Novel takes us through the last, desperate era of Ed Wood's life

 

The Valley Obscured By Smog, Bearmanor Media, 2026. 

Alan Starkwell is a young college graduate, transplanted to Los Angeles in the latter mid-70s, with dreams of working in the movie industry. Alan doesn't have too many prospects. He has a degree in English. He thought he had a job as a script reader lined up, but his friend took the job from him. And he's crashing the same friend's pad with several others, including an ex-girlfriend who definitely is not interested in him anymore but sometimes hangs around the pad barely dressed.

Ah, the life of the educated young poor two generations ago ...

Alan, needing cash as soon as possible, has a potential job tossed to him, It's a publishing house. He hurries to the job and is hired on the spot by the owner Bernie Bloom, who says he needs a magazine editor. The business office has locks just about everywhere. Alan is assigned a windowless area to churn out copy all day long. The pay's low but there are bonuses if you write a book once a month.

Fans of the cult auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. will recognize the setting. It's a pornography publisher called Pendulum. Ed Wood spent much of his last several years there writing stories, novels, film captions, essays, screenplays, even directing. For $200 a week, Alan is expected to write fiction and non-fiction for the magazines. In these magazines the highest priority are photos, not text. 

Alan can make an extra $800 to $1,000 a month if he can pen a porn book, preferably non-fiction sourced with a "doctor" of some sorts to lend legitimacy on topics such as sex between a husband and wife, or homosexuality, etc. There's even a library in the office with source material that Bloom has purchased. Dr. T.K. Peters, anyone? ...

Most of the staff is young, like Alan. Most are unmotivated, except an older writer, who keeps to himself. This guy, Ed Wood, likes to also occasionally work in women's clothes. He's dismissed and often chided by the staff. They shrug off his disapproval of their laziness, thinking him a tired, old drunk.

There's some truth to the "tired old drunk" moniker, but Alan -- not cynical, just skeptical -- finds the old man interesting. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Alan and Ed form a kind of team. Ed's been assigned to direct a movie, to be called "Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love." He has $7,000 to do it. He wants Alan as his assistant. Alan knows he's unqualified for the job but wants to be a part of any movie. 

Alan becomes more of an assistant. He becomes a kind of minder for Ed, once a movie director but now an unreliable alcoholic hanging on to his job. Ed needs someone to care about him; make sure he gets out of bed, his apartment, and finishes the porn film. Ed's job depends on it.

W. Paul Apel has crafted a novel that provides readers a glimpse of what Wood's life was probably like in his final years. In my opinion, it's another addition to the surge of Ed-Wood related books the past decade-plus that -- read together -- provide a sort of biography of Wood's life, before and after, what occurs in the Tim Burton film, "Ed Wood." 

I'll stop with mostly plot narrative. Writer Apel has created an accurate portrayal of Los Angeles/Hollywood of the '70s. He's placed the release of "Star Wars" in his time frame. Alan thinks Ed would be excited about this new blockbuster. Ed isn't but he does perk up a bit when Alan mentions Peter Cushing is in Star Wars. 

Ed's dreams live in the past; but he exists in a hard, tough present where Imperial whiskey is most real to him

Apel's research is a plus for the reader. Scenes in the narrative derive from Rudolph Grey's classic oral biography of Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy. (A quick note: I wrote my NOE review when many of the myths of Ed Wood were still believed.) And Apel has clearly seen the many documentaries and read the growing list of books on Ed Wood, the Ed Wood Wednesdays blog from Joe Blevins, and Bob Blackburn's Ed Wood Jr. Facebook page. 

Shannon Dolder, a young woman neighbor of Wood's in the infamous Yucca Street apartment complex in Hollywood Wood and wife Kathy endured, becomes in the novel a sort of pal to Alan. The late Dolder, who was part of the '70s and '80s LA punk scene, accompanies our protagonist Alan to a reading from poet/novelist Charles Bukowski, and meets rocker Keith Moon; both are fun interludes.

But when Alan and Ed frantically attempt to complete Necromania in a couple of days, contemporaries of Wood surface. There's Ed's wife, Kathy Wood. There's a phone call to Vampira who turns down a part in "Necromania." There's a lot of Criswell in the novel. They visit him and his eccentric wife. Criswell loans Wood a coffin and visits the movie set, which of course includes Hal Guthu, cinematographer and agent to adult actresses. Porn starlet Rene Bond, and her husband Rick Lutze, both in "Necromania," are in the novel. And there's a hilarious passage of Alan and Ed, after egocentric porn star John Holmes turns them down, sneaking out of the iconic Tail O' the Cock restaurant, stiffing Holmes with the cost of a steak dinner.

Ed Wood fans know, of course, that "Necromania" was filmed several years before 1977, the novel's time. But including the film in the narrative makes sense. It provides a central theme; Wood's economic survival, perhaps his life, depends on him finishing that film. Alan becomes a participant in that drama stress. The film also provides a more interesting center than the locked-up colorless Pendulum offices. There is one fun scene where cops raid Pendulum, which was a normal occurrence back then. (Much of the Pendulum offices scenes are recollections of the late Leo Eaton, who worked with Wood there, and Robert Cremer, biographer of Bela Lugosi who interviewed Wood in the 1970s.)

Apel has written a fast-moving, entertaining novel Wood fans will devour like a fine dinner with great dessert. But even those not aware of Wood's career can enjoy the novel if they come across it. It's an interesting tale of a young, penniless writer living essentially by his wits, grabbing the only job he can snag. And this writer finds a kind of mentor, old and weak, but with a backstory that turns out to be so interesting.

