Drums O’ Voodoo

An early “race movie” financed (as most were) by white producers, She Devil should not necessarily be discounted as representing the expression of a genuine Black voice. Though directed by Arthur Hoerl, a white man who wrote Reefer Madness and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, the original play is by J. Augustus Smith, a southern Black man who also wrote the screenplay and takes the leading role. In Louisiana a Voodoo Priestess and a Minister preach their religion to the same community. One day an evil man named Tom comes into town and tries to force the ministers daughter to go with him to his sinful place across the river where all manners of “evil” things occur like drinking and gambling! It’s up to the Voodoo Priestess to take out Tom before he can corrupt the innocent girl. After Texas previews in late 1933 as Drums O’Voodoo, it was picked up by Dallas distributor Alfred Sack, who retitled it She Devil for general release in May 1934.