Tell Your Children (1938)

good film but with many flaws

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

REEFER MADNESS is one of the infamous exploitation movies of the 1930s, an anti-marijuana "message" movie that also qualifies as a quasi-documentary movie as well as a sensation film. The complex structure sees a couple of straight-laced teenagers taking marijuana for the first time and becoming involved in a hedonistic world, while others succumb to the evils of the 'demon weed'. It's a low budget production for sure, one whose effect is to provoke outright laughter in viewers. Certainly the overacting and overdirection of the key sequences in the film can't be taken seriously by any right-minded viewer, thus awarding this film a 'cult' status.

You MUST see the original "Reefer Madness" before watching this, otherwise the parody aspect would be difficult to understand. This Is an excellent movie, a brilliant parody, superb satire, and although musicals are certainly not my bag, I even enjoy the tunes & dances. Please make sure you watch the original first, otherwise you'll not be able to appreciate the excellence of this gem! Skilled actors, great dancers and laughs by the bucket-load...what more could you want? Have a drink and a smoke before watching(over 21's only of course).

Ever since marijuana (aka pot, weed, grass, puff, Mary Jane, Bob Marley) was banned in the United States, the opponents to this ruling argue that marijuana really has no harmful affect on the human body other than being the equivalent of 4 Nyquil pills (or something like that). Well now you can shut those people up by showing them Reefer Madness an anti drug PSA that was made in the 30s, that actually raises more questions than it answers. With the evil maniacal story of these gangsters that gave the new evil drug to innocent teenagers that made them do horrible things like, run over old men on the streets who shouldn't have been there anyway, or laugh at things that nobody else is. These and many others are the basis that Reefer Madness uses to support it's argument. Reefer Madness is a film so exaggerated that it doesn't even feel serious. I know this was a different time but even in the 1930s this seemed over playing it. If you're a police officer looking for a good PSA to show kids then you'll have to look somewhere else. But if you're looking for a movie to make fun of, then Reefer Madness is a good choice.

Very funny, exaggerative, yet informing film on how society classified marijuana use in the first of half of the century. When the characters in this movie smoke marijuana, they react extremely, killing others, and acting completely insane. This movie also portrays the use of reefer as an addictive act, and directly stresses that marijuana be kept away from our youth (as defined by a scene in which an adolescent school-boy smokes marijuana at an apartment jazz party, finds his girlfriend being taken advantage of by another man who is acting marijuana-crazed, and then gets blamed for shooting them). This movie is a complete contrast to the way marijuana use is commonly viewed today. Like previously stated, it exaggerates the use of this drug purposely to be used as a scare-tactic to society of that time period. I would give this movie a 7.0 based on humorous portrayals, classification information, and comedic depiction.