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Markey (Alan Baxter) is a dope peddler as slick as they come, and as such kingpin Jonathan Treanor's (Michael Whalen) best man. And as such, he supplies among others the dancing girls of Hugo's (Henry Corden) with weed. And when he pays another visit to the club, his eyes fall on beautiful and virtuous Anne (Lila Leeds), and he knows he wants her pretty much on the spot, so he persuades her colleague Rita (Mary Ellen Popel) to throw a party with Anne invited where they can persuade her to do some weed. Of course they succeed, and the party gets wild, and before you know it, Anne is hooked - and also madly in love with Markey. Doing all the weed they do, Anne and Rita's dancing soon deteriorates - to the point where Hugo throws them out. Anne's desparate as she needs the money to get her brother Bob (David Holt) through college - so it's easy for Markey to persuade her to throw pot parties at her house, with her getting a cut of the dope they sell. But then Bob walks into one of these parties, is shocked how his sister makes her money, and promptly hangs himself. Anne is of course shocked when she finds Bob's dead body, and that only drives her deeper into addiction. Meanwhile, police captain Hayes (Lyle Talbot) reads about the suicide in a newspaper and figures it has to do with marihuana, so he has his men shadow her - and they soon stumble upon Markey. Hayes insists on Markey not being arrested so he can lead them to his boss - but to get Anne out of trouble, they have her arrested, then give her a tour of what happens to weed addicts (in a scene weirdly reminiscent of Dickens' A Christmas Carol) to try to get her to give away Markey's boss, but she won't squeal. However, her 60 days in the slammer break her as she's forced to deal with her brother's death, so out again she meets up with Markey and claims she has a big buyer, and they should both discuss this with Jonathan Treanor. Treanor bites the bait, and so one of Hayes' men (Doug Blackley) pretends to be the big buyer - and this way the police is able to shake up the whole gang. And Anne promises to have learned her lesson and be a good girl hereafter ...

... only in real life, Lila Leeds didn't. Prior to She Shoulda Said 'No'!, Lila Leeds was basically a bit player on the rise to maybe-stardom, but then she and Robert Mitchum, then already hot stuff but not yet the superstar he would become, got busted for marihuana possession and were given 60 days in jail each. It was said that neither would work in Hollywood ever again, and yet Mitchum's career sky-rocketed after - while for Lila Leeds, She Shoulda Said 'No'!, a film pretending to be made with public welfare in mind, but really to exploit her reputation for a quick buck, would remain her only starring role, and she left Hollywood soon afterward and was according to reports a drug addict most of her life.

All of which says very little about the film itself, which is a pretty routine cautionary tale about the horrors of doing drugs that's very much on-the-nose, lacks any kind of subtlety, and seems to be based on popular opinion much more than research on the subject - which is of course perfectly in line with other drug-related movies from the era, most of which use the drug-angle to draw in the audience and the moral angle to keep the censor at bay. But taking the lack of subtlety out of the equation, this is a movie that's actually enjoyable in a B-movie sort of way, it's moving along swiftly and has plenty going on to keep one interested. And Alan Baxter sure makes a good slimey villain, while Lila Leeds might not be great but more than adequate for this type of film.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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