For years, I have moved on the periphery of what I euphemistically like to call the patchouli community, that unmistakable group of friendly people known for their Rastafari hats, laid-back attitudes and preference for jam bands. These friends often excuse themselves for half an hour, muttering something about an appointment with a physician called Green, and then return wearing broad smiles and prattling about how suddenly they're very hungry.
When this happened the first few times in high school, I knew something had taken place wherever they had gone. Eventually I got wise, and my friends began a concerted effort to get me to accompany them on these little excursions. Did I ever take them up on the offer? I will leave that answer to my memoirs. But nothing I ever saw before or after my friends went off compares with what's depicted in the 1938 cult film Reefer Madness.
20th Century Fox re-released Reefer Madness on DVD last week, appropriately enough on April 20 (and if you have to ask why that's appropriate you're not anywhere close to the patchouli community. Hint: What are the numbers of the date?) For a film that has existed for many years as part of stoner legend and is regarded as the very model of high camp, it's underwhelming.
One reason could be the terrible acting, another perhaps could be its ludicrously poor production values. Actors' shadows from the studio lights are painfully visible in many shots, and almost all the outdoor action in the movie takes place on the exact same Generic Street Corner set.
Reefer Madness tells the story of a group of typical high school kids in Anytown, U.S.A., who fall victim to the devil weed. Bill, with his freshly scrubbed good looks and slicked-back hair, could stand in for any naïve youth. His friends coerce him into joining their pot-smoking parties, and in the confusions and plot machinations that follow, the teens go crazy and the sweet, virginal Mary is accidentally killed.
Mostly, Reefer Madness isn't so-bad-it's-funny bad; it's so-bad-it's-unwatchable bad. It's the kind of movie best turned on as background when attention is being focused elsewhere. Like on packing down a fat bowl, for example.
I concede that for my viewing of The Post's promotional copy I was not in the state of mind, shall we say, in which Fox intends for people to watch Reefer Madness. Being in that state of mind can only improve your viewing experience. This version of the film has been colorized in a palette that I think will especially appeal to the hookah crowd, in bright Jolly Rancher colors that contrast hilariously with the stilted acting and awkward editing.
On that same note, characters blow around a lot of smoke in Reefer Madness
some of it legal, some of it not, but the editors of this re-release have colorized it to help you determine which is which. When a jazz piano player, Hot Fingers Pirelli (He really swings out with a mess of jive ) creeps into a closet to burn one down, he takes a long draw and exhales a cloud of green smoke. Another character, Ralph, who is eventually driven criminally insane by his marijuana addiction, puffs on his reefers and produces a gorgeous lavender smoke. This was certainly done for the amusement of viewers who might be disgorging their own clouds of smoke as they half-watch, half-expostulate on how the universe could be, like, really small, y'know, and we wouldn't know it.
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Philip Ewing
