ASSASSIN OF YOUTH (1938)

If you want a vintage anti-drug film, check out 1936's infamous REEFER MADNESS. Its campiness will keep you entertained, which is more than I can say for this dull soap opera.

ASSASSIN OF YOUTH crams numerous plotlines into 73 minutes. Young Joan Barry (Luana Walters) is slated to inherit her late grandmother's money—but only if she lives a moral, exemplary life. Joan's cousin Linda (Fay McKenzie) covets the cash and attempts to ruin Joan's reputation by introducing her to late-night marijuana parties. This leads the town gossip, Henrietta Frisbee (Fern Emmett), to publicly denounce Joan as a wanton hussy who doesn't deserve the inheritance. Finally, journalist Art Brighton (Arthur Gardner) goes undercover as a soda jerk to infiltrate the gang and get a story on the marijuana menace.

The teen-aged characters are played by actors in their 20s and 30s. Joan's mother (Dorothy Vaughan) looks about 70. Joan's kid sister, Marjorie (Dorothy Short), is so addicted to pot, she tries to stab a girl to death and becomes what the family physician calls “a hopeless psychopath.” (For some reason, she's also on her deathbed.) Henrietta Frisbee, who putters around on a scooter, is one of the loathsome characters I've ever seen on film. Why the hell does she care about Joan's behavior? It's none of the old broad's business!

The night scenes are so badly lit, you can barely see what's going on. During a scene in which two people are in a moving car, the backdrop noticeably keeps changing. And when Brighton overpowers the local drug czar and his right-hand man, rather than turning them over to the cops, he cuffs the men together and brings them to his newspaper so he can use them as a source for his story. (It's never explained why a reporter carries handcuffs.)

ASSASSIN OF YOUTH was made by people who clearly knew nothing about pot beyond the government's lies and propaganda. This is a very bad film, but in all the wrong ways.