Marihuana is a far better movie than the more well known Reefer Madness. It has a better story and is actually funnier than the cult classic. It still has the narmish hilarity, but couples it with much more talented filmmaking. Dwain Esper was bringing his A-game this time around.The film follows a young woman gulled into attending marijuana party. After a drug-induced tryst with her boyfriend, her life is thrown into chaos by a pregnancy. What follows is a descent into crime and degeneracy.Marihuana succeeds on a number of levels, with a far more compelling story and better acting than its counterpart. Although both films were labeled "Adults only" in their time, Marihuana actually delivers with some nudity and graphic (for its time) violence. Just on the level of exploitation, it does better.Furthermore, the film is reasonably well acted. For example, the drug dealers, while falling into ethnic stereotypes, actually come across as more human than the hardened protagonist or her family. In a scene involving a kidnapping, they actually try to make the child happy, while the child's "upright" family refuse to pay her ransom because she's adopted. Who are we supposed to root for here? The film has more than its share of unintentional humor, with some truly hilarious dialogue during the pot party. The exaggerated Italian stereotypes are also fun. Marihuana is a much better choice for when you get the camp munchies.

An Innocent young woman is seduced into pot parties,a wedlock baby, and eventually, into pushing drugs for a professional ring.Naturally, no one expects artistry from these exploitation flicks. Instead, audiences expected more titillation than usually allowed under Hollywood's restrictive Production Code. Of course, the liberties were granted under the guise of educating the public on the menace of demon weed. However, I doubt anyone went to see this epic for its hyped-up pot warning. Instead, Dwain Esper's mid-1930's production has more peek-a-boo than usual, with a lot of nude scampering and uplifted skirts.Surprisingly, however, it's a better movie than at least I expected. Except for the exaggerated pot party, it plays pretty much like a standard Hollywood cheapie of the time. Actress Wood does a good job going from innocent fun-loving teen to hardened drug pusher. At the same time, director Esper adds some nice unexpected touches, such as Burma's descent reflected in her choice of shoes, a bad guy joining the innocence of the little girl, plus the final symbolic shot of the door closing. Also, the script integrates its central twist effectively into the narrative.Of course, these are minor virtues in an otherwise shoddy production. Still, they should not be overlooked. All in all, this cheapie plays more legitimately than most of its competitors from that campy category of sex, dope, and retribution.

This film surprised me, the script, as far as literary prowess goes, is actually very well done. Amazingly, the more things change, the more some things stay the same...like the hellish descent into drug addiction. Pot is really not the focus here. The focus is on one woman's downward spiral as she slowly becomes consumed by drugs. It starts out as one big party, everyone having fun. They are skinny dipping, going to clubs, dancing...hanging out in lover's lane. Then it starts to fall apart. One girl drowns at a beach party and shorty afterwards the leading character discovers that she is pregnant...most likely having gotten that way at one of the pot parties her new "friends" (insert dope dealer here) have generously provided for one and all.Her boyfriend vows to take care of her and get a job. Of course he goes to work for the drug dealer and gets himself killed. The girl puts the kid up for adoption and becomes a dealer and addict herself. Later, she conspires to kidnap her rich sister's kid only to discover that the child she nabs is her own biological daughter. The end is swift and ugly.One thing that caught my attention right away is the portrayal of the characters. They aren't one dimensional bad guy/good guys. Everyone is portrayed as being a real person. The baddies have some redeeming qualities and the good guys make lots of bad decisions. This film has some depth to it...quite a bit actually. Its also a pretty accurate take on the drug culture...I know, I've been there.Its really not a silly film at all but a pretty stark example of the hell that your life will become if the party doesn't end in a timely fashion. I liked this film quite a bit. The scene where the boyfriend got killed is still relevant today. Lots of young guys getting gunned down for the sake of people getting a buzz. Just a fact. That was a powerful couple minutes of film. An intelligent person can take more than he might expect from this movie.

The first time I came across this film was at my local CD/DVD store and it gained my attention just for the "very direct" title however just that. Later I bought the book "Film Posters: Exploitation", a very recommended series of books by the way, and the poster of Marihuana not only appears inside it, with the information and stuff, but also illustrates the back cover of it. Upon that this film was more interesting to me, as many others that are mentioned in that book, but that DVD disappeared from my local store (the space for R1 DVDs has been reduced to introduce the Blu-ray format and obviously there are mainly blockbusters and TV series on that format). I just came across with Marihuana again a few days ago at a bookstore and definitely I had to get it just for that curiosity. I knew what kind of film I was going to watch (to me is odd to see a 1936 film with the following stuff as advertisement: WEIRD ORGIES. WILD PARTIES. UNLEASHED PASSIONS!) and you can imagine just by reading the little synopsis from the DVD. "With a central message that using marihuana incites the user to extreme cruelty ad license", is something from that synopsis. And the way the film begins says everything; it begins with a sort of advertisement that indicates that in America the narcotic problem is growing and that the following real story shows that problem.The story begins showing the typical stereotype of young boys and young girls who spend their Saturdays in hanging out and drinking some beers. So we see the classic mother worrying about the behaviour of her daughter and stuff. And we have the adults who see these young people perfect for their business. When the protagonist girl smokes marihuana and after that she laughs to the camera a couple of times is when the beginning of the end is. We watch the consequences and I'm pretty much agreed with user planktonrules about the things that happen once on drugs, about the naked ladies running in the beach. Coming back to those consequences in short, that girl ends as a drug dealer after her boyfriend gets killed during his first job for the same man who gave the drugs to his friends and girlfriend and who will be the boss of his girlfriend. So everything moves quite fast to end with what the creator thought was kind of the strongest message against the use of drugs. A film that goes straight to its point, during only one hour we watch many consequences of the use of drugs like some deaths. A drug dealer, kidnaps, etc. A film that took advantage of the times and wanted to give its damn message, and with a title like that, is a film to make us laugh. We really can have fun with this cult film and in its own craziness (ridiculousness) I wanted more crazy (ridiculous) stuff like that scene of the pay of the kidnapping. Picture this, the drug dealers, including our protagonist, kidnapped a little girl so there's the meeting to interchange the money for the little girl. The father says that they are not going to pay because after all, the little girl who lives with them and who they supposedly love is not their biological daughter!!!!!!! So is like they don't f****** care about the little girl who lives with them and who thinks they are her parents!!!!! And that mentioned "strong" message ends with the fact that our drug dealer protagonist kidnapped the little girl who was the daughter of her sister but actually the little girl was her daughter. Damn, Marihuana could have been so much more fun however it was worth to watch it just for that curiosity.