"The Poppy Is Also a Flower" with Grace Kelly and Omar Sharif (1966)

The War on Drugs has been going on a long time now. This film was produced with funds from the United Nations. It stars many of the big names in Hollywood at the time. It was written by Jo Eisinger from a story by Ian Fleming. The 100 minute film was directed by Terence Young and produced by Euan Lloyd and aired in an 80 minute format on ABC before it was released in its full form to the theaters the following year.

The stars include Stephen Boyd, Senta Berger, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Rita Hayworth, Angie Dickinson and Marcello Mastroianni. Trini Lopez and E.G. Marshall also make appearances in the film, which opens with Grace Kelly explaining what a poppy is, setting the stage for a story about drug smuggling and its effects upon society.

What makes the film so compelling to watch; in spite of it’s being a bit dated; is that it is the same story that is still being played out on the world stage today. “Narco-states”; with plenty of cash to spend; allow the heroin trade to flourish in spite of the best efforts by the entire world to stem the flow of illicit drugs into their own countries.

In this film the heroin trade is coming from the Iranian-Afghan border, where agents working for the United Nations place a nuclear tracking device in a shipment of heroin in order to track it on its journey to Europe.

Some of the filming was done in Iran itself, with weeks spent on location. It was funded by Xerox and the stars all accepted $1 apiece in compensation for their work. Terence Young actually left his job as Director on the film “Thunderball” to take on this project. 

The film was the last of a 4 part series of movies made for television by the United Nations to shed light on some of its lesser known activities. It was also released in Europe under the titles “Poppies Are Also Flowers”; “The Opium Connection”; and also as “Danger Grows Wild.”

No matter what you think about the War on Drugs, this film will give you pause to mull over the fact that since at least 1966 the world has expended an awful lot of time and energy; along with money; fighting a battle it cannot ever hope to win.

You can view the full 100 minute film here or watch it on You Tube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJto5OmHWLw

"Smuggler Nation" by Peter Andreas (2013)

Americans have always had a strange and fascinating relationship with smuggling. From the molasses used for the making of rum, all the way to the present day and the smuggling of illicit drugs; and people; we have changed precious little over the centuries. And in this all-encompassing new book by author Peter Andreas, the reader gets a look at not only the smuggling itself; but the geo-political forces which drive it, making it possible for the drug trade to thrive even as we throw every available resource at the problem.

The author has cleverly divided the book into 5 sections; beginning with “The Colonial Era” and culminating with “The Modern Age.” While much of those two chapters were familiar to me, it was the other 3 which really put the “hook” into this book. During the Colonial Era, the average American did all within his power to avoid paying taxes on anything possible. Molasses was the chief ingredient in the making of rum, and so it was one of the first items to be smuggled to the colonies in order to avoid paying the tax imposed by the British. This is what Samuel Adams, along with many other merchants, did.

The American Revolution sort of set the template for the course of the next 2 centuries as the British threw up their blockade and we immediately began to “run” it. The main political problem which caused the blockade was twofold; first, we were in open rebellion to the Crown; second, the English and French were at war, with both sides attempting to supply their armies from America. There was also another component involved, as the blockade running served the purpose of diverting the other sides’ naval resources in their fight against one another. Of course, this put the newly founded United States in a precarious position, but trade was all important to the new nation.

The French, who were fighting with the British in the Napoleonic Wars, grew increasingly irritated with our new nation over the duplicity of our so-called “neutrality”.  The United States was supplying both sides; resulting in the brief “Quasi War” in 1798. It was also about this time when the British began to board our ships in search of contraband, as well as English citizens who had illegally emigrated to the former colonies. To do so, at the time, was against the law. This led to the War of 1812. And even in that war there was the smuggling of arms and ammunition to be dealt with.

After the War of 1812 came a period of relative posterity for America as she grew from a former colony into a respected nation. But slavery was now the issue. After the importation of new slaves was put in force, smugglers turned to the islands of Jamaica and Cuba to buy slaves illegally, who would then be transported to New Orleans, which had become the center of the illegal slave trade. As a matter of fact, New Orleans, along with the pirate brothers Jean and Pierre Lafitte, had been instrumental in winning that war. It was the first, but not the last time, that our government would turn to criminals for help in a time of war. The War of 1812 also made a millionaire of John Jacob Astor, who was engaged in the smuggling of furs through Canada. Clearly, smuggling was not only a way to make a fortune, but was also an entryway into high society.

During the Gilded Age, that era from the 1870’s through the gay Nineties, some of the most unusual smuggling took place. With “hoopskirts” being the style of dress for most women of fashion, it became commonplace for them to smuggle anything that would fit beneath their skirts. Many women came home from trips abroad with boxes of cigars suspended beneath their skirts. With no female Customs Agents to search them, it was a winning proposition. Yards and yards of silk could be wound around a woman’s body and hidden beneath her fashionable dress. The list of items smuggled in this fashion is endless.

With the end of the Gilded Era came the end of the 19^th Century and many of the taboos that had defined it. The two most prevalent ones were sex and drugs. Prostitution, along with the first forms of birth control, were both banned. So, they both became extremely desirable to obtain. The trafficking in condoms was a big surprise to me. I never thought of it as something illegal, or even out of reach. But, in the later years of the 19^th Century, and on through the First World War, these little devices were not only smuggled, but were also made by bootleggers.

Before latex rubber had been perfected, animal skins were the most prevalent type of condom. When the importation of them was stopped, smugglers simply turned to buying animal skins, and made them here at home. Fortunes were made. And, when the First World War broke out and the United States entered it, the government once again turned to illicit sources to provide the necessary amount of condoms to “protect” our troops while overseas.

