Films #060 – #063 – The Ed Wood / Bela Lugosi Collection
The films that Ed Wood is best known for are undoubtedly those on which he collaborated with his freind Bela Lugosi: Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and, most famously, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In 1994, director Tim Burton filmed a fictionalized version of the making of these films in Ed Wood.
Glen or Glenda was Ed’s first real foray into professional filmmaking. As is presented in Ed Wood, he was contracted to write and direct a film loosely based on the story of transexual Christine Jorgenson, but instead made a film about the nature of transvestitism, with only a passing mention of the original subject matter. Even at this early stage, Ed showed his remarkable ability to get fairly high quality performers to appear in his film. True, he took the lead himself and gave the part of Glen’s girlfriend, Barbara, to his real-life girlfriend Dolores Fuller, but he also got the likes of B-Movie stalwarts Timothy Farrel (as the doctor who narrates most of the film) and Lyle Talbot (as a policeman trying to understand the nature of transvestitism). He most likely met them through his working on the Universal lot as a “gopher”. And, of course, there’s Bela. How Ed actually met Lugosi is still unclear, but he was able to secure a modest sum of money (about $1000) for Lugosi’s services. Lugosi plays a kind of watcher, overlooking the proceedings and commenting on them.
Glen or Glenda is a pretty bad film. Neither Wood or Fuller were particularly good actors and they don’t do much with what Ed gave them to say. The dialogue is as convoluted as most of Ed’s works, but the earnest nature of the story makes it even harder to take than usual. Even veterans like Talbot and Farrel can’t eke anything out of this stuff. The only performance worth watching is Bela’s He plays up the nonsensical dialogue (”Pull the String! Dance to that!), and makes it work in the context Ed presents. (The context doesn’t work, but Bela does what he can with it.)
Ed’s follow-up, Bride of the Monster, pushes the boundaries of Ed’s abilities. For the first (and pretty much only) time, he had a decent budget and higher-end crew to work with. This is most likely due to the early involvement of Alex Gordon, who gets a co-screenwriting credit (although Ed claimed he didn’t actually write anything). Gordon would later go on to co-form the influential B-film production company American International and had a lot of connections. The film looks really good. Sure, there are some of Ed’s trademark cheap sets and quickie props, but nothing that really gets in the way and most of the sets look great.
Again Ed was able to wrangle performances from a few names. Bela is back, of course, this time in a major role (his last), but he also got a cameo from William ‘Billy’ Benedict, whose career lasted from 1935 to 1988 and spanned everything from The Adventures of Captain Marvel to Charlie’s Angels. Also on hand for the first time is wrestler Tor “The Swedish Angel” Johnson as the mute Lobo.
In fact, on top of all the other places where Bride excels, it is also probably Ed’s best cast film. Bela gives his all and proves how impressive he could still be even with Ed’s shoddy dialogue. Tor proves a more than capable dangerous presence, but is still able to give Lobo some of the sympathetic aspects he needs. Also, Ed actually chose two leads who can handle the material properly. Although Ed Wood makes the most of the less presentable aspects of the two, in fact Tony McCoy is just fine as Lt. Dick Craig and Loretta King proves herself to be a pretty good actress as his girlfriend, reporter Janet Lawton. * The more comedic members of the cast, Harvey B. Dunn as Capt. Robbins and Paul Marco debuting as Officer Kelton, are also good. Robbins proves to be a real character and the banter he engages in with Dick and Janet is legitimately amusing. Kelton had not yet become a complete bumbler, as he would be portrayed in subsequent entries. Here he is just overly-enthusiastic and a bit in over his head.
And the story itself is pretty good. The story of the mad scientist, shunned by his home, may be a bit cliched, but it’s a solid foundation and only creaks a bit around the edges when it’s clear Ed is overreaching with what he can accomplish on screen. In the end, Bride of the Monster is a decent B horror picture and almost certainly Ed’s best film.
And then there’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. It’s first claim to fame is that it features the last appearance of Bela Lugosi. Of course, the footage was not shot specifically for Plan 9 (it was probably not shot for anything in particular at all) and the rest of the film was made after Bela was dead, but what does that matter?
There are a lot of issues with Plan 9, of course, and I’m not going to go into all of them here. But the key points should be addressed. For one, it was *very* cheaply made. Some sets look okay, but the control room of the UFO and the office of General Roberts are clearly the same place, with everything just re-arranged. The UFOs are primarily dime store plastic models (not hubcaps or paper plates) clearly dangling from strings. Lugosi’s incorporation into the new footage is anything but seamless. Even for Ed, the plot is convoluted and the characters inconsistant. (The aliens are clearly shown to ultimately have good intentions and they think that destroying the Earth is a last resort. Then why did they “a town, filled with people. People who died”?)
