Acapulco Gold (1973) User Reviews

A fun, nostalgic trip through early American 70's Marijuana culture

[indicaman · 8/10 · 30 July 2010]

'Acapulco Gold' takes viewers on a journey in search of weed. We begin our journey on a dirt track in the back lots of Kentucky, searching for wild pot. Our intrepid film makers continue on through to Mexico, looking for a bargain and then have to work out how to smuggle it back to the USA.

This 1973 classic documentary is almost a 'home movie' in its presentation. For those of you who would like an insight into the days before Indicas and before selective breeding and named strains (other than Acapulco Gold and a few others of course), This is the doco for you.

You'll find footage of classic seed bearing Sativa hemp growing wild and uncontrolled in the mid-West of America, as well as smaller crops (Sativa of course) of pot growers. There are interviews with old timers that grew up on the hemp farms, as well as growers of the day. Different processing methods are also covered in a documentary style context.

One of the highlights of this documentary is a cartoon video clip of the song, 'That Acapulco Gold', by the band 'Rainy Daze'. The dog is a must see.

Slow, Bland Pass at a Potentially Fiery, Passionate Subject

[drqshadow-reviews · 3/10 · 21 April 2012]

A flighty, dull peek at the underground marijuana distribution system of the early 1970s, complete with tie dye, VW buses and a soft-focused romp through fields of hemp at sunset. Stereotypically '70s in almost every fashion, it's shot on cheap stock with a bad soundtrack, boring subjects and jumpy editing. It's interesting in a purely historical sense, as we get a pretty good idea of where law enforcement stood in regards to the substance a decade before Nancy Reagan instituted the war on drugs, but viewers out for a bit more insight are due to be sorely disappointed. It's cool to see the narrator reach out of a moving car to grab a fistful of buds off of a roadside plant, but that's about the extent of the excitement.

Acapulco Gold Animated Film

[jinan-593-430416 · 10/10 · 15 April 2015]

I worked on this film; creating an animated short film also called "Acapulco Gold", based from a song by the same name. This was a hand drawn traditional made on 16mm film. The Director of this animation: Arnie Wong, with his team of artists: Jack Tom, Mark Matsuno, Ron Wong, Joey Valera, Phyllis Wong, Annabelle Valledor, Wendy McPhee, and many others forgotten, worked tirelessly for 6 months to complete this work of love in 1971. For the time period, this was a major breakthrough and radical in content. Smoking marijuana was illegal and a generation of hippie teenagers were breaking the law in mass. This film depicted the various ways one could get marijuana; harvesting, cultivating, or smuggling it across the border. It was shot documentary style, and all the characters in the film were not acting. Once you realize this, this film should be considered important historical archival footage.