Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

zardoz-13 "Wild Weed" is a polished but predictable potboiler about the consequences of marihuana abuse in America during the late 1940s. Prolific director Sam Newfield does a good job of making this pedestrian crime thriller palatable. The action concern a chorus girl who is putting her younger brother through college by working as a dancer. Actually, Richard H. Landau is based in part on the sensational event that occurred when actor Robert Mitchum was busted with starlet Lila Leeds in her apartment. Mitchum is neither shown nor depicted. This movie shows how our unfortunate heroine becomes addicted to pot. The filmmakers refer to marihuana as 'tea' and the pushers hide it in tomato cans. The first half of the action concerns Anne Lester's descent into the hell of pot. A thoroughly despicable pusher, Markey (Alan Baxter), gets Anne hooked. After she loses her job as a dancer, Anne winds up fronting for Markey. Sadly, when Anne's brother, Bob (David Holt), shows up at his older sister's house, he is surprised to find the house in ruins after a party. Later, he discovers that she is helping Markey sell cannabis and he commits suicide by hanging himself in the garage. The second part follows Anne on her downward spiral until she survives jail and leads the authorities to Markey.Lila Leeds does a credible job, but her arrest doomed her career. She wasn't a bad actress. She is surrounded by a number of solid Hollywood actors. Indeed, Jack Elam made his film debut. Meantime, "Wild Weed" was her last film before she disappeared from the big-screen. Of course, the filmmakers were trading on Lila's celebrity status to give the film a modicum of credibility. The filmmakers' depiction of pot as a so-called 'gateway drug' makes this film funny. The scenes of people having a good time as they party with their pot are goofy. "Wild Weed" isn't as hilarious as "Reefer Madness" or "Marihuana." The fate of the lead actress gives "Wild Weed" a measure of poignancy. She suffered a worse fate than her screen character and the effect of the arrest on her cinematic aspirations is the flip side of what actually happened to Robert Mitchum. The marihuana arrest for Mitchum bolstered his career and he suffered no fall-out from it.

Michael_Elliott She Shoulda Said No (1949) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Government "warning" film in the same vein as Reefer Madness works on the same camp level and has a somewhat historic Hollywood twist. Anne Lester (Lila Leeds) is a hard working good girl until she takes a hit of marijuana and soon she turns into a mental slut. Can she be saved before ending up in a mental hospital? Like all of these "warning" exploitation films, this one here is very poorly made and the facts the film presents are so incredibly stupid you can't help but laugh at them. Weed is referred to here as tomatoes and tea, which are two terms I haven't heard the stuff called. The film also claims that, in 1949, there were over 200 million pot users, which seems a tad bit high (no pun intended). I guess the most interesting thing is the true Hollywood story of lead actress Lila Leeds who was busted with Robert Mitchum during his infamous marijuana bust. As part of her probation she had to appear in this film. I think she should have just done jail time like Mitchum. Lyle Talbot co-stars.

MartinHafer This film's structure, at least for the first half is very similar to the classic bad film, REEFER MADNESS. Both had preachy prologues and both showed wild pot parties where the guests behaved as if they were on LSD, not marijuana. While I think pot use is very stupid, I can't see how this film in any way could discourage it, as the way people act on this drug is so silly that any child would laugh at the ineptitude of the film and the central message would be lost.Oddly, at about the middle of the film, the movie became much less silly in its portrayal of drug use and became a somewhat standard (though very poorly made) cop film. While this improved the film a bit, it was a case of just too little too late. The bottom line is that the film suffers from a horrible script and production values. About the only interesting things about it were how silly it all became and to see both a down-and-out Lyle Talbot as well as Jack Elam in his first film. It's all just a very silly mess.

melvelvit-1 "How Bad Can a Good Girl Get Without Losing her Virtue and Self Respect? The Film That's Scorchin' The Nation's Screens! The Screen's Newest Blonde Bomb!" When Ann Lester (Lila Leeds), a pretty young nightclub dancer, catches the eye of slick L.A. pusher Markey (Alan Baxter), he seduces her at a "tea" party he'd arranged for that very purpose. Ann's stoner ways soon get her fired and she goes to work full-time as a hostess for Markey. When Bob, the younger brother she's been putting through college, comes home and finds out what she's become, he hangs himself. Ann's former boss turns her in and she's given a harrowing tour of prisons, psychopathic wards and the morgue before being sentenced to 60 days in jail. Remorse-ridden, Ann goes undercover for Police Captain Hayes (Lyle Talbot) to nail Markey's supplier, drug czar Jonathan Treanor (Michael Whalen)... Sexy starlet Lila Leeds made headlines around the world when she was busted for smoking pot with married movie star Robert Mitchum on September 1, 1948 and the publicity surrounding the high-profile case (long thought to be a set-up) off-set mounting charges of police corruption within the L.A.P.D. Lila became a victim of Hollywood (and the nation's) double-standard at the time: Mitchum skyrocketed to stardom as a "Hollywood bad boy" while Leeds became a pariah after they both served time in the county jail. Bob's first film post-scandal was THE BIG STEAL (1948), filmed in the heart of Mexico's marijuana country, but the only work Lila could get was this roadshow exploitation quickie capitalizing on her notoriety. Kroger Babb, "America's Fearless Showman," promoted WILD WEED as "The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Expose of the Marijuana Racket!" and in one scene Leeds even wears the same suit she wore to court. Purporting to be made in the name of education, moviegoers got to vicariously view Lila smoke dope, misbehave, and eventually pay for her sins behind bars. There's ridiculous moments galore, including a reckless teenage car crash, "tea" party hysterics, Ann's "police tour/prevention cure" (right out of the previous year's THE SNAKE PIT) with ravaged inmates in advanced stages of drug-induced insanity and Lila transforming into an emaciated hag in a prison mirror as she drives herself mad with the taunt "Baby-Killer!" The movie loves its many montages and concert pianist Rudolf Friml, Jr. tickles the ivories in the pot-induced hallucinations of a musical doper. Getting high is called "cutting up a touch" and "tea" (or "tomatoes") are $2 a stick -or you can have the "special": three for $5. The lissome Miss Leeds is out of her league histrionically as she goes from good kid to hardened moll and although WILD WEED boasts an "All-Star Hollywood Cast!", only Alan Baxter, Lyle Talbot and Michael Whalen show up. Look for a young Jack Elam as a crime kingpin's killer "butler".A bona fide B-Movie curio. Way to go, Lila! WILD WEED would make the ideal second feature for Robert Mitchum's THE BIG STEAL.