Narcotic (1933)

• Year: 1933
• Released: 01 Mar 1934
• Country: United States
• Adwords: N/A
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121587/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/narcotic
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Biography, Drama, Horror
• Runtime: 57 min
• Writer: A.J. Karnopp, Hildegarde Stadie
• Director: Dwain Esper, Vival Sodar’t
• Cast: Harry Cording, Joan Dix, Patricia Farley
• Keywords: suicide, drug abuse, heroin, drug addiction, opium, exploitation,

	4.0/10
	0% – Critics
	0% – Audience

Narcotic Storyline

As the opening scroll explains, “Narcotic” was “presented in the hope that the public may become aware of the terrific struggle to rid the world of drug addiction.” The movie itself is a salacious plunge into a world of sordid pleasures. It tells the story of Dr. William G. Davies, an infamous snake-oil salesman who started his career as a promising medical student. In the opening sequence he saves an unborn baby by performing a Caeserean operation after the mother is killed in an automobile accident. Stock medical footage shows a woman’s stomach being sliced open like a ripe watermelon and the baby popping out like a jack-in-a-box. But the allure of opium proves too strong for the doctor to resist. After a single night of relaxation in a Chinatown opium den, Davies becomes a slave to drugs. As his medical practice deteriorates, he shifts his attention to “selling medicine by demonstration.” He tells his nurse/fiancee, “I can’t see anything wrong if my preparation has merit.” However, his “preparation” is one of the great quack cure-alls: “Tiger-Fat.” Davies soon becomes one of the leading sideshow attractions for a carnival. His success as a carnival huckster initially allows him to run with a fast crowd. In the movie’s most shocking episode, Davies and his ritzy friends retire to a hotel room together for a drug party. “We’re gonna get lit,” says a woman. A buffet of drugs is spread out on a table and each guest takes their drug of choice. “It takes a needle for me to get a bang,” says a woman. As each participant indulges, the party quickly turns into an orgy of excesses, one woman hikes up her skirts, another laughs hysterically, a man pontificates, another man becomes paranoid. The movie provides a litany of different reactions to drugs. Ultimately, Davies’ drug addiction leaves him gaunt and stooped, living in a hovel with no hope of returning to his previous life.—Sujit R. Varma

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Narcotic Movie Reviews

A film so bad that it doesn’t deserve a bomb.

Bombs explode. This one just fizzles out. Unlike the following year’s disaster “Maniac” (by the same creator), this doesn’t even warrant its reputation as an exploitation film. It is simply just boring, uninvolved and preachy. The first five minutes seem to be nothing but title after title of written narration, and if I was in the theater watching it, I’d probably either walk out or go get snacks, a more interesting adventure than what happens in the film short running time. I really could care less about the plight of doctor Harry Cording who dissolves into drug addiction, leading to ultra despair after a series of ridiculous events, and a predictable and unremarkable conclusion.

The only attempt at some sort of shock is to show cordings visions of snakes and iguanas as he seems to dissolve into a world of narcotic addiction. The party scene is ridiculously stupid with vapid females showing off their lingeries and getting into seductive poses, one even getting into a bed. there is no real theme or point of view, because the film is so badly structured and edited that to try to figure out what was going on in the directors and writers minds simply becomes a complete waste of time. I don’t rank this as tacky. I just ranked it as an instantly forgettable bore.

So-so film that’s definitely worth watching at least once

Watching Narcotic as a film for its own sake–as an artwork or a piece of entertainment, that is–at this point in time is not entirely satisfactory. For one, it’s very choppy. Scenes are missing or truncated oddly, but this is the best print known at the moment. But even if the missing footage were replaced, the film is still uneven. Director Dwain Esper and his wife, writer Hildegarde Stadie, have a bizarre sense of dramatic construction only rivaled by Ed Wood. Esper inserts odd shots for symbolism (such as poisonous snakes, skunks and such near the end), inserts odd intertitles at odd times, and so on. And a lot of the performances intermittently go off the rails. Yet as a historical and sociological oddity, Narcotic is fascinating. Any film buff worth his or her weight in Fassbinder posters should be familiar with it, as should anyone interested in sociology or cultural theory.

