Plan 9 from Outer Space

Dir: Ed Wood

1959

****

Ed Wood’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space is has often been declared as the worst film ever made. It’s not. It belongs in a completely different category altogether, the so-bad-its-good category, where films can never count as being truly awful. I can think of many serious and mainstream films that are far worse. It’s certainly in the top 10 so-bad-its-good films, and while it is probably Ed Wood’s most famous film, I wouldn’t agree that it was his best. The story begins at the funeral of an old man's wife. The fellow mourners are gathered by an open grave, among them her husband (played by Bela Lugosi who was actually dead at the time the film was released). Overhead, an airliner is heading toward California. The pilot and his co-pilot are blinded by a bright light and loud sound. They look outside and see a flying saucer (a Frisbee on a string). The pilots follow the saucer's flight until it lands at the graveyard, where the funeral's gravediggers are killed by a zombie. So far so Wood. At his home, lost in his thoughts of grief, the old man goes outside and (off-screen) steps in front of an oncoming car and is killed. This footage of Lugosi was filmed some time before by Wood and was edited into the film after he had died – so Wood could give him one last film credit. His posthumous appearance would also help with box office sales. The bodies of the dead gravediggers and discovered and Inspector Daniel Clay (played by Wood regular Tor Johnson) and other police officers arrive, but Clay goes off alone to continue his investigation.The pilot from the initial scene, and his wife Paula, who live near the graveyard, hear the sirens and Jeff tells Paula about his saucer encounter, stating that the Army has since sworn him to secrecy. A powerful swooshing noise then knocks everyone to the ground at both the Trent residence and the nearby graveyard as a saucer lands. Police Inspector Clay then encounters the and the reanimated corpse of the old man, and is promptly killed by them. Newspaper headlines continue to report saucer sightings over Hollywood Boulevard, while a trio of saucers flies over Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., the military fires missiles at more saucers, while the Chief of Saucer Operations (which is hilarious) reveals that the government has been covering up saucer attacks for years. He mentions that one small town was annihilated, hinting at a secret history of other encounters. Just when things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we see the aliens return to their Space Station 7. Commander Eros informs his ruler that he has been unsuccessful in contacting Earth's governments. To force their acknowledgment, Eros recommends implementing "Plan 9", which will resurrect the recently deceased by stimulating their pituitary and pineal glands. Meanwhile Trent the pilot, about to leave on another flight, is concerned for his wife's safety. He urges her to stay with her mother, but she insists on staying home. That night the zombie old man rises from his grave and breaks into their house. He pursues Paula outside and is joined by his zombie wife and the zombie Inspector Clay. Paula barely escapes, but then collapses after her ordeal. All three zombies return to Eros' saucer. Things get increasingly heated when the aliens, coming to the conclusion that humans are immature and silly, decide to wipe out man kind once and for all. They nearly get away with it to but for all of their higher intellect, technology and superior weapons, they are stopped when Trent punches one of them and knocks over their computer. The human race is saved, the aliens bugger off and the dead go back to being dead again. It’s a work of b-movie genius. It’s got everything you could possibly want from a trashy horror sci-fi; a Cemetery, aliens, flying saucers, zombies, abduction, annihilation and a good old punch-up. It was space-race science mixed with gothic horror, you could attach whatever meaning you liked to the film – you’d be wrong – but that was fine. The film is hugely influential and much loved around the world. If you want a really wonderful and comprehensive look at the making of then you should watch Tim Burton’s Ed Wood which is a truly loving tribute. It’s awful but its fun. Spotting the film’s mistakes is actually half the fun. You can quite clearly see the first officer from the first aircraft cockpit scene reading from the script that is clearly visible on his lap and you can see the shadow of the boom microphone more than once. In one particularly funny scene, you can spot one of the actors (Duke Moore) point his gun at himself several times during filming. This wasn’t in the script, the actor decided to test Wood to see if he was actually paying attention to what was going on – he wasn’t – and it made the final cut. It’s a great scene. It’s a film full of great scenes, and cult classics don’t come anymore classic or culty than this.

