Reefer Madness (DVD)

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Each of the characters is an accepted stereotype: The handsome, innocent young man; the beautiful, innocent young girl; the older, experienced youth; the deranged piano player with an obsession for the devil's jazz; the dope fiends; and the pushers who lure naive youngsters to their apartment with promises of good, clean fun. OK, I admit to taking a guilty pleasure from the facial expressions of those under the weed's influence; both the guy early on and the girl later wear looks that are priceless. Enough to carry an entire picture? You're joking, right?

Video:
"Reefer Madness" has seen any number of previous incarnations on tape and DVD, but this restored edition is the best one I've seen yet in terms of its technical quality. That still isn't saying much, however, because the initial print was undoubtedly of substandard character to begin with. Anyway, the restorers have not only cleaned up the major age spots, lines, flecks, cracks, scratches, and whatnot, but they've provided the disc with the original black-and-white movie and a new colorized version as well. Usually, I abhor colorized films, but in this case the color adds a new element of sport to the proceedings by making the smoke the actors exhale appear in different colors. Sometimes they're breathing green smoke, sometimes pink, sometimes yellow. It adds to the cockeyed merriment of the occasion. Unfortunately, what the restorers couldn't make up for was the inherent fuzziness and blurriness of the original print and the soft image contrasts, in color or in black-and-white.

Audio:
Incredibly, and I'm not sure if it's part of the joke or not, the film's soundtrack is said to be remastered in DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. It all sounded like monaural to me, but what do I know? I didn't want to turn up the volume loud enough to find out if there was really anything coming from the rear speakers or even from the front left and right speakers because the audio was so bright, hard, and edgy. Still, the sound was quiet, with any possible background noise having been successfully muted out.

Extras:
Perhaps more important than the feature film are the two audio commentaries that accompany it. The first is with the Legend Film restorers who worked on the movie, and they generally have a good time mocking it. The second is with Mike Nelson of TV's "Mystery Science Theater 3000," who's an old hand at deriding bad old films. I listened to about a half an hour of each commentary and found them more entertaining than the movie under discussion. Next, there's a 1999 short film by Evan Keliher (sorry, don't know him) called "Grandpa's Marijuana Handbook" that has a few amusing bits in it. Finally, there are sixteen scene selections and a recently made theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken language offered, and English subtitles are available for those viewers looking to avoid the soundtrack.

Parting Shots:
So, "Don't Bogart that joint, my friend; pass it over to me," where it can be disposed of properly before it takes the life of yet another helpless victim. Our maximum-security prisons and state-sponsored insane asylums are overflowing with the wretched vestiges of young people whose degenerate lives began with that one first puff. All the same, if you really have to try it, take Bill's advice: Don't inhale.

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