--- Doug Gibson

Apel's Amazon page is here. He's written a non-fiction book -- I Watched Football Early the Day I Died: The Lost Ed Wood Frank Leahy Screenplay -- based on an unproduced screenplay Wood wrote on the life of the legendary Notre Dame football coach. Apel is currently writing a book called Necromania: A Tale of Weird Lit -- The Pulp Fiction of Ed Wood. ... The endurance of Wood's 50 years-plus appeal and cult status is fascinating. It first peaked in the mid to late 90s, after Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy, Burton's film Ed Wood, various documentaries, and now-defunct genre magazines such as Cult Movies and Psychotronic Video. But the cult never went away. The past 12 years or so it's grown, along with a renewed interest in Wood's career post 1965. As mentioned, lots of valuable books, websites and Wood Facebook pages exist.

Watch a Plan9Crunch YouTube interview with author Paul Apel discussing The Valley Obscured by Smog.

Bearmanor Media link to novel is here.

Becoming Nosferatu anthology offers prose, poetry on German silent horror

 

--

Review by Doug Gibson

It's been almost six months since the 2024 Robert Eggers' film version of "Nosferatu" (reviews here and here) enjoyed strong success at the box office. The film was mostly faithful to F.W. Murnau's interpretation of the vampire, and enhanced the monster's connection to its prey Ellen Hutter.

Academics Matthew Sorrento and Gary D. Rhodes have edited -- and contributed stories to -- a new anthology, "Becoming Nosferatu: Stories Inspired By Silent German Horror," Bearmanor Media, 2025. Mostly stories, along with poetry, the book includes takes on several era icons, including Caligari, Dr. Mabuse, "M," "The Golem," "Vampyr," Metropolis" and "Nosferatu." Some of the tales are set in the past; others in more current times. Some of the tales are serious; some are comedic, others satirical. Some stories find contemporary parallels.

When I review art, I resist the urge to search for passages that support my biases. I'm just looking for a great read. Despite its not-too-subtle political message, I quite enjoyed Robert Guffey's novella "The Land of Thieves and Phantoms." Set in modern times in California's Inland Empire (an area that can be considered remote albeit in California), a charismatic preacher-type pol named Henry Orlok runs for mayor of Lake Wisborg, a small community.

Although not particularly aesthetically attractive, he soon commands widespread support. Two acolytes include a schoolteacher named Ellen and a realtor named Knock. Orlok rallies the town against a longstanding cleric and a peaceful baker whose name and business create unfortunate anagrams. Orlok and supporters eventually force out the town's power structure. 

Guffey effectively weaves a town of individuals manipulated by fear, nativism, prejudice, a longing for security, and a desire to find scapegoats. He provides vampire tendencies from Orlok and convert-like zeal from his conquests. However, more subtle is that dark habits already within his converts are allowed to flourish. A mean-spirited, perverted teacher-turned librarian is given new life to persecute. A conformist businessman easily turns allegiances to Orlok despite the harm to others. Unrepentent, he frankly admits to the persecuted baker that he personally has nothing against him. 

I won't give away the story's finale but it explores the totalitarian tendency to safely rehabilitate -- after their death and/or destruction -- the reputations of those destroyed.

Another story, a witty satirical tale, "Totenkopf," by Rhodes, involves a private detective, Jack Six, from Hollywood but now moving through Europe on assignment searching for the skull of the late director F.W. Murnau. As narrator Six admits, he's a conflicted soul. "... there were two of me, one investigating the Murnau case, the other investigating the me that was investigating the Murnau case." 

Jack Six's well-funded case moves him through conversations with ghosts, including Forry Ackerman, pining for Pola Negi, passages of Louise Brooks, and help from contemporaries, including Bela Lugosi biographer Robert Cremer. He moves through, bars, seances, hotel rooms, Ubers, cemetaries and cities in his quest. It's a fun read for genre fans. It kind of reminded me of Charles Bukowski's final novel "Pulp," where a jaded private eye searches for death.

One more Nosferatu-influenced story I'll mention is Argyle Goolsby's "Serpent on the Lace," a short tale that effective captures the mood and drama of Ellen Hutter's doomed but successful entrapment and destruction of the vampire.

---

"The Good Doctor: An Editorial," by John Talbird, is a brief story that conveys the experience of those unfortunate patients submerged in a Caligari brain fog. 

I enjoyed Charles Rammelkamp's three stories. Two,"Der Golem," and Return of der Golem," provide the point of view of the monster, particularly his unrequited love for Jessica, and later another women.

Sorrento has a story, from the "Metropolis" section, "The Watcher," that traces the evolution and manipulation of an adolescent. Initially fascinated by street games, Julian becomes the protege of a Tall Man who leads him into a world of illegal boxing clubs, and punishment for gamblers. The youngster's name eventually changes.

I enjoyed a story "Yours Alraune," (from the 1928 film "Alraune"), by Martyn Pedler and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. A beautiful young woman named Alraune exchanges letters with film star Brigitte Helm, now an old woman. The two reveal a contrast of the younger woman, defining Helm by her films, and Helm's responses, which provide clarity and a realism and wisdom the younger woman will presumably attain.

"Mabuse's Last Scheme." by Jeffrey Ford, ("Dr. Mabuse the Gambler," 1922) is a good read with a fantastic ending. 

A poem, "Soul of Frankenstein," by Donald F. Glut, stuck with me. It's an eloquent, beautifully composed summary of the iconic novel.

Sorrento and Rhodes have done a fine job culling and editing stories that underscore the expressionist films this anthology pays homage to. I honestly enjoyed every story and poem. The anthology can be enjoyed by those in the know of the silent horror genre. And the stories can serve as inspiration -- for those unfamiliar with the film genre -- to appreciate the films.

Editor's note: To read an excellent analysis of the 2024 "Nosferatu' from Rhodes, go here.

Ed Wood anthology covers nearly all the topics of sex, whether you want it or not

 

Review by Doug Gibson

I am a huge Ed Wood fan going on way past 40 years now; ever since the only Wood canon I knew was "Glen Or Glenda" to "Plan 9 From Outer Space," ... and that lost "Night of the Ghouls"/"Revenge of the Dead." (which was soon found). 

