--once again, whatever they seemed to have on hand--slapping it all together and hoping to make a semi-coherent film. And, unlike the segment on opium, the drug information is, to put it charitably, histrionic! Supposedly wild parties and a guy ripping the dress off his wife when he ran out of drugs are among the more outlandish scenes in this film--that, by this point, has become an almost plot less mess. By then end, the opium addict is a complete and total mess and he begins quoting Bible verses about the danger of alcohol--as he calls out to God and then kills himself. Believe it or not, this scene actually is well done--with some dandy acting by the addict. But, sadly, it's about the only well made portion of the film! Some of the problems with the film were probably not originally in the film. Many times, the film appears to have little bits and pieces missing and as a result, the film is pretty choppy. Considering this was a Kino DVD, I assume this is simply the best copy they have as this company usually does a good job in producing excellent quality disks. It's obvious from my review that this is a terrible film. But, is it worth seeing--after all, some bad films are so stupid and clumsily made that they are fun to see and laugh at--especially with friends. Well, this film is stupid and you will laugh a bit at its horribleness--but it never quite reaches the same level of histrionics and stupidity of such cult classic bad films as "Reefer Madness". Still, it's good for a laugh or two and probably did little to educate anyone--especially with such lines as "Ladies, ladies...let's not get vulgar...YET!".

From the obviously Caucasian 'Chinaman' who introduces opium to the protagonist, to the patently absurd narcotics party scene, this film makes little attempt at realism, belying its claim that it accurately depicts the scourge of heroin addiction. Disguised as a public service type of message, it instead seeks to titillate the viewer, and is in this sense exploitive, prurient for its day, and intellectually dishonest. Nice background music, though, including passages from Wagner's Gatterdammerung and Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.