Pornography was also a staple of the smuggler in the 19^th Century. With the advent of photography had come the ability to reproduce sexual images, which were in great demand. When the problem got too prevalent, the government made up a campaign concerning “White Slavery”, as a way to scare people away pornography. Meantime, they were getting ready to pounce on liquor as the ultimate evil with an experiment called “Prohibition.” The only thing accomplished with that experiment was a mirror image of the violence and wide spread glamorization that would mark the War on Drugs some 60 years later.

When World War Two rolled around, the United Sates once again turned to the organized criminals and smugglers to help take down the Italian dictator Mussolini. Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano were involved in that effort, and rewarded with being allowed to become the largest distributors of heroin in the United States. It was the Corsican run, Marseilles based, “French Connection”, which operated for over 20 years, supplying the entire eastern coast of the United Sates with their poisonous product.

Vietnam brought new problems to the table, and by the time the United States declared an all-out “war” on drugs in 1980, many people felt the war had already been lost. And to a large extent that is true. With the passage of NAFTA in the 1980’s the distribution of drugs became even more complex and difficult to stem. And when we backed the Afghan rebels against the Soviets in the 1970’s, we really dropped the ball. We never seem to learn that working with the bad guys will always result in a bad return.

With this very thoroughly researched and well written book, Mr. Andreas has once again delivered a powerful insight into the subject of which he writes.

Hoagy Carmichael - "Hong Kong Blues"

This is a song which I have been singing since I was about 10 years old and saw Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in "To Have and Have Not", the brilliant re-write of Ernest Hemingway's very dry novel of the same name. As a matter of fact, the film came about only after an argument between Howard Hawks, the director, and Ernest Hemingway, while the two were on a fishing trip. Hawks opined that he could make a good film from Hemingway's worst novel. Hemingway offered up "To Have and Have Not", which was his least favorite. Hawks enlisted the aid of William Faulkner, and a bottle of bourbon, to write a new screenplay in about 1 night. This is the only time in film history in which a Nobel Prize winning author has worked on the script of another Nobel Prize winning author.

Hoagy Carmichael's musical inspiration was Bix Beiderbecke, a jazz musician who drank himself to death at age twenty-eight. They had been in a band together while in college; Carmichael had planned on a career in law; but the music of the times sidetracked him.

Hoagy Carmichael penned over 600 songs in his lifetime. Many of them are still performed today. "Georgia on My Mind", "Stardust", "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" and "Rocking Chair" all come to mind. Even George Harrison recorded "Hong Kong Blues", which is also known as "Buddha's Gong". Bob Dylan recorded it back in 1962, or thereabouts, as did Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Even I play it on my guitar. It's very simple, having only 3 chords to it. But the song is clearly a piano number, and so no-one has ever topped this version of it.

The band which Mr. Carmichael assembled for this number is mind boggling, with it's unusual array of musical instruments. There is a banjo, mandolin, the piano, drums and even a violin, all combining to make a most unusual, and pleasing sound. This type of musical ensemble was not that rare in the islands back in the early part of the 20th century, as ships from all nations came and went, carrying their own brand of music with them. Sometimes, these sailors, and musicians, deserted the ships, electing to remain in the islands, combining their separate talents, and cultures, to form new sounds. "Hong Kong Blues" is a perfect example.

Somewhat of an enigma, Carmichael was a dyed in the wool Republican, hated FDR and the New Deal, and blamed the President for the fact that he couldn't see over the dashboard of his Lincoln Continental, even though he was only slightly over 5 foot tall.

Hoagy Carmichael was a rural, midwestern boy, and so "right wing" that he once challenged Humphrey Bogart to a fistfight for his "leftist" views. In his autobiography "The Stardust Road", Carmichael writes of the times before smoking marijuana, which he called muggles, was illegal;

"It's the summer of 1923. We took two quarts of bathtub gin, a package of muggles, and headed for the black-and-tan joint where King Oliver's band was playing.

The King featured two trumpets, piano, a bass fiddle, and a clarinet. As I sat down to light my first muggle...taking the first chorus was that second trumpet, Louis Armstrong. Louis was taking it fast.

"Why," I moaned, "why isn't everybody in the world here to hear that?" I meant it. Something as unutterably stirring as that deserved to be heard by the world.

Then the muggles took effect and my body got light. Every note Louis hit was perfection. I ran to the piano and took the place of Louis's wife. They swung into Royal Garden Blues. I had never heard the tune before, but somehow I knew every note. I couldn't miss. I was floating in a strange deep-blue whirlpool of jazz."

The original lyrics for "Hong Kong Blues" had to be changed slightly for the movie. The expression "Buddha's Gong" referred to being addicted to opium. That line was okay, as most Americans were unfamiliar with the term. But the word "opium" would not survive, and so Hoagy sings "sweet local man" in it's place. Here are the lyrics to this wonderful song by a truly legendary American songwriter;

"Hong Kong Blues" by Hoagy Carmichael

It's the story of a very unfortunate coloured man
Who got arrested down in old Hong Kong.
He got twenty years' privilege taken away from him
When he kicked old Buddha's gong.

And now he's boppin' the piano just to raise the price
Of a ticket to the land of the free.
Well, he say his home's in 'Frisco, where they send the rice,
But it's really in Tennessee.

That's why he say,
"I need someone to love me,
Need somebody to carry me home to San Francisco
And bury my body there.

I need someone to lend me
a fifty-dollar billand then,
I'll leave Hong Kong far behind me,
For happiness once again.

Won't somebone believe
I've a yen, to see that Bay again.
But when I try to leave,
Sweet opium won't let me fly away.

I need someone to love me,
Need somebody to carry me home to San Francisco
And bury my body there."

That's the story of a very unfortunate coloured man,
Who got arrested down in old Hong Kong.
He got twenty years' privilege taken away from him,
When he kicked old Buddha's gong.