But Ed was far more of a writer than a director. His "mainstream" directing career kind of ended with the (wink) semi-adult film, "The Sinister Urge." Then it was a long stint of virtually all adult cinema, soft and hard, for Ed the director.

But he never stopped writing. Dozens of novels and books, hundreds of short stories, lots of "educational" sex books, flotsam and jetsam such as text titles for silent adult shorts, scripts for (usually) soft and hard adult fare. You are noticing a trend here, right?

Wood was a severe alcoholic, who eventually died prematurely from his addiction. The last few years of his life, he was unable to keep a steady job. I recently saw a photo of Ed during those years (early to mid 1970s) in a biography of the late filmmaker Stephen Apostolf, who may have been the last boss to cut Ed a paycheck. Ed's at a party and he looks very drunk and very unhealthy. He looks like someone long used to being looked down upon and ignored. It breaks my heart. I actually had tears looking that photo. The reason? I admire Ed Wood's vivid imagination and prolific writing. I still consider him a pulp Elmore Leonard, writing only a first draft with no real editor. 

I get it. You think I'm nuts. But the first major woman in his life, Dolores Fuller, accurately described him as an "American original." And his now-deceased widow, Kathy, never left the old drunk. Bob Blackburn, who lives in Los Angeles, befriended Kathy Wood in the last era of her life. They developed trust and Blackburn has spent an incredible amount of time finding Ed's shorts stories and non-fiction writings, most published in sleazy, over-priced adult books and magazines, the kind that sprung up after the courts OK'd that stuff.

Bob has helped compile and get published two massive, indispensible collections of Ed's short stories, "Blood Splatters Quickly," from ORBooks, and "Angora Fever: The Collected Stories of Ed Wood."  You can get get the latter from BearManor Media. Some of Ed's novels are still floating around in reprints, which came out mostly in the '90s when Tim Burton's "Ed Wood," that lovely overidealized paean to Ed's early years, was released.

OK, I am finally getting to this review. "When the Topic is Sex, by Ed. Wood Jr." was recently released, also by BearManor Media. (Amazon link here). The "essays" inside are the adult magazine filler material that occupied a few pages in the magazines published by Bernie Bloom's Pendulum Publisher's business. Ed worked there in the '70s until alcoholism made him expendable. He was valued there for his versatility and speed in crafting coherent works (usually) that showed his lifelong wordsmith talents. If you want to read a fascinating account of a youngster at Pendulum working with a talented has-been on the way down (Ed) read Leo Eaton's account here. I think I read it first in another BearManor book on Ed's lost scripts. Pendulum was a sweatshop for wordsmiths. It was a starting point for young writers like Eaton, but a literal end of the road for Ed.

Publisher/writer/poet Bill Shute provides an introduction to "When the Topic is Sex." He notes that Wood was a known and trusted quality in the industry. He could take a subject, prurient or not, and fit in the details. There are more than 80, I imagine, "non-fiction" musings on a wide variety of starter topics (I'll let the reader peruse them). Themes include the evolution of sexual mores in film, contemporary society, education, prostitution, wife swapping, pornography, the various different genres of the sex worker industry, S&M, sweaters, social diseases, sexual dictionaries, fur fetishes. Topics include the possibility of a "sex tax" to balance budgets, the lure of Greenwich Village ... I could go on endlessly listing the topics Ed muses about. Much of it is offensive and misogynistic. It's time capsule mores.

The stories are often sexually graphic but not so much erotic. There's one about a housewife turned leader of a sexual coven of witches. Ed includes himself in the story, but it's of course made up. A lot of the stories involve interviews with students, prostitutes, secretaries, etc. I think Ed was being tongue-in-cheek with these "on-th-street" accounts because as blogger Joe Blevins has already pointed out, these subjects talk like Ed Wood writes! One fun aspect of the essays is the irony of a bloated, alcoholic man around 50 writing "authoritatively" about the sexual hijinks of college students and "still-Mad Menish" office and nightclub/bars environments. Ed likely had a firm grasp on the sexual fantasies of Pendelum's clientile. I imagine his tongue was in his cheek a lot when he was crafting these pieces.

I'm not going to say much about the essays. Frankly, they can be a slog if taken in large doses. Don't read too many in one setting. One or two a day is enough. You can then appreciate Ed's unique writing style. As Shute notes in his introduction, Ed's style always shows up in his art. In these essays his prose takes the form of a pleasant, slightly know-it-all educator letting us know about these "trends in sex." Or if it's a more spicy topic, or perhaps Ed was intoxicated when he wrote the story, the narrator shifts in personality to a more " hmm, take a good hard look at this sexual deviancy ..." I sometimes imagine this Ed Wood would have made a brisk living selling spicy post cards on the streets of Paris 120 years ago. 

One essay I enjoyed in "When the Topic is Sex" is "Sex is Not a Hazard." It's very graphic at times but it also has a sweet undertone to it. Its Ed telling us that sexual compability is an important component of a sexual relationship and couples should explore, and not run away from, what makes both partners happy. I also enjoy the"news of the weird" type compilations of truly bizarre happenings. Since I see these types of columns even today in alternative weeklies, I don't think Ed was telling tall tales in these pieces. The "Mondo" exploitative documentary film from the 60s and 70s was still around when Ed wrote these. I wonder if he saw those films. 

Frankly, I worry talking about these essays might spur Big Brother social media tech discipline on me. ... Despite the made up interviews, Ed does his research when it's needed. I Googled a lot of his sources on topics, and they checked out. Example: when he writes about a sex tax, he cites an obscure New Orleans educator from long ago. Turns out the fellow existed.