Jail Bait

Dir: Ed Wood

1954

***

Inspired by the 1935 script Let ‘Em Have It by producer Edward Small, Ed Wood’s suspenseful thriller is the first to feature the idea of a criminal undergoing plastic surgery to elude the authorities. I always thought it to be a contemporary idea and if I had to guess its origins I would have guessed that it was a story right out of a 1950s pulp magazine but no earlier than that. Say what you will about the infamous Ed Wood but Jail Bait (sometimes known as The Hidden Face) is a class crime-thriller, a film that stands out from his other works. To be fair, it has been suggested that Jail Bait is somewhat superior in quality to most of Wood’s works due to the fact it was co-written by Alex Gordon, whose talent led to a far tighter narrative structure and a more coherent story-line. The direction however is all down to Wood. Set in California, every scene is shot at night, the perpetual darkness giving the film an otherworldly ambiance that is something of a signature of the cult director. The original script sees a gangster in the main role, while in the film it is a youth offender who gets in with the wrong crowd but soon has delusions of grandeur. The film begins with Don Gregor (Clancy Malone) being bailed out of prison for carrying an illegal handgun by his worried sister Marilyn (Dolores Fuller). Don ignores his sisters concern and flees their home full of drink and with another gun he had stashed away. Marilyn then discusses Don with their father, successful plastic surgeon Dr Boris Gregor (Herbert Rawlinson in his swansong performance – he died the day after shooting wrapped and clearly had breathing difficulties throughout the film) and suggests that her brother is somehow involved with the notorious gangster Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell). Dr Gregor however is well aware of the situation and is not worried, suggesting that it will all blow over and that Don's current behavior is a result of the premature death of Mrs. Gregor and his own upbringing having had the unintentional effect of spoiling the boy – he will soon grow out of it. However, that night Don and Vic rob a theatre and when things go wrong they are forced to kill two innocents. Don can’t handle what he’s done and flees to his father who tells him to give himself up, which he agrees to but not right away. His father helps him escape, only for him to be killed by Vic who learns of his intension to surrender. Vic then tricks Dr Gregor and Marilyn (who is a nurse) into coming to his house, telling them that he has Don hostage and that only they can make a deal that will have him free him. Once there, Vic blackmails the doctor into performing plastic surgery on his face in order to change his appearance and therefore aloud the police. The doctor, who has guessed that his son is dead by this point, goes ahead with the operation. Weeks later when the police catch up with Vic they order him to undo his bandages, which he does with confidence. However, in a delightfully morbid twist, the doctor has modeled Vic’s new face on his own son’s – Don being the one at this point who is suspected of committing the murders. The doctor then admits to the police that he is his own son and Vic is shot down as he tries to escape. It’s a pretty dark and wonderfully macabre twist. I only wish that Vic had gone to prison, as having to spend the rest of his life as someone else would have been a far more disturbing concept. The score is also a bit strange to be honest, the use of flamenco guitar and piano music is clearly meant to add to the otherworldliness but it becomes something of a distraction and it couldn’t suit the story less. There is also the unfortunate inclusion of Cotton Watts performing in blackface which was outdated then but as the film was primarily released in areas of the deep south where blackface still held nostalgic appeal, it was deemed appropriate. To be honest Ed Wood was taken advantage by producers Joy Newton Houck Sr. and J. Francis White who owned Howco and a chain of movie theatres in the south. They gave him a bigger budget than he was used to but he wasn’t allowed any demands on the film’s box office earnings and couldn’t make certain decisions. The film has many themes that Wood and other crime-thriller film makers explored at the time. It’s not one of the best of the era but I would argue that it has one of the greatest endings of the time and genre. It’s certainly one of Wood’s best and most overlooked films.

