Tag Archives: Joseph Forte

Tell Your Children (1936, Louis J. Gasnier)

Tell Your Children, or Reefer Madness, is sort of mundanely bad. Sure, Carl Pierson’s editing somehow pads shots to make the sixty-six minute movie drag even more than it does because of the terrible script and bad acting, but the script is just dumb and bad. There’s nothing exciting about it, other than to see how the movie is going to be anti-pot propaganda without any facts or any quality in the delivered message movie. For instance, Joseph Forte’s school principal who lectures parents (and the audience) about the evils of “demon weed” marihauna… Forte’s giving the performance like he’s a cheesy villain. It’s a weird take on the character, who otherwise might have been—if not sympathetic—at least… sensible. Forte comes off like a loudmouthed dips hit.

Though no one comes through the film well. Lillian Miles and Dorothy Short are the least terrible. They’re also not amusing. Together with Thelma White, they’re the film’s main female characters. Kenneth Craig, Dave O’Brien, Carleton Young, and Warren McCollum are the men. The men get more to do, so much even though Short’s top-billed she’s got a lot less to do in the film than little brother McCollum. See, Young and White run a dope spot. People come by and smoke marijuana cigarettes, presumably paying for them at some point but the film never shows any cash changing hands between the teenage pot junkies and their older dealers. O’Brien and Miles are recruiters. They try to get the high school kids to go. They hang out at the local soda joint, where the seedy owner helps transition kids from egg creams to ganja. Again, unclear how the business actually works, except of course it wouldn’t work because Children is just sixty-six minutes of bullshit.

Craig and Short are the straight-edge kids. They don’t go to the dope spot, even though McCollum starts going daily. All these kids are in Forte’s school and he takes an interest in them—at least as far as their possible marijuana use goes, but not if there’s home abuse—and Forte doesn’t notice anything with McCollum. Neither does sister Short. Even after McCollum runs somebody over because he’s hopped up on dope. The implied marijuana crisis never comes to anything.

Because it’s a really dumb, bad script. Plotting, dialogue, pacing, everything.

Then Pierson’s editing—especially his terrible use of sound—makes it even worse.

Back to the story. Somehow straight-laced Craig ends up at the dope spot and Miles seduces him, which is fine with O’Brien because he’s got the hots for short. The trysts lead to tragedy, mostly because O’Brien’s used so much reefer he’s lost his mind.

There’s a somewhat adequate trial sequence—the film’s not competently made, but you can tell director Gasnier isn’t working in the best conditions. He’s got some decent medium and long shots, he just doesn’t have sound on them. When he goes in for close-ups and the actors are poorly delivering the script’s lousy exposition… well, Gasnier’s just possibly okay in very different circumstances; he’s very clearly not a miracle worker. Because if he were a miracle worker, Tell Your Children wouldn’t be such an inept piece of crap. Sure, it’s lying propaganda, but it’s also an inept piece of crap. The latter is way more important than the former, as it’s so inept you can’t imagine it working as propaganda.

It’s a bad movie. It’s occasionally funny in that badness, but mostly it’s just bad.



Directed by Louis J. Gasnier; screenplay by Arthur Hoerl and Paul Franklin, based on a story by Lawrence Meade; director of photography, Jack Greenhalgh; edited by Carl Pierson; produced by George A. Hirliman; released by Motion Picture Ventures.

Starring Dorothy Short (Mary), Kenneth Craig (Bill), Lillian Miles (Blanche), Dave O’Brien (Ralph), Thelma White (Mae), Carleton Young (Jack), Warren McCollum (Jimmy), Patricia Royale (Agnes), Harry Harvey Jr. (Junior), and Joseph Forte (Dr. Carroll).