She Freak

Exploitation film has been around almost as long as the medium itself. In fact, the first couple of decades of film were really nothing more than candid shots exploiting the fact that patrons wanted to get a look at everyday life: People kissing, walking and riding trains. Once stories came into the picture it wasn't long before someone got the idea to make stories about the underbelly of life, the part no major director or studio wanted to touch. By the advent of the sound era, they were rolling and the thirties produced some of the most famous, from Reefer Madness (1936) to Child Bride (1938), but the biggest one, Freaks (1932), didn't start out as an exploitation film at all. Released by MGM, the biggest studio in town, and directed by Tod Browning, fresh off of his success with Dracula (1931), Freaks was to be the big budget freak out movie of the year (long before anyone called them that), not an under-the-radar exploitation film playing the burlesque (later called grindhouse) circuit. Unfortunately, it freaked people out a little too much. MGM had to edit out some thirty minutes and shoot some new inoffensive footage to fill the movie back out to over an hour and still it got banned in Britain for over thirty years. That rotten reception didn't go unnoticed. Freaks became a film people talked about but rarely saw. It became a cult film, one you had to be lucky enough to catch on the grindhouse circuit or see in someone's basement, if they happened to own a 16mm print of it. By the time it got redistributed in the sixties, its reputation was made and it remains today one of the most celebrated films of the early thirties. And that didn't go unnoticed by David Friedman, producer of the 1963 shock-fest Blood Feast, the movie that gave the world a woman having her tongue removed by force while, oddly, doing almost nothing to stop the attack. It also contained one of the most extraordinarily acted scenes in cinema history: Tony (Gene Courtier), after his girlfriend's brain has been hacked out, bawling like a baby on the beach or, at least, trying his damnedest to convince us he is. And failing. Miserably. But that was all blood and gore and guts. What David Friedman really wanted to do, what he dreamed of doing, was remaking Freaks. Not literally, of course. No, he wanted to make a movie like Freaks, and the success of Blood Feast gave him the opportunity. She Freak (1967) was born. David Friedman wrote the screenplay himself and on the commentary track of Something Weird Video's DVD release of the movie, remarks of his pride in writing characters that real live carny folk told him were true to life. Or at least the carny folk working at the carnival where Friedman and friends were making the film told him that. After all, they got to be in She Freak. Might as well tell David it's true to life, right? Friedman himself even has a cameo in the film, early on, as the barker, only don't call him that. Even though that's the credit listed, Friedman points out that the proper term is "talker" not "barker." He also marvels at the shots of the carnival itself and the viewer, whether or not they marvel at these very shots, will certainly have time to take them in as, it would appear, not a millimeter of the second unit carnival footage has been cut from the film. In fact, carnival footage takes up the first full five minutes of the film signaling immediately to the astute viewer the mark of an exploitation film: Filler footage to pad out the running time. And that's why there's something almost beautiful about watching a true exploitation film because they provide endless shots of real people in a real time, not how glamorized Hollywood saw things. When the viewer is introduced to the star of the film, Claire Brennen as Jade Cochran, the diner she works in has the look and feel of desolation because, well, it is desolate. Hollywood would have made it appealing, somehow (think "trashy chic") and ruined it. Jade works as a waitress at the diner and dreams of a better life. She tells her worthless, heartless, classless boss she's going to have a better life than working as a waitress for him. She's going to be a waitress for the carnival! Wait, what? Yes, Jade leaves that two-bit, no-good waiting job to wait on carny folk instead. It can be reasonably assumed from all available evidence, and the evidence is that armpit of a diner, that this is a step up. The world is a sad, sad place. Once there Jade wastes no time in befriending Moon, a local stripper who works the carnival doing the hoochie-coochie show for the paying gentlemen of the community. Moon gives Jade the lowdown on the cast and crew and Jade's eyes fall on Blackie (Lee Raymond) who runs the Ferris wheel. He lets Jade have a free ride and, as a reward, the viewer gets to watch her ride the wheel. By herself. Around and around and around. For three or four minutes. Yes. But while Blackie's good for a tumble now and again, Jade needs to move up faster and woos the freak show owner, the haughtily named Steve St. John. The only problem? She hates freaks. Really hates them. But St. John's got money so goodbye waiting job, hello co-owner of the freak show. As this is a modern day re-telling of Freaks, no further plot detail should be necessary. And that's why the viewers came and that's why Friedman and director Byron Mabe made it: Because you know how it's going to end! That's the point! People who fault exploitation for lacking the subtlety or build-up of suspense are sorely missing a great deal of the appeal, which is, to put it simply, giving the audience a cheap thrill for a cheap price with no real misdirection desired nor needed. While She Freak wasn't the hit Friedman wanted, it worked out well enough. He felt there could have been more blood (only one really bloody scene appears, when someone's hand is impaled) but listening to him express his pride and satisfaction with the finished product is kind of satisfying in its own right. Not everyone can be David O. Selznick. What's more, not everyone wants to be. On a sad note, the lead, Claire Brennen, succumbed to cancer in 1977 at the all-too-young age of 43. Friedman said she was charming, lovely and forever grateful for the opportunity to play the lead. According to rumor, she and co-star Felix Silla, the cowboy dwarf in the film, Shorty, hooked up, had a nine year romance and even produced a baby. As this trivial tidbit is included in the usual forum write-ups but never quite verified by anyone with direct knowledge it is presented here as merely that, rumor. But an interesting one at that for Shorty is the one character in the movie Jade despises the most. How delightful if true, that these two actors turned their antagonistic exploits into real life true love. And how sad that Brennen, so young and sweet and beautiful, had to leave us so early. But as long as She Freak exists, this sixties update to Freaks will keep both the spirit and beauty of Brennen alive. And carnys. And Friedman. And she-freaks. Freak out, baby. Producer: David F. Friedman Director: Byron Mabe Screenplay: David F. Friedman Cinematography: William G. Troiano Production Management: Dan Hallstrom Music: William Allen Castleman (as Billy Allen) Film Editor: Byron Mabe Cast: Claire Brennen (Jade Cochran), Lee Raymond (Blackie Fleming), Lynn Courtney (Pat "Moon" Mullins), Bill McKinney (Steve St. John), Claude Smith (Greasy), Felix Silla (Shorty). C-87m. by Greg Ferrara SOURCES: Commentary with David Friedman and Mike Vraney, Something Weird Video DVD, She-Freak Wikipedia IMDB