Leon Klimovsky’s Pothead Noir

The Argentinean exploitation film poster for THE MARIHUANA STORY (1950).

Among the many anti-marijuana films made over the years, it is generally agreed that the most famous of them all is Reefer Madness (1936), which earned a huge cult following in the 1960s due to its outrageously over-the-top depiction of marijuana use and its effects. Most of the anti-pot movies were false, exaggerated presentations of how the herb turned users into addicts and rivaled heroin as a gateway into sin, debauchery, violence and death. The U.S. was not alone in turning out these anti-drug scare films and one of the lesser known but historically significant releases for its time was Marihuana (U.S. title, The Marihuana Story, 1950), directed by Argentinian filmmaker Leon Klimovsky, who would later relocate to Spain and specialize in horror movies, spaghetti westerns and other low-budget genre efforts.

Continue reading

Truckers on Speed

“The Pill Dragnet! Blasting the Blackest Market of all…the girl peddlers of the deadliest thrill for sale!” – one of the taglines for Death in Small Doses (1957).    

In the grand tradition of other B-movie crime expose of the fifties such as Kansas City Confidential (1952), The Phenix City Story (1955), and New Orleans Uncensored (1955), this little known 1957 programmer from Allied Artists (formerly known as poverty row studio, Monogram Pictures) has all the earmarks of a routine, low budget exploitation drama aimed at the drive-ins and double bill grindhouses of its era but it also serves up some surprises and memorably wacko moments for those who think they’ve been down this road before.

Continue reading