Pendulum had archives for research, and an unpublished sex study by a guy named Dr. TK Peters. (He really existed.) But I can still imagine, Ed, in his windowless Pendulum cubicle, thumbing through the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature booklets, taking notes, looking for sources. Heck, I did that a lot of that in the pre-Internet days.

I want to add that the aforementioned blogger Joe Blevins runs the absolutely essential Ed Wood Wednesdays Dead2Rights blog. It's here. Joe provides in-depth recaps of every essay in this book. He also, to the best of his knowledge, tells readers when published and in what publication. Over the course of almost two months, I read every essay in "When the Topic is Sex." The recaps Joe provides really helps in digesting them. (The recaps are also available at Bob Blackburn's Ed Wood Jr. Facebook page.)

To sum up, the book is a history lesson. Besides providing another peek into Ed's life, and his surroundings -- the desperate years -- it's a history lesson into the genre and culture of the working world Ed and others experienced 50 years ago. 

'Becoming Dracula: Volume 2' charts Bela Lugosi's rise in the USA

 

Review by Doug Gibson

There's an interesting photo of an advertisement in "Becoming Dracula: Volume 2," BearManor Media, 2021 (Amazon link). It's a 1928 ad for Listerine mouthwash, published in Photoplay magazine. On the right, inconspicuous, is definitely Bela Lugosi, already known as a Broadway, and feature film actor. Lugosi must have been paid for the subtle modeling act. Authors Gary D. Rhodes and Bill Kaffenberger wonder if there are other, still-yet-to-be-discovered ads with Lugosi of that era. I'd wager yes.

The photo underscores two essential truths about Bela Lugosi's three-plus decades in America. He was both -- by all rational assessments -- a successful actor, and a man nearly always in need of money. Even when he had achieved successful working-actor status in America, he made regular forays into the U.S. Hungarian stage scene, often taking the role of director or headlining for a night. These gigs were partially motivated by money, the authors surmise. 

"Becoming Dracula 2" is, like its predecessor, "Becoming Dracula: Volume One, the Early Years of Bela Lugosi," a marvelous mixture of dedicated research and enjoyable style. Through old media sources, many very obscure (long-gone U.S. Hungarian newspapers) and I'm sure not easy to track down, the authors chart Lugosi's slow but steady emergence as a respected stage and screen actor through the 1920s and early 1930s (up to "Dracula" film).

Bela may have arrived in America penniless, but he already had a reputation as an actor in Europe, and quickly found work in various Hungarian stage groups. The Hungarian presence in the United States was large enough to support acting troupes, and Hungarian U.S. newspapers were around to cover it all. Hungarian works, such as "The Tragedy of Man," were featured.

It wasn't long before Bela's skill made him an attractive option for English-speaking theaters. One of his more significant early plays was "The Red Poppy," which featured a popular star of the era, Estelle Winwood. Lugosi's scenes with Winwood were noted by critics.

Bela appeared on the stage with co-stars who would also achieve huge success, including Leslie Howard and Fredric March. One of his Broadway plays, "Arabesque," in which his character shared passionate scenes with actress Hortense Alden, shocked audiences. (See Lugosi and Alden below). 

Besides staying busy on the stage, the authors detail Lugosi's resumption of a movie career in the 1920s. His earlier films, from mid-size producers, include "Silent Command," "The Midnight Girl," "The Rejected Woman,'" and "Daughters Who Pay." Watching these films reveal an actor with strong screen presence, one who attracts the camera's attention, whether playing a hero or villain. 

Playing "Dracula" on Broadway led to Bela getting that defining film role. The journey to filming "Dracula" is interesting. Rhodes and Kaffenberger provide a detailed log of events, including Bela accompanying the play to the West Coast and its continued success there. A host of actors were considered. Lugosi gradually became a Los Angeles-based actor, a move that would last the rest of his life. The authors detail Bela's persistent efforts to retain his coveted role for the film, including shrewd marketing efforts. He made sure he was playing Count Dracula for a brief stint in Oakland as final casting was being set. 

Lugosi also parleyed his stage success with more films, including a contract with Fox for a few pre-Dracula films. He also had a major role, although inexplicably billed seventh, in "The Thirteenth Chair." It was for MGM, and directed by Tod Browning, who would helm "Dracula."

Despite being busy as an actor between the play, "Dracula," and the film version, Bela was still feeling financial pinches. The authors include correspondence from the actor where he expresses displeasure with his finances and career. Lugosi would find ways to make money providing Hungarian dialogue for U.S. films. He also appeared in short films, some of which are likely lost. He may have had some roles where his scenes were deleted.

The authors capably detail much of Lugosi's personal life, including two failed marriages and his well-known affair with screen star Clara Bow. One marriage, with an heiress named Beatrice Weeks, provides insight into the actor's mind. He was likely prone to impulsive decisions. He also had a traditional, for the time, Hungarian male perspective of marriage, with the man working and the woman serving. This led to a quick divorce with the independent Weeks, who was apparently also prone to impulsive acts.

"Becoming Dracula: Volume 2" is a joy for genre purists; as Volume 1 was. Volume 2 respects the first volume by starting with, Chapter 21. We revel in the minutia that Rhodes and Kaffenberger have painstakingly logged; the footnotes are dessert. There's 10,000 facts to learn that I have not included in this review. 

But the ease of reading and good-natured occasional observations from the authors also make this a wise choice for the casual reader. It provides a primer for how actors moved through the stage and film worlds 90-plus years ago. I think both "Becoming Dracula" volumes would be valuable texts for film classes. I'd love to see this writing style used for other famous actors, say Boris Karloff. The poring over of obscure, mostly forgotten publications -- a healthy percentage only saved with crumbling print -- guarantees that new scholarship is logged.

Barbara Payton: A Life in Pictures charts the rise and fall of a Hollywood star

 

The late actress Barbara Payton was beautiful, and she possessed screen presence. Her most notable film is "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," with James Cagney. 

