Marihuana & Narcotic

By 1936, exploitation avatar Dwain Esper had already directed what in many modern critical circles is considered the worst movie of all time (Maniac), not to mention the two bizarrely inept anti-drug films restored here in this Blu-ray reissue double feature. Narcotic and Marihuana showcase the post- and pre-code Esper, whose twisted morality plays would presage the warped Christploitation of later moralizing filmmaker lunatics like Ron Ormond and Estus J. Pirkle. In terms of technical directorial skill, Esper makes Ed Wood look like Alfred Hitchcock. But while Narcotic can be legitimately said to possess some 'so bad it’s good'-type attributes, Marihuana is simply a noisome hodgepodge of scenes featuring insipid high society types carousing around on 'giggle weed,' intercut with all the horrible things that happen to those unfortunate souls who frequent 'dope parties.' Here, a bright high school girl who gets hooked on the devil’s weed is Esper’s conduit for preaching the evils of drugs. Her tragic fate clumsily confirms the now-familiar 'gateway drug' theory: that milder forms of narcotics like marijuana lead the user down a path that naturally culminates in heroin addiction and a career in kidnapping and extortion. But Narcotic, as befits its pre-code production date, is actually the more outrageous of the two features, despite Marihuana’s memorable scene in which stoned society ladies take a moonlight skinny dip. Even more blatantly moralistic than Marihuana, Narcotic’s Victorian orientalist message argues that Westerners are more susceptible to drug addiction than those from the East. Esper makes a cautionary example of the lead character, huckster salesman William G. Davies, a once-brilliant medical researcher who falls into disrepute because of his desperate drug habit. The good doctor is initiated into the opium lifestyle by Gee Wu, a Chinese friend (a white actor in yellowface, naturally) of Davies, who takes him to a Chinatown opium den to experience the exotic pleasures of the poppy while constantly spouting what can only be described as sub-Confucian claptrap. And of course it wouldn’t be an Esper production without the obligatory drug orgy scene in which hedonistic socialites blurt lines like 'it takes a needle for me to get a bang' and then proceed to snort, inject, and smoke everything in sight. The best that can be said about these films is that they still retain some bizarro camp value in Esper’s presumably serious ambitions to educate the public. Not Recommended. (M. Sandlin).