“EXPLOITATION AT ITS WOR—ER, FINEST!”

By Raymond Benson

There have always been what have been termed in the motion picture industry “exploitation films,” even back in the silent days. The late 1930s and much of the 1940s, however, saw a deluge of cheap, not-even-“B” pictures made, usually independently of Hollywood and marketed in guerilla fashion as “educational” adult fare. You know the type. Reefer Madness. Child Bride. Mom and Dad.

Dwain Esper was one of the most notorious directors who made these types of pictures in the 1930s. He was assuredly the Ed Wood of that decade. He purposely chose sensational subjects—drug use, sexuality—and produced them independently of Hollywood. The Production Code was in full force during most of his working years, so distribution had to be done in creative ways—renting theaters and advertising locally that the films were for adults but contained valuable lessons in morality. Maybe in the 1930s, viewers bought that line, but face it—these movies appealed to prurient interests. When viewing these two titles in restored, uncut form, one wonders how Esper got away with it. Interestingly, his wife Hildegarde Stadie (credited as “Hildagarde” Stadie) wrote the screenplays and often acted as producer.

Kino Classics, in association with Something Weird Video, has released a “Forbidden Fruit” series of exploitation films (this is Volume 4). Here we have a double feature by Esper, along with some eye-opening shorts as extras.

First up—Marihuana (sic) (1936), a “cautionary tale,” ha ha, along the lines of the hilariously similar feature Reefer Madness, in which two sleazy drug dealers (Pat Carlyle and Paul Ellis) corrupt the youth of a small town with the evils of marijuana and other drugs. An innocent but slightly rebellious teenager, Burma (Harley Wood) and her boyfriend (Hugh McArthur) attend a party thrown by the dealers. After ingesting the devil weed, Burma has sex with her boyfriend, all the girls go skinny dipping on the beach at night (yes, there is full nudity), and one girl drowns. The dealers force the teens to cover up the crime, but Burma is now “hooked.” She has become pregnant, leaves home, and starts working for the dealers. Of course, all this leads to ruin and tragedy. The whole thing is jaw-droppingly ridiculous, but it is anthropologically captivating.

Narcotic (1933) shows what a difference three years can make in production quality back in the 30s. This feature is decidedly lower in technical values (the print is also choppy and full of scratches—but the restoration is surprisingly better than one might think). Narcotic is allegedly based on the true story of a promising young doctor, William Davis (played astonishingly well by Harry Cording), who gets involved with opium, heroin, and other “hard” drugs. Eventually, they destroy his career. He instead becomes a snake oil salesman of a miracle cure that he concocts, works in a circus sideshow, and deals dope on the side. The centerpiece of the movie is a drug party with Dr. Davis and his friends, male and female, who spend the evening shooting up, snorting cocaine, and smoking pot. We get to see how these drugs affect the users—and, again, the results are unintentionally mirthful. Especially egregious is the inclusion of a Chinese character, Gee Wu, who is played (in bad makeup and with an atrocious, exaggerated accent) by a white actor, J. Stuart Blackton, Jr., who happens to be the son of cinema pioneer J. Stuart Blackton, the head of Vitagraph Studios in the early days of silent film. Once again, though, Narcotic is short enough to be luridly entertaining.

Picture quality in Marihuana is pretty good; in Narcotic, not so much. The same is true for the sound quality, although there is a lot of static and background noise in both features. Nevertheless, these are probably the best presentations of these pictures you’ll ever see.

Both Marihuana and Narcotic come with an audio commentary by Bret Wood, co-author of Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film. Much interesting trivia is imparted, and it is well worth the listen. Marihuana also features a second audio commentary from 2000 by David F. Friedman and Something Weird founder Mike Vraney.

Of special interest in the supplements are two versions of Dwain Esper’s short, How to Undress (also known as How to Undress in Front of Your Husband). This is intended to be a piece of comedy in which wives are instructed by a male narrator on the “proper” way to remove clothing at the end of a day, i.e., they are to do it in a slow, calculated, sensuous way—in other words, a strip tease. None other than John Barrymore’s wife at the time, Elaine Barrie Barrymore, stars as the spouse who follows the directions well. Older and overweight vaudeville star Trixie Friganza contrasts Elaine in another bedroom by undressing the “wrong” way. It’s really an excuse to denigrate her looks. Incongruously, there’s a subplot involving a peeping tom. The long version is around 15 minutes. A shorter version, that cuts out Trixie’s scenes altogether, runs around 9 minutes.

Another short, How to Take a Bath, is another comic bit involving two different pairs of husbands and wives. In one, the couple is happily married, flirt with each other after an evening out, and the wife takes a bath that the husband has run for her. Wedded bliss does not exist for the other couple, however. This wife is depicted as a shrew, nagging at her sheepish husband the entire time. Nevertheless, the viewer gets to see both wives, well, take baths.

Pure exploitation. One wonders what kind of relationship Dwaine Esper had with his writer/producer wife.

Another throw-away supplement are three very brief excerpts from Esper’s lost 1932 film, The Seventh Commandment, and these are hardly worth the inclusion. Trailers for this and other Kino Classics releases round out the package.

All in all, the Marihuana/Narcotic double Blu-ray disk is a lot of fun, despite its politically incorrect content. After all, both pictures are preserved by the Library of Congress, so they must be “culturally and significantly important.” These films do serve to act as a time travel device for audiences today to look back at American values and customs in those years. Fascinating stuff.

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