Both Universal and particularly Warner Bros., prepped her with the anticipation for stardom. Ultimately, her story was tragic. She died mostly forgotten in the late 1960s, depressed; her body broken by alcoholism, and other abusive behaviors.

Her biographer, John O'Dowd, has published an amazing work. "Barbara Payton: A Life in Pictures," BearManor Media, 2018, Albany, Ga. (Amazon link is here). Through an introduction and afterword, with 34 chapters in between, it provides arcs of both her 39 years of life and her tenure as an entertainer. (Below, is a picture of Payton radiating girl-next-door beauty).

The book charts her biography, a girl from flyover country who attracted attention from the entertainment industry once she arrived in Hollywood with her husband. Universal soon beckoned and she starred in some now-forgotten shorts with a singing cowboy. She also made the publicity rounds.

The family photos from the '30s and '40s are extremely interesting and it's a credit to O'Dowd that he tracked them down. The author admits in the introduction that his goal is to convey that his subject Payton -- who was trashed repeatedly during her life and beyond -- was a "kind and empathetic" person. He notes that her decline and eventual fall into a personal hell was likely the result of a lack of awareness of the gravity of her situations. 

Universal dropped her, largely due to rumors of an affair with superstar Bob Hope. Reading the book, one can't ignore the irony of a woman (Payton) being harshly sanctioned for an affair, but the more powerful man involved, Hope, skating through it unscathed. 

Her end at Universal started a trajectory of a few years where Payton hopscotched between bigger studios (Warner Bros and semi-big RKO) to work, sometimes loaned out, at lower-tier studios (Eagle-Lion, Jack Broder, Lippert, Allied Artists). (Below is a scene of Barbara with Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" star Cagney).

Payton's co-stars in films included Cagney, Gregory Peck, Lloyd Bridges, Guy Madison, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Steve Cochran, and even Sonny Tufts! She starred in one film that has a small cult following, "Bride of the Gorilla," with Burr and Chaney Jr.

The photos in the book provide a glossy history of Hollywood in that era. The glamorous photos, the publicity campaigns, the stars gathering at the hot spots with photographers, the scandal sheets of that era, which Barbara was in a lot, unwillingly, and unfortunately, later more willingly. The courtroom shots, the pictures at Barbara's house when she was wealthy. Accounts of her relationships with actors Franchet Tone and Tom Neal are covered via photos, as well as the aftermath of Tone's savage beating by Neal.

With her career damaged in Hollywood, Payton went to England to star in a couple of Hammer films. The pictures are poignant, because they show a time and place where Payton was treated as a major star -- for the last time. I wondered while leafing through the London photos, the stills from films, publicity shots, Payton interacting with Londoners, if perhaps she should have stayed there to pursue more work. But she was in a bad relationship with the toxic, violent Neal, and he soon joined her across the Atlantic. They returned home.

By this time, the bad press, and cruel taunting from most Hollywood press icons, kept her away from the big studios. She was with the usually unemployed Neal in a couple of films. Also, the book highlights an unsuccessful stage tour with Neal of "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

(Below is a photo of Barbara, with actor Paul Langton, in the final film she made, "Murder is My Beat," directed by low-budget auteur Edgar Ulmer.)

Neal eventually left. That was no loss but by the latter '50s, Payton's personal and professional setbacks were heavy. She lost custody of her son, John Lee Payton. She lost her home. She entered the scandal sheets again due to a bad check charge. 

In the later '50s it might be charitable to call her life bohemian, but desperately trying to stay afloat is more apt. It's claimed she lived in the same poverty apartment as cult figure Vampira. She was married for a while to a much younger man and lived a rustic life with her spouse in Mexico.

There are candid photos in the book that, as O'Dowd notes, capture tension, weariness, disappointment, pain in Payton's face. You can see her shock in the late '50s, when she calls a news conference to announce a comeback, and is derided by press hounds who bothered to come.

It underscores what O'Dowd mentions about an over-optimism, a desire to believe good in others, that provided a lack of awareness to Barbara of how her own dysfunctional behavior damaged her. Also, recollections in the book (and there are many) hint of a deep pride, or even a desire to punish herself, that prevented her from accepting or taking advantage of the few offers of help she received late in life. She was exploited a lot, including in a dreadful, exploitative "autobiography" of her life in 1963. O'Dowd's book appropriately includes this event. Included is a haunting photo of a stoned, eyes wide and glazed Barbara, dressed scantily, looking about 50 years old. It is shocking, and heart-wrenching.

(Below is a photo that reminds how beautiful Payton was in her heyday. The photos other than the cover were provided by author O'Dowd).

O'Dowd's 560-page book takes the reader through the very rough 1960s' life she endured. She died in 1967, in her parents' home. Pictures cannot accurately describe the hell the subject endured. For more details, one can read O'Dowd's excellent biography of Payton, "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," (Bearmanor Media). (Amazon link here) My Plan9Crunch review of it is here. Two Plan9Crunch interviews with O'Dowd regarding "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" are here and here.

O'Dowd's strength as a writer and an art compiler is that he makes you care about the subject. He gets beyond the surface news reporting and uncovers the layers that makes a human being. He has spoken to so many family members, friends, lovers, acquaintances, colleagues, and media about Payton. It's a Herculean task and it provides readers the opportunity to care about the subject, to grieve for her failings and dysfunctional, dangerous life.

O'Dowd is currently working with a screenwriter to bring Payton's life story to the screen, in theaters, TV, streaming. My preference would be a Netflix-type streaming series but a two-hour movie would be a treat as well. Getting to a film takes a long time but I suspect Payton's compelling life eventually becomes one. 

