David F. Friedman
David F. Friedman (born December 24, 1923) is an American filmmaker and film producer from Birmingham, Alabama.
Friedman first became interested in entertainment after spending parts of his childhood at traveling carnival sites. He met exploitation film pioneer Kroger Babb [Source 1] during his stay in the Army. This encounter got him interested in films. Working as a regional marketing man for Paramount Pictures he sensed the money in independent distributing and started his own company in the 1950s. His company mainly produced so-called Nudie Cuties, films such as Goldilocks and The Three Bares shot in nudist colonies being the closest thing to pornography legally available back then. This trend was followed by the sexploitation and "Roughie" genres, depicting simulated sex with a more violent edge, often horror- or crime-related. Examples of Friedman's roughies are The Defilers (1965), The Lustful Turk (1968), The Head Mistress (1968), and The Adult Version Of Jekyll and Hide (1971, directed by Byron Mabe). Helming one of those movies Friedman started his working relationship with Chicago-based teacher and filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis - Similar article on WikiPedia .
Friedman went on to produce the latter's 1963 film Blood Feast, an American exploitation film often considered the first "gore" or splatter film. He was also the producer of two of the first Nazi exploitation films, Love Camp 7 (1969) and Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS (1974), for which he refused to use his real name and was credited as Herman Traeger.
See also [ Exploitation film ]
With the advent of hardcore porn as a commercial factor in the mid-70s, Friedman began to slow down his output. His work ethic "Sell the sizzle, not the steak" would not comply with actual intercourse shown on screen. Still, he was president of an organization of Adult Film Makers.
In the early 1990s, Seattle's Something Weird Video, owned by Mike Vraney, started to re-issue the work of David Friedman, getting him the attention of a new generation of exploitation and b-movie collectors. He can be heard on the audio commentary track of some of the company's releases. In 2000, Friedman was featured alongside cult filmmakers Roger Corman, Doris Wishman, Harry Novak, and others in the documentary SCHLOCK! The Secret History of American Movies, a film about the rise and fall of American exploitation cinema.
In 2001, he co-starred with long-time business partner Dan Sonney in the documentary Mau Mau Sex Sex (IMDb entry).
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