Wild Weed / She Shoulda Said No! (1949)

A chorus girl’s career is ruined and her brother is driven to suicide when she starts smoking marijuana.

Director – Sam Newfield

Writers – Richard H. Landau (screenplay), Arthur Hoerl (based on a story by)

Stars – Lila Leeds, Alan Baxter, Lyle Talbot

Watch “Wild Weed” / “She Shoulda Said No!” (1949) – Original Version

Watch “Wild Weed” / “She Shoulda Said No!” (1949) – Colorized Version

History

She Shoulda Said No! (also known as Wild Weed; The Devil’s Weed; Marijuana, the Devil’s Weed; and The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket) is a 1949 exploitation film that follows in the spirit of morality tales such as the 1936 films Reefer Madness and Marihuana. Directed by Sam Newfield (using the pseudonym “Sherman Scott”) and starring Lila Leeds, it was originally produced to capitalize on the arrest of Leeds and Robert Mitchum on a charge of marijuana conspiracy.

The film was issued under many titles; it struggled to find a distributor until film presenter Kroger Babb picked up the rights, reissuing it as The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket. Its relative success came only after the promotional posters were redone and a story fabricated that the film was being presented in conjunction with the United States Treasury.

Plot

Leeds’ character is “Anne Lester”, a young orphan 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 experiment, and loses her fear of drugs as she continues to use it willingly.

Anne’s drug use results in the loss of many of her inhibitions, and the film shows her actions under the influence, including scenes implying sexual promiscuity. As the film progresses, she is fired from her job and begins selling drugs for Markey. Her brother hangs himself when he learns of her new job, and she is arrested and given a tour of the various psychiatric wards and jails in which drug users end up. Finally, after 50 days in jail, she is released, cleaned up and ready to cooperate with the authorities regarding Markey.