Even with a film being thrown together like this, Ed was able to wrangle some decent performers. Lyle Talbot and Tor Johnson are back. Ex-Western star Tom Keene made his last appearance here as the primary military character, Col. Tom Edwards. And he even got journeyman actor Gregory Walcott to play the lead (Walcott attended the same church as J. Edward Reynolds, the man Ed convinced to back the film) and Vampira for a small part (she was *way* down on her luck). A few of them (and most of Ed’s regulars) are able to wrestle the material to the ground and get what they could from it, but that wasn’t much.
Yes, Plan 9 is a bad film. But that doesn’t mean it’s without merit. There’s the “so bad it’s good” factor. There’s certainly plenty to laugh at that wasn’t originally intended to be funny. But there is also a fair amount of solid imagry in Plan 9. Partly because she knew her own image so well, Vampira certainly looks good most of the time. Some of the short of Tor post-re-animation are also chilling. (It’s not surprising that the film looks so much better in stills, when its deficiencies are less obvious.) And there’s a certain amount of fun to be had just watching a film made the way the creator wanted, good or bad. And for whatever it’s worth, this is the film Ed wanted to make.
Tim Burton had always been a fan of the work of Ed Wood. He probably identified with the “outsider” nature of Ed and his films. But, despite a growing cult following, Ed was still not widely known at that time. So it was interesting to see one of Hollywood’s most distinct filmmakers choosing to document the life of one of its most notorious.
As stated earlier, the approach taken by screenwriters Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski was to focus on the Ed/Bela relationship and the work they did together. Everything in the film bends towards this focus. Factual accuracy is a secondary consideration. Despite being based on the book
Nightmare of Ecstacy by Rudolph Grey, they do little to try and capture the myriad of perspectives that the book portrays. What seems to have happened is that they would look at all the different versions of a story and then dramatized the most outlandish. (Such as Loretta King not drinking liquids or Ed directing in drag when not necessary.)
They also alter people’s motivations and reaction to Ed to better portray his rejection by the industry. A good example is George Weiss (Mike Starr), who is portrayed in the film as being incensed at how far Glen or Glenda veered off from the intended product. In reality, Glen or Glenda played for years and made Screen Classics plenty of money. Weiss was even set to back another film from Ed, Hellborn, until his moving to the East coast prevented it. Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker) also comes off as much less understanding than she apparently was in real life. The film portrays her as leaving Ed because of his insistance on working with losers and making bad films. In reality, they had kind of hit a wall anyway and she had the opportunity to leave town to write songs for Elvis movies and she took it.
But a film like Ed Wood (to quote Ed from the movie itself) is not “about the little details, it’s about the big picture”. And that, it gets absolutely right.
It begins with the casting of Johnny Depp as Ed. Depp bears absolutely no resemblance to Ed and no serious attempt was made to make him do so. But he was able to project Ed’s boundless enthusiasm, enourmous charisma, deep depressions and pure love of film better than many actors could, who might have more closely looked the part.
At the other end is the performance of Martin Landau as Lugosi. Not the other end as is being bad, but the exact opposite way to play a real person. While Depp produced Ed’s personality and few of his physical traits, Landau personified Lugosi. Heavy, detailed makeup tranformed him into a bent, wrinkled, shrunken old man. He adopts Lugosi’s thick accent and many of his mannerisms. It is a performance that would be worthy of an Oscar (which Landau did win) if it had been fictional, but the fact that it so brilliantly brings Lugosi back to life only makes it more impressive.
Much like Ed, Burton was able to bring in a wide range of people to populate the film. Then up-and-comer Vincent D’Onofrio is onscreen (as Orson Welles) for less than five minutes. Bill Murray takes a fun, but very small part as Ed’s friend Bunny Breckinridge. Max Casella (of Doogie Houser) re-creates Paul Marco/Kelton the Cop. Burton’s then-girlfriend Lisa Marie (not Presley) has her largest and most impressive role as Vampira. Wrestler George “The Animal” Steele makes full use of his remarkable similarity to Tor Johnson to portray the Swedish Angel. Jeffrey Jones is great as Criswell, as is Rance Howard as Old Man McCoy.
It is to Burton’s credit also that he was not only willing to subvert his natural style in favor of a more stoic Ed-like feel, but that he was able to actually do it. Burton’s style is very strong and yet he captures the essence of Ed’s static, boxy blocking and simple, straightforward camera angles without ever allowing it to make the film less dynamic.
Ed Wood’s work is a triumph of desire over ability, able to entertain years after many contemporary (and more successful) films have been forgotten. And the film Ed Wood is able to convey that special magic that Ed had, perhaps inspiring new fans, but entertaining audiences, nonetheless.
*The casting of King most likely contributed to the breakup of Ed and Dolores Fuller, as he had originally written the part for her. I believe that he decided to cast a more qualified actress because he recognized Bride as his best shot at success in Hollywood and didn’t want it ruined by another sub-par performance from Dolores. He most likely told her the story about King claiming have money (as is shown in Ed Wood) as a way to throw her off the track from the real reason for not giving her the part.