Bride of the Monster

Dir: Ed Wood

1955

****

Sadly, I think what most people knew about Bride of the Monster is something that wasn’t true. In the book The Golden Turkey Awards, released in 1980 by Michael Medved and Harry Medved, it was claimed that Lugosi's character declares his manservant Lobo (Tor Johnson) "as harmless as kitchen". This allegedly misspoken line is cited as evidence of either Lugosi's failing health/mental faculties, or as further evidence of Wood's incompetence as a director. Wood already had a reputation for being one of the worst the world of cinema had ever seen but this insulting and hurtful mistake is one of many unfortunate inaccuracies reported that have always damaged his appeal. Lugosi said this line correctly, the exact words being, "Don't be afraid of Lobo; he's as gentle as a kitten." Michael Medved and Harry Medved saw the film in a theater setting with inferior sound quality but still, the inaccurate claim managed to achieve urban legend status, and it keeps circulating. Thank goodness for Tim Burton, as his 1994 biopic of Ed Wood sets much of the record straight and takes a sympathetic and celebratory look at the great man’s work. Bride of the Monster is among the directors better known and much loved films. It took two years to shoot because of budget costs – even though $70,000 was considered pretty healthy back then – but still managed to spawn a large cult following, as well as a sequel that followed in 1959 – although due to even more financial issues, wasn’t released for another twenty-five years. The story involves a mad scientist by the name of Dr. Eric Vornoff who lives in a haunted house, complete with moat containing a giant killer octopus. The police soon begin to get suspicious after many people go missing around the same location of the house and they decide to investigate. They bring a news reporter with them as well as a European intellectual, Professor Vladimir Strowski. The news reporter Janet (the fiance to one of the policemen) is kidnapped by Vornoff’s huge manservant Lobo who takes her back to the house for the doctor to do hypnotic experiments on. Strowski then soon wonders into the house and bumps into Vornoff. It then transpires that Strowski is there to recruit Vornoff to help him continue with his own groundbreaking experiments with atomic energy. Cut to a flashback where Vornoff narrates that two decades prior, he had suggested using experiments with nuclear power which could create super-humans of great strength and size. In response, he was branded a madman and exiled by his country. He suggests that with Strowski’s help, he could find the answers and his country would have him back and regard him as a national hero. Strowski agrees but is in it for himself. However, just as they are about to experiment on Janet, Lobo – who totally has the hots for her – pushes them to one side and rescues the fair maiden. Vornoff then injects himself with the super-strength liquid and he and Lobo have a big akward fight. The police get there just in time to rescue Janet, just as the house is struck by lightening, forcing it to collapse. If that isn’t a good night in I don’t know what is. Vornoff is killed obviously, but as the chief police captain puts it at the end of the film, he had it coming after he “tampered in God's domain.”The total lack of understand of how nuclear power and atoms work is forgivable thanks to the inclusion of giant killer octopus. Lobo is pretty cool too and Bela Lugosi’s performance as  Dr. Eric Vornoff is the stuff of b-movie legend. It’s a great sci-fi horror and like many of its contemporaries, it serves in part as a Cold War propaganda film. Once again, an external threat from "Old Europe" serves as the enemy of the righteous United States. The country of origin for Vornoff and Strowski is left unnamed but Strowski uses the term master race, clearly suggesting that they are a couple of old Nazis. It’s a mish-mash of genres and ideas that steals ideas from Bride of Frankenstien and White Zombie and throws in a giant killer octopus for good measure. It’s awful and brilliant at the same time. It would be the last speaking appearance of Bela Lugosi and the last time he would play a charismatic villain whose megalomania leads to downfall and destruction – the sort of role he is fondly remembered for by his fans. The film is part of what Wood aficionados refer to as "The Kelton Trilogy", a trio of films featuring Paul Marco as Officer Kelton, a whining, reluctant policeman. The other two films are Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride’s sequel Night of the Ghouls. I would hazard a guess that Quentin Tarantino was a fan. There is something wrong with you if you’re not a fan to be honest, as – as awful as it is – there is an undeniable charm to Bride of the Monster that I and many others, find irresistible.

