"She Shoulda Said 'No'!"
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| "She Shoulda Said 'No'!" | |
|---|---|
 "How Bad Can a Good Girl Get...without losing her virtue or respect???" |
|
| Directed by | Sam Newfield |
| Produced by | Kroger Babb |
| Written by | Arthur Hoerl (story) Richard H. Landau (screenplay) |
| Starring | Alan Baxter Lyle Talbot Lila Leeds Michael Whalen David Holt |
| Distributed by | Hygienic Productions Modern Film Distributors |
| Release date(s) | 1949 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
"She Shoulda Said 'No'!" (also known as Wild Weed, Marijuana, the Devil's Weed, and The Devil's Weed) is a 1949 exploitation film in the spirit of morality tales such as Reefer Madness and Marihuana. Directed by Sam Newfield and starring Lila Leeds, it was originally produced to capitalize on the arrest of Leeds and Robert Mitchum for a charge of marijuana conspiracy. The film used many titles and it struggled to find an audience until film presenter Kroger Babb picked up the rights, quickly reissuing it as The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket. Only after redoing the promotional posters and creating a story that the film was being presented in conjunction with the United States Treasury did the film become successful.
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[edit] Background
The film itself is a semi-documentary, as it follows a similar story to one that Leeds herself experienced. Anne Lester, a young orphan girl played by Leeds, is trying to pay for her brother's college education. After meeting Markey, a drug dealer, Anne begins to believe that she must smoke marijuana to fit in with her friends. She then goes to a tea party, where she tries the drug for the first time. She is unaffected by the initial experimentation, and loses her fear of drugs as she continues to smoke.[1]
Her drug use results in the young girl losing many of her inhibitions, and the film begins documenting her actions under the influence in a series of scenes designed to procure a reaction from the audience in terms of relations with the opposite sex as well as other tragic happenings.[2] Anne begins selling drugs for Markey after she's fired from her job, her brother hangs himself in the garage when he learns of her new job, and she is eventually arrested and given a tour of the various psychiatric wards and jails that drug users end up in. Anne is released from jail after sixty days, cleaned up and ready to cooperate with the authorities regarding Markey.[1]
The film used the plot to push many of the beliefs of the time, such as drug-using youth turning to crime and the "marijuana as a gateway drug" theory, which was a leading argument for drug prohibition during the era and an argument that Leeds herself advanced given her own history with marijuana and heroin.[1]
[edit] Production and marketing
The film was inspired by the highly-publicized arrest of Robert Mitchum and Leeds for marijuana possession. On September 1, 1948, the two movie stars, along with two others, were apprehended after being caught smoking marijuana at the home of Leeds in the early morning, charged with felony narcotics possession. Public empathy for Mitchum resulted in the charge being downgraded to the lesser charge of conspiracy to possess marijuana, and his sentence of sixty days in jail was later set aside in 1951. Leeds, however, was sentenced to 60 days in prison as well as placed on probation for five years.[1]
Upon her release, Leeds struggled to find work in Hollywood, and signed on to star in Wild Weed,[1] a film that was, according to producer Richard Kay, "based on the circumstances of the arrest of Lila Leeds and Robert Mitchum."[3] Age 21 at the time of the arrest, Leeds claimed, during publicity for the film in 1949, that appearing in the picture would keep other people her age from trying drugs,[2] but she confided in Collier's in 1952 that she "only had one offer...which was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the Mitchum case notoriety. I took it. I was broke."[4] The film gained approval from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to use the drug references, a standard practice at the time even though the Bureau had no power to censor the films.[5]
Kay via Franklin Productions filmed the production, like many similar movies of the era, in six days. Eureka Productions initially distributed the film, but struggled to find an audience until Kroger Babb's Hallmark Productions acquired the rights and eventually changed the name of the film to "She Shoulda Said 'No'!" Babb pushed the sensuality of Leeds with new promotional photographs and a new tagline: "How Bad Can a Good Girl Get...without losing her virtue or respect???", while fabricating letters that were sent to local communities claiming that the United States Treasury Department implored Hallmark to release the film "in as many towns and cities as possible in the shortest possible length of time" as a public service,[1] the square-up stating that the producers wished "to publicly acknowledge the splendid cooperation of the Nation's narcotic experts and Government departments, who aided in various ways the success of this production...If its presentation saves but one young girl or boy from becoming a 'dope fiend' -- then its story has been well told."[6]
Babb, who gained notoriety for his various gimmicks, often had Leeds herself give lectures at some of the showings of the film as well.[7] Babb often booked the film as a midnight presentation twice a week in the same town, although David F. Friedman, who would later use the film in his own double-billings, attributed the distribution plan to a film that was so low in quality that Babb wanted to cash in and move to his next stop as fast as possible.[8]
[edit] Reception
According to Friedman, Babb's presentations of the film made more money than any other film that the same theater would earn over a full run.[8] While actual dollar figures are not available due to the nature of the genre, the general success of "She Shoulda Said 'No'!" prompted producers to import a similar film from Argentina in 1951 titled The Marijuana Story. That film, about a doctor who goes undercover into the world of drug addicts to learn about his wife's death, only to become addicted to marijuana himself, was not as successful as other efforts, due to the public being concerned about drug use by youth more than by older people.[1]
The film also experienced a number of re-releases over the years. A VHS version was released in 1993 as part of "David Friedman's Roadshow Rarities," the twenty-ninth volume in the Something Weird video series,[9] and in 2006, Alpha Video Distributors produced the first DVD release of the film.[10]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999; ISBN 0822323745).
- ^ a b An unknown magazine article circa 1948-1949 promoting the film as Wild Weed. A scanned copy is available at the homepage for Reefer Madness: The Musical under their propaganda section.
- ^ A letter to Harry Anslinger from George H. White, who served as a district supervisor in Los Angeles, circa June 1949.
- ^ Colliers: "Narcotics Ruined Me." 26 July 1952.
- ^ Martin Booth: Cannabis: A History. (Picador, 2004; ISBN 0312424949).
- ^ Harry Shapiro: Shooting Stars: Drugs, Hollywood and the Movies. (Serpent's Tail, 2004; ISBN 1852426519).
- ^ Mike Quarles, Down and Dirty: Hollywood's Exploitation Filmmakers and Their Movies. (McFarland & Company. 2001. ISBN 0786411422).
- ^ a b David F. Friedman, A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1990; ISBN 087975608X).
- ^ Something Weird Video: "She Shoulda Said 'No'!". URL accessed 29 November 2006.
- ^ Amazon.com: "She Shoulda Said 'No'!". URL accessed 29 November 2006.
