Reefer Madness
1938 · 68 min · exploitation · cult
Reefer Madness (1938), the anti-marijuana warning film that turned into a midnight movie. Piano, hysteria, ruin. Watch the full cult classic free online.
A high school principal explains to a hall of parents what a single marijuana cigarette will do to their children, and the film duly supplies a piano played at increasing speed, a hit and run, a shooting, and a fall from a window. Nobody involved is kidding, which is exactly why it is funny now.
It was shot in 1936 as Tell Your Children, financed as a church-backed morality picture, then bought by the exploitation distributor Dwain Esper, recut and retitled for the roadshow circuit.
In 1971 Keith Stroup of NORML bought a print out of the archive for a few hundred dollars and toured it around college campuses. The warning became the party.
Free to watch via internet-archive.