Glen or Glenda

Dir: Ed Wood

1953

*****

Ed Wood’s 1953 drama Glen or Glenda has been described as one of the worst films ever made – a sentiment I whole-heartedly disagree with. While the film had some notoriety, it wasn’t until Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic of the infamous director that the great viewing public really became aware of it’s existence and of its meaning. Glen or Glenda was Wood’s plea for tolerance, a semi-autobiographical docudrama about cross-dressing and transsexuality. Wood had been a transvestite for some time and when he was asked by low-budget Hollywood producer George Weiss to make a movie exploiting the recent sex reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen, which made national headlines in the U.S. in 1952, he saw an opportunity. Weiss wanted sensationalism and in many ways Wood gave him just that but on his terms and from the perspective of the subject. He may have muddled the subject somewhat but his intentions are pure. He had to compromise quite a bit, which is a little detrimental to the finished film, but all things considered this is a film way ahead of it’s time. Unfortunately the film is remembered for its pointless erotic-themed vignettes that appear half-way through the film and have very little to do with the content or the main story. These however, were not created by Wood. They were reportedly added by Weiss as he needed extra scenes to add to what he felt was an overtly -short film. Sadly these scenes seem to tell their own tales of gender dynamics, the whipping scene for example suggests a Master/slave relationship, that the man is dominant and the woman submissive, which reflects male chauvinism, not at all what the film is about. Weiss wanted sensationalism and titillation, such was the popularity of 1950s exploitation films and the grindhouse scene. This made it appeal even more so to certain viewers, and who doesn’t like a bit of 50s exploitation, but it did nothing for Wood’s heartfelt plea of tolerance. Cut out the erotic scenes and you have a completely different (better) film. Wood persuaded Bela Lugosi, at the time poor and drug-addicted, to appear in the movie. His character of The Scientist, who narrated the film making cryptic comments about humanity is largely ineffective and not really necessary but this style and indeed the inclusion of Lugosi was a Wood signature by this point and it probably wouldn’t have felt the same without either. Back in 1981, Paramount reissued Glen or Glenda and heralded it as a lost masterpiece akin to Citizen Kane, Freaks and The Godfather, after the Golden Turkey Awards awarded Wood with the title ‘Worst director of all time” – something that kick-started a resurgence of interest in him and his work. Unfortunately, the big New York premiere, paid for by Warren Beatty and featuring six minutes of lost footage, was cancelled after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan the day before. The curse of Ed Wood struck again but the limited release did well and the film appeared in many film festivals over the following year. The real strength behind the film, and the reason it should be reconsidered as something much greater than it currently is, is how it explains things. The narrative explains to the audience that Glen is a transvestite, but not a homosexual. He hides his cross-dressing from his fiancée, Barbara, fearing that she will reject him. He still loves her the same way he would if he wasn’t interested in wearing women’s clothes and this simplicity is laid bare, it is not a deviance or a perversion and it’s far more common than most people might think. Ed Wood’s methods weren’t totally successful but I believe they helped. Making it a docudrama was a key factor in its successful side but some levels of ignorance will always remain untouchable, no matter how hard you try to educate it. It’s a masterpiece with niggles, ahead of its time and still largely misunderstood. I love that Tim Burton stood up for Wood with his loving tribute and its about time more film-goers gave a little more love to Wood as his films are gold. So many classics aren’t as good as their hype – they are gold plated. Wood’s films how ever are gold, it’s just that most of the time they’re tin-plated.

Night of the Ghouls

Dir: Ed Wood

1959

***

Made only a few years after its predecessor Bride of the Monster, Night of the Ghouls wasn’t actually released until 1984 – nearly twenty-five years after it was made, after most of the key players had died. Night of the Ghouls is a very loose sequel in that it shares a few of the characters from the first film and its events happen after the those of the first film. The basic plot involves the police investigating another haunted house that is said to serve as headquarters for a confidence trickster called Dr. Acula (get it?) who pretends to be able to contact the dead, and charges naive customers large amounts of money to allow them to speak to their deceased loved ones. The opening scene features a montage of seemingly unrelated events, which seem to feature Wood's view of the post-war era and its social problems including juvenile delinquency, street fighting, and driving under the influence. In one scene a car is seen driving off a cliff and crashing with the sequence ending with the bloody corpse of the drunk driver staring blankly at the camera. It’s an odd sort of ‘You get what’s coming to you’ vibe that acts as a warning, albeit a misplaced one. The film then reverts to well-trodden 1950s b-movie territory as we see a young couple getting amorous with each other in a car parked in the woods. The guy gets a bit too hands on and both are killed by a ghost as the girl tries to get away from him. It is explained that the house from the first film has been rebuilt and Dr. Acula is making a killing from clients thanks to the history of the place. However, little does he know, but his powers might not be as false as he first thought. The film is full of bad jokes but is redeemed somewhat by its charm. The Ghost scenes were quite funny, what with the floating lamps and the odd sound effects but why were there two skeletons sitting at the table during the séance remains a hilarious mystery. It was a bit disappointing when we finally do see the 'Ghouls' of the film’s title, only to find they're a bunch of middle age men in suits but what doesn’t frighten you makes you roll about laughing. In a brief epilogue which also closes the frame story, the narrator – who had come out of his coffin to tell us the tale - returns to his grave, suggesting that it is time for both the old dead and the new to return to rest, reminding the viewer that he/she too can soon join them in death. Certainly not one of Wood’s best but definitely one of his funnier films.I loved that officer Kelton returned and it was great to see Tor Johnson as Lobo once more – I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been for fans of the original to see the sequel for the first time after twenty-five years of waiting. Ed Wood finished the principal photography and rough cut of the film by late 1957, but could not financially afford paying for the post-production work. In 1958, the film laboratory opted to keep the negative film footage until the bill could be paid, and it remained unpaid for nearly three decades. By the 1980s film historians either considered Night of the Ghouls a lost film or suspected that the film never existed in completed form, since there was no evidence it was ever released theatrically nor ever shown on television. Another great piece of quirky film history by the great director.