TheExpatriate700 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.

asinyne 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.

sol **SPOILERS** One of the many exploitation movies made in the 1930's about weed pot or marijuana the film "Marihuana" is mostly about a sibling rivalry between two young sisters Berma and Eline who come from one of the towns most upright and blue blood families. Eline is engaged and to be married to local rich well connected and also blue blood Morgan Stuart while Berma is in love with a local boy who's both poor and out of work Dick Collier. With Eline being her moms favorite Berma rebells by partying and going out with the wild crowd who drink and do pot and have naked sex parties at night. One Saturday evening after having a wienie roast on the beach the roast turns deadly when one of the girls Joann, Berma's best friend, who was drunk and butt naked runs into the ocean and drowns. Meanwhile back at the beach house the rest of the girls at the party undress and run naked out on the beach skinny dipping into the cold waters with their boyfriends, fully dressed, chasing them. Alone and by themselves both Dick and Berma has a sexual tryst which later results in Berma getting pregnant.With the news of Joann's tragic death the local pot dealer Tony Sentello tells the young people at the party, who looked like they were in their early twenties at the least, to keep their mouths shut if they don't want to be taken away from their parents and put into a local orphanage. Dick wanting to get married to Berma and give their expecting child a proper name as well as a family gets a job working for Tony as a drug runner. On Dick's first day on the job he's shot and killed by the police as he picked up some pot from Tony's sidekick Nickie Romero, who's a dead ringer for actor Andy Garcia,on the waterfront. The very day that Dick was shot and killed Eline and Morgan were happily married at the town church.Giving her baby up for adoption Berma went to work with Tony and Nickie in their pot selling racket and later even went into selling the hard stuff, heroin, which she herself soon got addicted to. Leaving an apartment house after selling some heroin to a desperate woman, who gave up her engagement ring for the dope, Berma sees her Sister Elaine with her husband Morgan and their little girl Gloria. Berma gets this idea to kidnap Gloria and hold her for a ransom of $50,000.00 from her rich parents knowing that both Eline and Morgan wouldn't want this to become public with the person responsible for the kidnapping being a close family member. Going to get in touch with Morgan to get the ransom money Berma get the startling news from her brother-in-law that Gloria is not his and Eline's real child but she was adopted from an underground baby selling mill and she's really Berma's child that she gave up for adoption some three years ago.In a state of shock and emotionally destroyed Berma realizes that the one thing that she had over her hated sister Eline, a child of her own, she unwittingly gave away to her.Going back to the apartment hideout where her partners in crime, Tony & Nickie, were holding her daughter Gloria hostage Berma gives herself a "hot Load" injection in her leg. As she enters the apartment Berma finds that the police raided it, and arrested both Tony and Nikie, and rescued Gloria. With the drugs taking affect Brma slowly goes into shock and collapses and overdoses from "the hit" that she just gave herself.

preppy-3 Camp classic by exploitation master Dwain Esper. A clean cut bunch of obviously over-age "kids" become addicted to marijuana after one puff! They giggle uncontrollably, engage in nude skinny-dipping (mild female nudity), sex and it all leads to a drowning, alcoholism, heroin addiction, kidnapping, pregnancy and death. This is a very silly movie--another one of those ones where the people making it had no idea what they were doing. Most of the acting is terrible and the story is downright ridiculous at times (and hard to follow--the surviving prints are in terrible shape). Still it's not worthless. It moves quickly (only 57 minutes), there were actually some pretty clever directorial touches and Harley Wood was pretty good in her lead role. So it's worth a look if you're curious. On par with "Reefer Madness".