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ry true horror fan knows the film: Blood Feast. And most know its director: Herschell Gordon Lewis. But few of them are familiar with producer David F. Friedman, Lewis partner on Blood Feast and its two follow-ups, Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red. Although Lewis helmed these seminal movies, Friedmans input was equally responsible for their success. Given the colorful life he has led and his experiences in the world of motion pictures, Friedmans story would be right at home up on the silver screen.
David F. Friedman was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 24, 1923. His parents divorced when he was eight years old, and he lived with his father, who was an editor of the Birmingham News but also a partner in carnival in North Alabama. Friedmans mother was a professional musician and his uncle operated movie houses, where he spent much of his boyhood soaking up films. But a large part of Friedmans youth was spent traveling the carnival circuit throughout the South. He was on the inside, a member of the show. It was here that he was first bitten by the showbiz bug, giving him a taste for spectacle that would serve him well in the future.
After graduating high school [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Friedman went to Cornell University and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Before being drafted, Friedman worked as a projectionist and film booker for Paramount Pictures. After entering the service in World War II, he was assigned communication duties and served with a filmmaking unit of the US Army Signal Corps. It was during this period that Friedman learned rudimentary filmmaking. After leaving the service, he found himself working as a croupier in infamous Phenix City, Alabama, well known in the 1940s and 50s as a haven for organized crime and corruption. In 1946, he sold some army surplus searchlights to exploitation film and roadshow pioneer Kroger Babb, which in hindsight was a most fortuitous meeting.
Friedman went to work with Babb, traveling the country showing exploitation films and learning the basics of film distribution and exhibition. He was amazed at the money that could be made this way. This period also tied in to his love of the carnival circuitmaking a score, pulling a fast one on the mark and leaving with a pocket full of cash. This was basically how roadshows worked, and Friedman was hooked.
After his partnership with Babb ended, Friedman met the man that would be his most famous associate: Herschell Gordon Lewis. Lewis, a former English professor and advertising executive, was an odd partner for Friedman [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the former carny. But together, they formed Mid-Continent Films in Chicago and were soon to make film history.
The first films they made were nudie-cuties [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], an extremely popular exploitation genre usually filmed in nudist camps. Movies such as The Adventures of Lucky Pierre and Goldilocks and the Three Bares were highly profitable for Lewis and Friedman but, as with any trend, the public eventually began to look elsewhere for a new thrill. And so did Friedman and Lewis. Trying to hit upon something that had never before been done, they stumbled upon a novel concept: gore.
Produced for $24,500 in 1963, their first gore film, Blood Feast, went on to gross an estimated $7 million and played somewhere almost nonstop over the next 15 years. Blood Feast was the goriest horror movie filmed at that point in time and the first to show brains and intestines being spilled and limbs being chopped off. It was also the first film in which people died with their eyes open. Its popularity was no doubt boosted by the lurid advertising campaign designed by Friedman. The movie poster, featuring a man holding a cleaver over the bloody body of a young woman, screamed: Nothing So Appalling in the Annals of Horror! Youll Recoil and Shudder as You Witness the Slaughter and Mutilation of Nubile Young Girlsin a Weird and Horrendous Ancient Rite! More Grisly Than Ever in Blood Color! Always the showman, in an attempt to get publicity Friedman even went so far a