-- Review by Doug Gibson

Becoming Dracula: Volume 1 excellent scholarship from authors Rhodes and Kaffenberger

 

Review by Doug Gibson

"Becoming Dracula: The Early Years of Bela Lugosi: Volume 1," (BearManor Media, 2021) is an absolutely superb targeted biography of Lugosi's first 38 years, from the son of a baker-turned-banker in Lugos, Hungary (now part of Romania) to late 1920, when the already acclaimed Budapest/Berlin thespian arrived penniless in New Orleans, La. 

Authors Gary Rhodes and Bill Kaffenberger have collaborated before on Lugosi books. They pored over well-over-century-old documents to unearth many new facts on Lugosi's early life and career, and they clarified and corrected information -- not completely accurate -- due to fanciful press interviews. Also corrected is some long-used incorrect information, including where Lugosi performed as Jesus Christ. He did not debut in The Passion in Debrecen, Hungary, but in Budapest in 1912.

Readers accustomed to thinking of the former Bela Blasko as only a creature of the night will enjoy the authors' account of Bela's steady rise through the Hungarian acting community. He started very small, gained stature in the provinces, playing a wide variety of roles. He did not get the call the first time he auditioned to perform in Budapest. But he gained great provincial acclaim as a talented, very handsome actor in cities such as Debrecen, and Szeged. After 1912, he became a frequent Budapest actor, with a very large fan base.

He performed in so many play adaptations. Here's just a few: Trilby, Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, The Tragedy of Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, and, of course The Passion. He even eventually played -- in a film -- a "vampire," but it was not the undead type. It was the mortal, devious seducer type.

As the authors note, he did not always play the lead, or even a supporting role. Hungary's thespian community was one where actors played multiple types of roles, even extras. The authors hypothesize that some of Bela's roles may have been as obscure as a face in a crowd. But he did play many major roles, and the scores of newspaper articles gathered by the authors underscore his popularity and notoriety. He was at times criticized for overacting, or over-emoting.

The authors describe a pre-World War I Budapest that must have been thrilling for those within and interested in the arts and politics. The cafes of the city were places for passionate discussions of the arts and politics. Reading Rhodes and Kaffenberger makes me yearn to go back in time just to traverse the Budapest of that era, enter a cafe, and listen to a verbose and very opinionated Lugosi hold court on the arts and politics.

World War I stymied the arts for a while, and also tempered the fervor of many Hungarians who fought for Germany, including the officer Lugosi, who was wounded. According to the authors, he convinced doctors he was mentally unstable, and needed a discharge. Lugosi may have suffered from what we now know as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He did have lasting physical wounds. As the authors note, he had a lifelong empathy with veterans of war.

Lugosi resumed acting on the stage, and also moved to film acting, initially under the name Arisztid Olt. The authors merit respect for tracking down reviews and plots of many Lugosi Hungarian films. Only a fragment of one film exists today. 

Lugosi, long a matinee idol, also married for the first time, to Ilona Szmik, the daughter of a bank attorney. 

Lugosi became politically radicalized after the war. He supported communist government leaders. He was a communist. When one leader was pushed out by a more extreme communist government led by Bela Kun -- who was a puppet of Russia's Lenin -- Lugosi unwisely embraced Kun. He became a labor leader for the new government, in an era of increasing political violence. 

While Lugosi appears to have eschewed violence, the inevitable overthrow of Kun by a rightest alternative, and inevitable reprisals, placed Lugosi in real danger. He and his wife fled to Vienna. Soon afterwards, Ilona's parents, opposed to Lugosi's politics, persuaded their daughter to leave Vienna, return to Budapest and divorce him. In what seems unfair, the divorce was granted on claims that Bela had deserted Ilona

Bela could not chance a return to Budapest. Based on a mistaken-identity warrant, he was charged with serious crimes. The actual perpetrator had a similar name and was also an actor. The warrant was not withdrawn until the mid 1920s, with Lugosi already in the United States. 

Lugosi relocated to Berlin, and re-invigorated his career. As the authors note, post-World War I Berlin was a "Babylon" of sorts, with a culture of promiscuity (Lugosi enjoyed his share of that) and a more permissive attitude among the arts. Although not always the star, Lugosi was very active, appearing in more than a dozen German films. One, heavily edited for U.S. release from 1920, survives under the title "Daughter of the Night." It can be viewed on YouTube and other streaming services.

Why Lugosi abruptly left for the United States, without much funds, is open to debate. Perhaps he was still worried about being arrested? The authors suggest maybe a love affair went bad. More likely, they opine, is Lugosi was depressed after Ilona filed for divorce in June of 2020. 

I look forward to Part 2 of the book, slated for summer release. It's another must-have book from Rhodes and Kaffenberger. Due to the very large amount of new information unearthed through old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting and research, I list it, along with "Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain: Second Edition," by Frank Dello Stritto and Andi Brooks, as the two best targeted biographical works on Lugosi.

Arthur Lucan -- biography captures Old Mother Riley

By Doug Gibson

Let's face it, in America at least, to most cult movies fans, Arthur Lucan (AKA Old Mother Riley), is a footnote, the eccentric co-star with Bela Lugosi in the 1952 British film "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire." Watching that film, which is available online, Lucan's pantomime dame is frankly, a "whirling dervish" of energy, prancing around the sets, singing songs and speaking 300 words a minute in the working-class dialect.

He's a talent, there's no doubt about that, but a strange one to U.S. viewers, or contemporary viewers today, because his chief skill is a largely forgotten one. As mentioned, Lucan was a "pantomime dame," a not uncommon feature of the British stage and music halls of the first half of the 20th century. "Old Mother Riley" was not a drag act, or geared toward gay audiences. It was comprised of comedy sketches, many of which were bathed in pathos and social messages, explains Robert V. Kenny, author of the new biography, "The Man Who Was Old Mother Riley: The Lives and Films of Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane (Bear Manor Media, 2014) here.