I’m not sure if this is the first paranoid anti-drug film, but it must be one of the earlier ones. It beat Esper’s similar and more famous Reefer Madness by three years. Additionally, this is much broader in scope than that later film. It’s not quite as black and white or ridiculously propagandistic, and it’s supposedly based on a true story–a real equivalent to Dr. William G. Davis (played here by Harry Cording), who went on the road hawking “Tiger Fat” (a name only mentioned in intertitles here as far as I could tell), and who was a drug addict stuck in a depressing downward spiral.

The content, which focuses on explicit drug use (including scenes of drug preparation), violence–both accidental and intentional–that remains morally unrectified, serious relationship problems, drug-induced and illicit sexual behavior, and a fantastic, nihilistic ending, may sound like a perfect recipe for a Cheech and Chong film, but in 1933, it was all very challenging. So challenging that the film was rejected twice (once on appeal) by the New York State Film Board. Documentation about this is an interesting special feature on the Kino DVD.

I certainly do not agree with censorship, but the New York State Film Board was astute in some of its criticism of the film. Although viewers could hardly desire ending up like Dr. Davis in the end, many of the scenes are not clearly anti-drug and debauchery. Many scenes seem pro drug and debauchery instead, especially to someone with a hedonistic, libertarian bent, such as myself. They also show basic preparation and administration techniques for drugs.

Although it doesn’t seem consistent with their filmographies, Esper and Stadie seem to show pretty explicitly that they’re not clearly anti-drug in the comments from “Chinese” character Gee Wu (J. Stuart Blackton, Jr.). Wu presents a pro-opium view early in the film, and through the character, Esper and Stadie suggest that the problem with drugs lies more with cultural differences than in the drugs themselves, even though they seem to backpeddle a bit further into the film.

It’s beneficial to keep these kinds of things in mind while watching Narcotic–they’ll keep you interested and help stave off Morpheus.

The evils of mind altering and addictive drugs: A Case History.

**SPOILERS** Wasted form years of taking and trafficking in mind-altering and illegal drugs Doctor William Davis, Harry Carding, sits down in his shabby hotel room reflecting on his sad and unholy life experience writing out his last will and testament, a suicide note. We the audience then go back with Davis to better and happier times when the now almost brain-dead Dr.Davis was the toast in the medical world as one of its most outstanding young practitioners.

Young and ambitious William Davis got involved with his friend and collages alumnus Gee Wu, J. Stuart Blackton Jr, when looking for some kicks as well as rest and relaxation by going down to Chinatown and getting stoned out of his mind in one of its many, at the time, legal opium dens. Davis who bragged about how his powerful will can overcome anything even drug addiction put that powerful will to the test and had a big surprise coming his way. Davis got hooked on heroin, as well as pot and pills, that destroyed his medical practice home and family home as well as his very life.

Getting himself plastered every day at the opium den drained Davis of his savings and health and before he knew it he was out on the street hawking this heroin-based snake-oil concoction that he called Tiger-Fat. Accoding to Davis it was supposed to cure anything but only turned those who used it into heroin junkies.

Davis does a complete circle in the film going from an upstanding and admired citizen of the community to a lifeless and all alone, with everyone he knew deserting him, drug fiend. After years of shooting and puffing, with his handy opium pipe, up together with the wild drug parties Davis is left a broken and beaten down man with nothing to look forward too but a quick and painless death, via a bullet in the head; which an already dead in mind and soon in body Davis is all too eager to administrate on himself.

One of the earliest and at the same time honest anti-drug movies coming out of Hollyood that for once has it right showing just how destructive drugs like heroin and cocaine really are by not trying to sensationalize but educate it’s audience about them. “Narcotic” is a far better film then Dwain Espers later masterpiece about mental illness “Maniac” released the next year but in the movie being serious about its subject matter, and not mindlessly overdoing it, no where as entertaining.