4/20 Feature: Reefer Madness (1936) + stoned shorts
April 20, 2024
Grand Illusion CinemaSeattle, WA
The infamous anti-marijuana scare film presented from a rare 16mm print.
Also shown was High on the Range, a 1929 cutdown of the 1924 Notch Number One, an anti-weed Western. Suitably surreal cartoons rounded out the program.
During the preshow, reefer songs from the 1930s and ‘40s played over a slideshow of anti-marijuana propaganda imagery and newspaper clippings from the same period.
Reefer! Women cry for it! Men die for it! SEE! Youthful marijuana victims! WITNESS! Unspeakable depravities of drug-crazed abandon! DIG! That crazy piano playing! YES! The most infamous anti-weed scare movie in history will boggle your bong-fried brain! NO! None of its crap is true! WOW! It is hilariously terrible! A stoner must-see! ONE PUFF AND YOU’LL BE HOOKED!
Originally produced as a “cautionary tale” by a church group (probably), Reefer Madness backfired spectacularly. Shot as Tell Your Children, first it was retitled and recut for the sleazy exploitation circuit, then retitled again and eventually forgotten. Then in the 1970s, pro-legalization groups started showing it as a fundraiser. Spreading like a contact high, it became a cult hit for generations of pot heads, and the very namesake of fact-free, impotent prohibitionist hysteria.
Shown from a rare 16mm print, along with stoned cartoons and shorts.
Among the shorts included in the program will be a rare print of High on the Range, one of the very earliest anti-marijuana scare films, originally released in 1924. Before the show, selections of 1930s and ‘40s reefer songs will be played.
Come celebrate 420 and legal weed in Washington with a taste of this mad chronic nug. (Please always enjoy cannabis responsibly.)
“Its reputation is well earned. …You’ll look long and hard before you find a dope movie more hysterically alarmist, more flagrantly deceitful than Reefer Madness.” – 1,000 Misspent Hours
“The granddaddy of all ‘Worst’ movies.” – Leonard Maltin
“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! ...The scenes and incidents, while fictionalized for the purposes of this story, are based on actual research into the result of Marihuana addiction.” – from the film’s Prologue