Arthur Lucan (1885-1954) was married to Kitty McShane (1897-1964), who he described as his Irish beauty. Unfortunately, after a few years of marital bliss, it turned into a dysfunctional nightmare with the mild-mannered Lucan eventually becoming a kept cuckold in his own home, with McShane, who by most accounts exhibited sociopathic behavior, taking control of the money, bankrupting the couple and using her lover, actor "Willer Neal," as her co-star in "The Old Mother Riley ..." films that she starred in with Lucan.  I often seriously wonder if there is an entertainer as universally disliked by those who knew her, and historians, as Kitty McShane. Kenny's account of their lives only seems to add more evidence of her malice, insensitivity and drunken cruelties.

The "Old Mother Riley" films, though, were a huge success prior and during World War II as topics such as the war, war profiteers, parliament, the rights of the poor, and even relations with Ireland were explored within the comedies. The basic premise stayed the same: Lucan played widow Old Mother Riley with McShane as her daughter, who was always seeking romance and usually found it. British audiences loved Lucan and McShane, who had developed the characters, if not with the same name, as early as the 1920s. However, Kitty McShane's narcissism led her to continue to play the "young daughter" in the post-World War II films, despite that she had become a plump matron.

Lucan honed his skills at the turn of the 20th century, learning a lot from a family of actors he lived and worked with prior to going out on his own and marrying McShane. Kitty McShane's pleasant voice and young good looks made the team very popular. One of their first skits, called "Bridget's Night Out," featured pantomime dame "mother" Lucan fretting over "daughter" Kitty's late night out. As Kenny explains, these skits not only were meant for humor, but tapped into the fear in those times of how a wayward daughter's life could be ruined if she was taken advantage of by a man.

I can't adequately explain Lucan as a performer except to say again that he is clearly talented in what he does. On YouTube, there is an early skit with Lucan and McShane that is similar to "Bridget's Night Out." It's heavy on pathos as well as comedy and one can't help but marvel at Lucan's skill, even if it's hard for us to comprehend. Watch it here but note that despite the title card, Lucan was not known as Old Mother Riley at the time (1936).

At their peak, with many movies and a performance in front of the Royal Family in Britain to their credit, Lucan and McShane were very rich, the equivalent of millionaires. McShane blew the money with excess spending and bad investments. Her behavior became so abominable that by the early 1950s, the pair, while married, had split; hence the reason that there's no Kitty McShane in "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire."

Kenny's book still fails to capture the dysfunctional but stubbornly durable connection between Lucan and his wife. Perhaps we'll never know why he put up with her cruelty, that extended to violence on occasions (Once her boyfriend Neal beat Lucan mercilessly). According to Kenny, McShane stopped -- in the late 1920s -- plans for Lucan to team with a comedian in U.S. films because there was no planned role for her.

As it was, Arthur Lucan eventually died as he lived most of his life, in a theater, collapsing while preparing to play his most famous character, pantomime dame Old Mother Riley. As for Kitty McShane, her career was more or less over. She lived almost 10 more years, in increasing squalor, and died shortly after her boyfriend, Neal, passed away.

Today, Arthur Lucan has been rediscovered in Britain and his grave is well cared for and there are occasional analysis of his career, which spanned roughly 50 years. Kitty McShane's funeral was attended by a few mourners, and despite knowledge of the cemetery she was buried in, a stone was never placed, and no one is sure exactly where she is buried.

Kenny's biography is superb. He makes a myth out of the idea that some entertainers are too old and gone to find interesting information into their lives. The book captures a period of entertainment history that few know much about, and appreciates the talent of the master of that particular entertainment. Until this book the most Lugosi fans and generally everyone else in the U.S. knew about Lucan and McShane came from a segment in Frank Dello Stritto and Andi Brooks excellent book, "Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain."

Watch Mother Riley Meets the Vampire under a different title. The British version with the title Mother Riley Meets the Vampire is on Tubi.

Bela Lugosi and the Monogram 9 -- a book review

Review by Doug Gibson

Since we heard about this a year or so ago, we Bela Lugosi super-fans have been -- at times impatiently -- waiting for the release of "Bela Lugosi and the Monogram 9," (BearManorMedia, 2019), a collection of essays from academics Gary D. Rhodes (who's written more than several books on Lugosi) and Robert Guffey, on the series of features Lugosi made for the poverty-row studio during the first half of the 1940s.

That's a handful of a paragraph/sentence, so what to make of this collection, ranging from "Invisible Ghost" to "Return of the Ape Man"? Short answer: I liked it a lot. However, and this is important for the casual Lugosi fan -- these are not production histories/movie reviews of the films. The 10 essays, two are reserved for "Invisible Ghost," are artistic criticism and analysis. Some of it's deep; you may want to Google individuals such as the surrealist Andre Breton and the eccentric but talented artist Stanislav Szukalski. Their philosophies relate with some of these two-week productions, or so say the authors.

And I kind of agree with them, with reservations. I love all but one of the Monogram films, and let's roll them out: "Invisible Ghost," "Spooks Run Wild," "Black Dragons," "The Corpse Vanishes," "Bowery at Midnight," "The Ape Man," "Ghosts on the Loose," "Voodoo Man," and "Return of The Ape Man." The only four-flusher in the list is "Ghosts on the Loose," and even that clinker I've seen more the once.

Until I read "... The Monogram 9,"' my love for the films was solely predicated on Bela Lugosi's dominance within eight of the films. His charisma and thespian talents make the films special. The reason "Ghosts on the Loose" is a clunker is because it's the only film of the series in which Lugosi is not the important or interesting character; he's almost background material.

