" Say, do you know what in means to get The Ding?"

Another Dwain Esper and Hildegarde Stadie collaboration and production, the 1933 film Narcotic explores various drugs, mainly opium, marijuana, and heroin. Like their film Maniac, sometimes styled as Sex Maniac, this film is also based on the short story "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allen Poe. This exploitation film has just about all the ingredients for an early b-movie: drugs, sex, a crazy husband/wife director/writer duo, less than stellar acting, stock footage that doesn't exactly fit in, bodysnatching, a mad scientist, silly Jazz Age lingo, very politically incorrect racial and ethinic stereotyping, as well as a lost of misinformation meant to scare the audience into good behavior. This, like is other film's, do not measure up to Esper's masterpiece of Reefer Madness, but it is films like Narcotic and Marihuana that earned him the title of "The Father of Exploitation Films". For those of you that want, a grainy but public domain version of Narcotic can be viewed here.

The film begins with a Frankenstein-esque opening scene where Dr. William G. Davis (Harry Cording) ordering his assistant to get the necessary ingredients to help create his life serum. Davis was once a promising medical student, but a life of drugs and sordid dealings led him into the snake oil business. His downfall begins after a heroic act leads him to crave opium. He goes to an opium den in, where else, Chinatown, which is run by Gee Wu (played by the not Asian J. Stuart Blackton Jr.) and ends up hooked for life after one night. Davis's wife (Joan Dix) tries to help him, but to no avail. Slowly, Davis's fast, drug-addicted friends and their hard partying ways lead him to become a shadow of his former self and a victim of drug addiction.

I've compiled a list of resources for those of you who want more information, insight, and analysis of this movie. First and foremost, you can explore the various categories about the movie on the page created for it by Turner Classic Movies, which you can find here. Allmovie.com does a brief synopsis and background of the movie, which can be read here. Mondodigital.com goes more in depth into the background and analysis as written here. Just like Esper's other films, this one provides a lot of misinformation, laughs, and self-parody.