Just Say 'No'?

How does an actress deal with being convicted of marijuana possession? She uses the story of being set up, exaggerates it, and turns it into a B-film of course! Such is the movie know by many names: She Shoulda Said 'No'!, Wild Weed, Marijuana The Devil's Weed, The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket and The Devil's Weed. For the sake of space, I will refer to his film by its most popular name She Shoulda Said 'No'! The 1949 film followed in the trend of marijuana exploitation films such as Marihuana and Reefer Madness.

The story was loosely based on lead actress Lila Leeds and Robert Mitchum's arrest for possession as part of a Hollywood wide sting. Most were tipped off before the cops came, but such wasn't the case for Leeds and Mitchum. In fact, Leeds was cast in the film because of her widely known arrest for being involved with drugs and it was suggested the film could be a way for her to tell "her side" of the story.

The story is of Anne Lester (Leeds) who goes to work for a drug dealer named Markey in order to help pay her brother's college tuition. Lester gets sucked into the world of drugs very quickly and then unbelievable and unrealistic portrays of marijuana addicts and drug users ending up in psych wards after a few puffs cause her to reform her ways and help the police. Its your basic story of good girl goes bad and then gets redemption at the last second.

This movie is the reason why marijuana is refered to as the "gateway drug", since the movie introduces the theory, though little of the "facts" in the movie are actually correct. The film was shot in eight days and the producer Kroger Babb knew the quality was so bad that he tried to cash in on it as quickly as possible and then distance himself from the film.

If you want to know more about the film, you can check out a few of these sources. The Cult Movie Review blog has an entry about the film, which can be read here. The homepage for the cult hit Reefer Madness talks about this film and others used for drug propaganda on the propaganda section of its site and the article about She Shoulda Said 'No'! is here. Also, the site somethingweird.com has done a nice piece on She Shoulda Said 'No'! and has the trailer for the film, which those of you who want can watch below: