Bloody Parting of the Ways

By the summer of 1964, with both Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs still in theaters, the partnership between H.G. Lewis, David Friedman and exhibitor Stanford Kohlberg had soured. Box Office Spectaculars dissolved amid acrimony and lawsuits. By the end of that year, Friedman had cut ties with Lewis and headed to California and Lewis was distributing Moonshine Mountain.

This Aug. 4, 1964, Variety article covered the split:

Gore Film Trio Bust Own Guts On Cut of Coin

A Chicago court suit filed against his partners in a production company by producer Herschell Lewis has broken up what is probably the most successful team making low-budget nudie, gore and action films.

Lewis is suing his former partners, David F. Friedman and Stanford Kohlberg for an accounting and distribution of profits on films already made and for $300,000 for a contract he alleges was made to make 30 more actioners over the next five years.

The trio had jointly produced "B-o-i-n-n-g!", a nudie, and four gore pix -- "Scum of the Earth," "Blood Feast," "2,000 Maniacs" (see separate stories) and "Color Me Blood Red," the latter completely filmed but not yet edited. Lewis and Friedman had previously produced several highly successful nudies.

Friedman is currently working for Kohlberg in the distribution of the films already  made, and Lewis has nearly finished shooting his own comedy-action picture.

R.I.P. David F. Friedman (1923 - 2011)

On Valentine's Day, we lost one of the legends of the exploitation flick biz, producer and director David F. Friedman. Although best known for his multi-flick partnership with gore pioneer H.G. Lewis (which resulted in the Florida-lensed "Blood Trilogy," Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red, as well as a handful of nudie-cuties), Friedman was a walking textbook of exploitation history. He'd worked the carny circuit and learned the art of pitching films from Ohio native Kroger Babb, helping that entrepreneur peddle his birth-of-a-baby classic Mom and Dad. After his split with Lewis, he headed to California where he made a series of elaborate adults-only films and horror flicks, co-owned the Pussycat chain of adult movie theaters, and eventually served as as president of the adult film industry's trade association. A staunch libertarian, Friedman enthusiastically defended the rights of filmmakers to peddle smut to the eager public, and often bragged that he'd voted for Richard Nixon six times (although, given Nixon's position on the porn industry, it's unclear how our former president felt about the endorsement).

While his compatriots in the sleaze-biz were often just as shady as their films, Friedman was a jolly, avuncular presence with a quick with a big cigar. He'll be missed. In his honor, a brief one-sheet retrospective of just some of the man's contributions to 20th Century culture: