Rating: R
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 11/08/2005
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD5.1/DD2
Run Time: 109 Minutes
Flags: Drug Content
Distributor/Studio: Showtime Entertainment
The made-for-cable
musical satire Reefer Madness is based on the award-winning play of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the notorious -- and deliciously awful -- 1936 anti-marijuana film originally titled
Tell Your Children. A smarmy lecturer (
Alan Cumming in the first of his three roles in the film) arrives in a typical small town of the late '30s to warn the populace of the dangers of the "evil weed," bringing along a lurid
propaganda film to dramatize his message. In broad, unsubtle, and hilarious strokes, the movie-within-a-movie shows how even a squeaky-clean pair of highschoolers named
Mary Lane (
Kristen Bell) and
Jimmy Harper (
Christian Campbell) can become hopeless dope addicts by succumbing to the lure of marijuana.
Reefer Madness is not only a savage skewering of the original black-and-white movie (some of the
musical's campiest lines are taken directly from the earlier script!), but also a devastating attack on what playwrights
Kevin Murphy and
Dan Studney consider to be the real reason that the 1936 movie was made: to frighten the public out of their wits in order to keep them under the thumb of an oppressive government. Thus, the
musical manages to take a number of not-so-veiled swipes at xenophobia, racism,
McCarthyism, the
Bush Administration's Homeland Security policy, and even the recent FCC clampdown on "offensive" TV fare (one of the film's highlights is a garish nightclub number featuring Jesus Christ). The ebulliently staged songs include
"The Stuff," "Down at the Ol' Five and Dime," "Lonely Pew," "Listen to Jesus Jimmy," "Mary Jane/Mary Lane," "The Brownie Song," "Tell 'Em the Truth," and the title number. Officially titled
Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, this film first aired April 16, 2005, on the
Showtime cable service.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Cart 0 items
