Keep Off the Grass

Until I was able to download a copy of this I had forgotten about it. As was typical with the films we were forced to watch in High School Health Class way back in the 1970's, when a lot of us still had a Black & White TV, and color picture was a treat! This like the others, either at best tempted the viewer to try Pot, or at the very least gave us a good laugh.

However, this one movie more than the others, seemed to actually give both points of view! That was very rare for that era, as Nixon was in power (who was not a crook!) and the infamous "War On Drugs" had started its long loosing battle. Although at the same time as presenting the "Pro" left out very little regarding the "Con"

Has several folks who look like Manyard G Crebbs (does the G stand for Gilligan?) Rest His Soul.

But if you wish to be "Hip like a Zip, Lets Take A Trip" this film will show as many others do, how much folks shared the goods to get a new customer hooked, then how it will lead them down the Highway To Hell with the harder drugs.

Plot twists, drama, suspense, kills, thrills, its just the facts, and it all has to be true because its says so in the movie!

Could I say more?

In 1969, the students in the Theater Arts Dept. at Santa Monica City College were asked if they would like to act in a movie. A large group of young actors were needed to play a group of hippies who liked to party a lot. Trust me, it was beyond type casting! I was the President of the "Theater Guild" and had invited Sid Davis, the film's producer, to speak to us.

To give you an idea of the times, from 1967 -1970: other speakers were members of "The Committee" and "The Credibility Gap" (Howard Hessman, David L. Landers, & Harry Shearer). We also had "General Waste-More_Land" come & speak. Campus concerts included "Country Joe & The Fish", "Sonny Terry & Brownie Mc Gee", and probably Phil Ochs & John Prine. We all saw "The Who", "The Doors", "The Band", "The Grateful Dead" and everybody else who played at the Whiskey, The Troubadour, the Ash Grove, The Shrine Auditorium, or at the Hollywood Bowl. We marched for Dr. King. We locked arms in the middle of Olympic Blvd. underneath the Avenue Of The Stars overpass, and the Anti-war rally "Another Mother For Peace", became the "Century City Riot." Civil Rights Photographer, Charles Brittin, captured the initial attack on the group of sitting protesters by the LAPD Riot Squad.

The student actors did their best to bring their own life experiences to the film, & to add their reality to the Pot parties, while trying to rein in a lot of over-the-top bits they were asked to do. As students, we challenged anything we thought was contrived. We were definitely quite a hand-full for poor Sid. Keep in mind that this is where Dustin Hoffman got started before moving on to the Pasadena Playhouse. Anyway, our opinion was that neither the writer, the producers, nor the director, had ever smoked a joint. It was our duty to try to make the scenes real. Like I said, we were quite the hand-full.

We also had no idea what the film was about. None of us were briefed, or got to read the script before we signed on. We were not even told what the title of the film was. We just filmed one scene at a time. Lets just say that if strong willed, opinionated, inexperienced, and unpaid student actors had been told that this was an anti-pot film, this flick would never have been filmed in California.

If there is a lesson here for you filmmakers, it's this. If you need to cut costs by using unpaid help, understand what the help is giving you, and what they want in return. To be successful you really must have the tools of a truly great teacher! i.e.: the insight of Freud, the curiosity of Charley Rose, the vocabulary of Gore Vidal, the patience of Mother Teresa, the leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the humanity of Albert Schweitzer, the tenacity of Winston Churchill, the vision of Susan B. Anthony, the creativity of Gordon Parks, the persistence of Thomas Edison, the generosity of Santa Clause, the commitment of Lewis and Clark, and the fearlessness of Sitting Bull.

I think there is a lot to be learned from this film. Not so much from the anti marijuana lecturing, but from the back-story and the fact that a whole lot of school administrators actually thought that this approach, non-informative, would be effective. They may have been right. We will never know. Sid understood his market, had a long and productive career, and kept a lot of film people employed.

Bless him!

Very far from the awful exploiter "movie", "reeefer madness", "keep off the grass" is still an attempt to discourage youth from taking up the habit of smoking pot, marijuana, hash, the child with a host of names.

Made in 1969, at the height of the "rebellion of youth" against the establishment, the Vietnam war at its peak, Nixon president, and the world needing a boost of something to level out the fear of things escalating, pot had found a home with young "rebels", who needed to assess the world in a different way from their parents - and found in the (still) illegal drug a different feeling from the aggression-inducing alcohol of 'before'.

The movie documents a youth, discovered by his father to be a recent convert to pot, in rational search for information about the drug and consequences of using it - in fact the whole of the movie is based so much on rational thought, that one could get the impression somebody was actually concerned with the hysteria from the media - "jumped from 16th floor high on marijuana" and similar headlines - and from the FDA and FBI, who needed another focus, after the end of alcohol prohibition, and found it in the pot, smoked by jazz fans and Negroes alike, to prevent massive unemployment in the 16.000 men strong police force ...

The basic idea of the movie - that the young man search for confirmation of information - is in fact rather good, and at that time, quite novel idea, if only superficially rational, when all conclusions are based on observable, but partial 'facts' - loss of coordination, redness of eyes, "loss of dignity", obsessive mono-focus, humorous outbursts over 'nothing', overrating of personal achievements, pot leads to crime or heavier abuse etc. And the young man to no great surprise has all the 'facts' confirmed at various hip parties, visit to the local hip dope influenced artist loving his new doodles, watching the courteous police arrest a friend, who could not resist trying to buy his dope at the wrong place, and end up getting ripped of at night by three youngster spouting the 'right' lingo to tie them in with the rest of the pack!

A very educational movie, which has no doubt helped with its mission in its own time - but today seems only a step removed from the hysterics of 'reefer madness' and the like. Personally it seems to me that use of marijuana never had quite the impact on culture as was feared and prophesied in the script. But one should never discount the parental generation's attempt to warn the younger. And as such it comes across: Observe the signs, and think for yourself.

Keep Off the Grass (1970)

** (out of 4)

Yet another "warning" film from producer Sid Davis who was certainly the king of these type of movies. This one here has a mother vacuuming her son's room when she finds a couple joints. She gives them to her husband who then discusses weed with his son. The son then sets out to find the truth on whether or not getting high is good or bad. From here on out we see our "lead actor" going to pot parties and seeing if pot really makes you laugh, act stupid or if it's worse than booze. What I found so funny about this film is how much "cool" slang they use for smoking grass. It's rather embarrassing but then again I'm sure you already know this as you can lump this right up there with REEFER MADNESS in terms of how stupid it is. Once again we get all sorts of false facts telling people what weed can do to you and I can't help but think this thing scared no one in 1970 and it certainly isn't going to today. The performances are all bad and the ultra-cheap look only adds a few laughs. The movie has many "so bad it's funny" moments including the father-son talk, which is downright hilarious at times because of the dubbed dialogue. Even funnier is a later scene at a pot party by a pool and you'll never forget the look on mommy's face when she finds the weed.

If there was a group pf potheads and a group of drunks which one would you wanna hang out with? There can be a liquor store on every corner and that's ok but watch out for that devil ganja. Jeez. Oh but done well for Nixon's administration. Reefer Madness 70s style