Misinforming, pompous, self-righteous (in the figure of the school official played by Joseph Forte), TELL YOUR CHILDREN (better known as REEFER MADNESS) is usually pushed as one of the worst films ever made. It made the Medved Brothers FIFTY WORST FILMS book, along with such dreck as ROBOT MONSTER, but is revived and revivable more than most of the titles in that list/book. Why?
My guess is that it is more than the idiotic view of marijuana cigarettes and drug addiction. Or the sometimes ridiculous dialog (why would some teenager state that he never drinks that stuff, meaning he never drinks sodas?). I think it is the fascination this film brings to us because it has things working for it, and it is unique for it's time and place, and it does give us a view of what the public of the 1930s would accept or reject for discussion.
I mentioned a few days ago that the movie FLESH AND THE DEVIL (from the 1920s) had a bad script which should have built up on a theme of homosexual love between Lars Hanson and John Gilbert, the close friends competing for Greta Garbo. But, as I said, the America of Calvin Coolidge would not tolerate open discussion of homosexuality. So the two male stars had to use their all to show their friendship was deeper than a friendship.
Similarly drug addiction was not a topic of deep discussion in the 1920s or 1930s or earlier. Yet it existed. Mark Twain, in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, mentions Charles Webster, his business partner whose mistakes caused the failure of their publishing house, as addicted to over-the-counter drugs, and states that in America (in the 1890s) it was easy to become a self-poisoner this way. That comment is the sole one I have ever found in 19th Century literature regarding drug addiction, and Twain's Autobiography was not completely published until the 1960s, edited by Charles Neider.
The movie record is tricky. I have seen only two films that mention drugs at all. One is Charlie Chaplin's EASY STREET, where the tramp (here a policeman confronting Eric Campbell and his gang in a slum) accidentally sits on a needle with some drug (cocaine, I suspect) and it gives his adrenalin a lift. The other is another Chaplin film (whose title I unfortunately can't recall) wherein somebody is shown using the "notorious nose powders". Leave it to America's greatest writer and the English-born film giant to be the only two who had the guts to discuss the matter.
But aside from them there was nothing. No film of stature was made of the trafficking in drugs until TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH...IN THE 1940s! Hard to believe isn't it? Yet we know, if studying the history of organized crime and earlier criminals, that gangs did deal in drugs. It was even then a big business. Capone had a whole section of his empire in Chicago devoted to drug sales, along with prostitution, with illegal booze, and with union racketeering. But it rarely was talked about. Can anyone recall a film with Robinson or Cagney or Raft or Bogart dealing with drugs?
The Chinese opium trade was an exception: but it was basically seen as involving Chinese addicts only, not most Americans (a very naive view, but one clung to by most Americans).
Now into this hole comes this two-bit film which tries to tackle the threat of drugs to American Youth. It would not be until Samuel Fuller's UNDERWORLD USA in the 1950s that the subject is tackled again so forcefully (Fuller, being a better director, and having Cliff Robertson and Robert Emhart in his cast, does better with the subject).
So from want of any alternative, REEFER MADNESS is in a unique position to be notable from the start. It also is lucky to have at least two notable actors. Dave O'Brien is better recalled for the many Pete Smith comedy shorts he did, but his "Ralph" driven crazy to kill another character by reefers is his best remembered performance. Actually, while we realize today that reefers don't do that kind of damage to most people as this film suggests, O'Brien shows by his skittishness and twisting precisely what drug addiction to say cocaine or morphine would do to people - particularly when he is forced into hiding and is somewhat going cold turkey at times. He had done his homework, if the screenwriters did not.
The other was Carleton Young. Young would become among the last actors adopted in the John Ford circle in the late 1950s and early 1960s, most notably in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE and SERGEANT RUTLEDGE. Under that master's hands he gave wonderful performances. His performance as the drug dealer Jack Perry is a fair one, given the lesser director he has here.
So the film does have some things going for it, even if it over the top in condemning reefers over stronger drugs. I know it is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not the worst film in the world - it's the best bad film of the 1930s.
My guess is that it is more than the idiotic view of marijuana cigarettes and drug addiction. Or the sometimes ridiculous dialog (why would some teenager state that he never drinks that stuff, meaning he never drinks sodas?). I think it is the fascination this film brings to us because it has things working for it, and it is unique for it's time and place, and it does give us a view of what the public of the 1930s would accept or reject for discussion.
I mentioned a few days ago that the movie FLESH AND THE DEVIL (from the 1920s) had a bad script which should have built up on a theme of homosexual love between Lars Hanson and John Gilbert, the close friends competing for Greta Garbo. But, as I said, the America of Calvin Coolidge would not tolerate open discussion of homosexuality. So the two male stars had to use their all to show their friendship was deeper than a friendship.
Similarly drug addiction was not a topic of deep discussion in the 1920s or 1930s or earlier. Yet it existed. Mark Twain, in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY, mentions Charles Webster, his business partner whose mistakes caused the failure of their publishing house, as addicted to over-the-counter drugs, and states that in America (in the 1890s) it was easy to become a self-poisoner this way. That comment is the sole one I have ever found in 19th Century literature regarding drug addiction, and Twain's Autobiography was not completely published until the 1960s, edited by Charles Neider.
The movie record is tricky. I have seen only two films that mention drugs at all. One is Charlie Chaplin's EASY STREET, where the tramp (here a policeman confronting Eric Campbell and his gang in a slum) accidentally sits on a needle with some drug (cocaine, I suspect) and it gives his adrenalin a lift. The other is another Chaplin film (whose title I unfortunately can't recall) wherein somebody is shown using the "notorious nose powders". Leave it to America's greatest writer and the English-born film giant to be the only two who had the guts to discuss the matter.
But aside from them there was nothing. No film of stature was made of the trafficking in drugs until TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH...IN THE 1940s! Hard to believe isn't it? Yet we know, if studying the history of organized crime and earlier criminals, that gangs did deal in drugs. It was even then a big business. Capone had a whole section of his empire in Chicago devoted to drug sales, along with prostitution, with illegal booze, and with union racketeering. But it rarely was talked about. Can anyone recall a film with Robinson or Cagney or Raft or Bogart dealing with drugs?
The Chinese opium trade was an exception: but it was basically seen as involving Chinese addicts only, not most Americans (a very naive view, but one clung to by most Americans).
Now into this hole comes this two-bit film which tries to tackle the threat of drugs to American Youth. It would not be until Samuel Fuller's UNDERWORLD USA in the 1950s that the subject is tackled again so forcefully (Fuller, being a better director, and having Cliff Robertson and Robert Emhart in his cast, does better with the subject).
So from want of any alternative, REEFER MADNESS is in a unique position to be notable from the start. It also is lucky to have at least two notable actors. Dave O'Brien is better recalled for the many Pete Smith comedy shorts he did, but his "Ralph" driven crazy to kill another character by reefers is his best remembered performance. Actually, while we realize today that reefers don't do that kind of damage to most people as this film suggests, O'Brien shows by his skittishness and twisting precisely what drug addiction to say cocaine or morphine would do to people - particularly when he is forced into hiding and is somewhat going cold turkey at times. He had done his homework, if the screenwriters did not.
The other was Carleton Young. Young would become among the last actors adopted in the John Ford circle in the late 1950s and early 1960s, most notably in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE and SERGEANT RUTLEDGE. Under that master's hands he gave wonderful performances. His performance as the drug dealer Jack Perry is a fair one, given the lesser director he has here.
So the film does have some things going for it, even if it over the top in condemning reefers over stronger drugs. I know it is no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not the worst film in the world - it's the best bad film of the 1930s.