Marihuana

The Marihuana Story

Argentina 1950
produced by
S.A.C.L.
directed by León Klimovsky
starring Pedro López Lagar, Fanny Navarro, Golde Flami, Nathán Pinzón, Eduardo Cuitino, Alberto de Mendoza, Gilberto Peyret, Roberto Durán, Héctor Quintanilla, Pilar Gómez, Ángel Prio, Cecilia Ingenieros, Elsa Márquez, Juan Carrara, Jesús Pampín, Alberto Rinaldi, Alberto Barcel, Warly Ceriani, Leticia Lando, Gloria Castilla, Domingo Mania, Juan Fava, China Navarro, Rafael Diserio, Jorge Villoldo, Alfredo Almanza, Osvaldo Cabrera, Alberto Durán, Mauricio Espósito, Adolfo Laur
written by Wilfredo Jiménez, Bernio Mason, music by Juan Ehlert, Anatole Pietri

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Up to now, Dr. Urioste (Pedro López Lagar) has been nothing but a well-respected surgeon with no fault to his name - but then his wife is found murdered, and it's found out she has been hooked on marihuana. And this makes Urioste realize that he has neglected her all these years. To somehow make up for this, and to find her murderer, Urioste goes underground and visits all the drug joints she has been to, gets to know all the people she had known ... including Marga (Fanny Navarro), a woman who has been hooked on the stuff for years, but who sees Urioste as her ticket out of addiction. However, doing his research, Urioste is forced to smoke weed himself - and gets hooked on the stuff. Now she finds herself in the position of becoming his anchor rather than the other way round, but when Urioste sees himself forced to pull a bullet out of a youngster's (Roberto Durán) arm under the influence, and makes the acquaintance of unsavory gang boss Pancho Julio (Eduardo Cuitino) in the process, he decides for himself to be through with everything ... only to be on the streets looking for another fix only days later, and now it's Marga who gets him off the stuff, and he finally falls in love with her, and the two decide to leave it all behind and skip town. However, the police know about the doctor's drug habit, and even though they are compassionate because he has just lost his wife, they persuade him to head their sting operation with him being the surgeon operating on Pancho Julio, who has been injured in a shoot-out only the other day. However, Pancho Julio's men grow wise on the doctor and have him smoke himself silly ... until Pancho Julio confesses he has murdered Urioste's wife with his own hands, which leads to a shoot-out that soon gets the police involved, and as drugged up as Urioste is, he gets caught up in the middle, not knowing who's friend or foe ... but ultimately, everything comes to a happy end.

Now quite apart from the fact that the filmmakers quite obviously understood very little of the effects of marihuana or its addictiveness, this is less of an anti-drug message movie and more of a crime drama full of bigger-than-life emotions that just happens to involve drugs - and as such the film works rather well, telling a story that keeps the viewer interested throughout, and that features a bunch of nice plottwists. But that said, don't expect a masterpiece here, as while the story might be well-structured, it suffers from flat characters, some forced situations and over-simplifications. That said, keeping in mind this is not a masterpiece but a document of a long by-gone era, one will probably still find plenty to like about it.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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