Carol Speed's casting came about through a telling piece of low-budget production arithmetic. According to Speed, another actress had originally been hired to play Abby but demanded a personal masseuse on set, an expense the production could not afford. Speed was contacted by David Baumgorten of the Agency of the Performing Arts and asked whether she required a masseuse while filming in Louisville. She said no, and within days she had the script and was on her way to take the leading role. Speed viewed the part as a major acting opportunity, comparing the possession story to The Three Faces of Eve, and said she was comfortable with the film's African religious material. The episode is less a formal scandal than a revealing example of how exploitation pictures assembled casts: personal demands that might have been routine on a larger production could abruptly cost an actor a role when a film was operating on a narrow budget. Speed also wrote and composed the church song "Is Your Soul A Witness?" for the film, though no known official recording outside the soundtrack reels has survived.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Missing Masseuse and Carol Speed's Last-Minute Promotion to Abby
Carol Speed / 1970s
Carol Speed's casting came about through a telling piece of low-budget production arithmetic. According to Speed, another actress had originally been hired to play Abby but demanded a personal masseuse on set, an expense the production could not afford. Speed was contacted by David Baumgorten of the Agency of the Performing Arts and asked whether she required a masseuse while filming in Louisville. She said no, and within days she had the script and was on her way to take the leading role. Speed viewed the part as a major acting opportunity, comparing the possession story to The Three Faces of Eve, and said she was comfortable with the film's African religious material. The episode is less a formal scandal than a revealing example of how exploitation pictures assembled casts: personal demands that might have been routine on a larger production could abruptly cost an actor a role when a film was operating on a narrow budget. Speed also wrote and composed the church song "Is Your Soul A Witness?" for the film, though no known official recording outside the soundtrack reels has survived.
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