I know I'm rambling so let's get to the essays, and provide some snippets, to hopefully whet your interest. The authors' scholarly musings are well-researched. Both provide insight on "Invisible Ghost," regarded as the best-directed film. The director was Joseph H. Lewis, who went on to bigger acclaim. Rhodes' essay conveys his directorial skills, noting the unique camera angles, from the fireplace, actors almost nose to nose across from a window. He also explains in detail how Lewis shot perhaps the scariest scene in the film, where Lugosi's character strangles a family maid in her bed.

Guffey's essay focuses on the film's surreal qualities, citing the aforementioned Breton. Lugosi's character is both respected man and cold killer. Guffey correctly notes the lack of concern over a long tally of death and how characters, such as the police, almost serve as props while the murders in the house occur. Bad dreams appear to be reality. Is the murder of the maid a subconscious act of violence by the killer toward his hidden, mentally ill wife? What of the reappearance of the "doppelganger" brother of a doomed, early character? Is all of this just happening in Lugosi's character, Charles Kessler's mind? Artistic criticism offers many questions that can spark even more answers, is perhaps the theme of this essay.

In the essay on "Spooks Run Wild," Rhodes, after noting Lugosi's  various "sinister" roles in films, tabs "Spooks ..." as perhaps Lugosi's most developed "red herring" role, in which he appears to be the villain until the end. As the author notes, Lugosi, playing a magician suspected of being a murderer, appears and acts a lot like Dracula. It was his first film with the comedy "East Side Kids" cast. Somnambulism, magic, suits of armor, and human monsters all factor into the film, adds Rhodes.

In the essay on "Black Dragons," in which Lugosi plays a betrayed Nazi doctor who gets even with the Japanese agents, in America, who turned on him earlier, Guffey compares this bizarre, war propaganda film with the term "the Cinema of Hysteria." Now in my opinion this is a surreal film. It has a tough plot to follow, a lot of sexual banter and attraction between spies and lovely young ladies (as Guffey notes) and Lugosi, for the last time in the film, is looked at with interest by a starlet. Oddly, as Guffey notes, though the film contains a strong nationalist, even racist message to be on constant watch against the enemy, it contradicts itself by how showing how easily Japanese agents can plastic surgery their way into the highest levels of U.S. government. Racial profiling won't work, the film seems to subtly say.

Rhodes' essay on "The Corpse Vanishes" has some interesting insights. The film's hero is a persistent female reporter, a stock character in many '30s and '40s films. Also, although Lugosi's Dr. Lorenz is no vampire, Rhodes notes similarities to "Dracula." Lorenz is from Eastern Europe, it seems. His wife is a countess. The villagers near his remote home fear him. The reporter wanting to see him can't get a ride there. Also, the captured brides in the home could represent Dracula's brides. Lorenz and his countess wife sleep in coffins. All these are noted by Rhodes, who also alludes to the significance of families in horror films, noting that Lugosi refers to his assistants and henchmen as part of my "little family." (My co-blogger Steve D. Stones and I regard "The Corpse Vanishes" as the most entertaining Monogram films and Rhodes' insights I found valuable.)

Guffey's essay on the multi-plotted "Bowery at Midnight" compares the film as "slipstream" cinema. In a nutshell, that means one really can't nail down the action and plot with a single definition. That makes sense, as this chaotic but fun film can be tagged a crime drama, a missing persons drama, a multiple personality drama, a deceiving husband film, or a horror film. Multiple realities occupy individual and settings in the film. And how do dead people turn into zombies and then reappear as normal individuals, asks Guffey. That does happen in the film, I guess. I thought the doctor just healed them. But to be fair to Guffey, how did they all exist for so long in that cramped basement?

"Artifices, lies and false fronts" define "The Ape Man," Guffey says in that film's essay. At heart, the film is a deliberate con job, like a magician offering the audience all the secrets of how he's pulling their legs on the theater screen, he notes. "The Ape Man" is a lot of nonsensical fun and that's due in part to a goofy, extraneous character, Zippo, who serves as narrator to move the action along. He serves as a kind of God, deciding who lives and dies. Guffey writes that the film is an example of the thinker  Bertolt Brecht's Theory of Alienation. To sum up, it's an effort to dislodge an audience from the traditional suspension of belief by disrupting the flow of the film and forcing said audiences to slip out of the film's trance and become active participants of the art. I know it sounds a bit goofy but one can argue that having a narrator interact with an audience accomplishes that.

Rhodes does his best with the boring film "Ghosts on the Loose," which has the East Side Kids outwitting Nazi publishers (headed by Lugosi) living in a fake haunted house. In the essay, he recounts historical instances of criminals attempting to cover up crimes with tales of haunted houses. On a side note, a very funny episode of The Andy Griffith Show has moonshiners scaring Deputy Barney Fife and others by using a "haunted house" that they rigged with spooky tricks. So there's an example of an effective short comedy. Fife's Don Knotts made another fake haunted house film, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."

For "Voodoo Man," one of my favorite-half Monogram entries, in his essay Rhodes says that syncretic best describes the film, meaning that several "discrete sources" are used to fuse a film together. One particular fusion of a film: a character Lugosi, with the help of voodoo religion confederates, kidnaps and stores young women kept in a zombiefied state to try to reanimate his zombie-like wife. But the voodoo has no traditional Caribbean source. It appears to be a white man's voodoo in a rural area close to Southern California. There also appear to be elements of Svengali (Trilby) in the film as Lugosi's character can hypnotize and summon women from far away.

Finally, Guffey concludes the book with an essay on "Return of the Ape Man," This is probably Lugosi's strongest mad scientist performance short of "The Raven." He is beyond obsessed with bringing a neanderthal man back to life and trying to experiment with sharing his brain with modern man. This has the usual disastrous results. Guffey draws a fascinating connection with the famed artist Stanislav Szukalski, who had this bizarre theory that mankind, after Noah's flood, intermingled with a Yeti-like race, producing a polluted version of homo sapiens. He even wrote a book about it, called "Behold!!! The Protong," notes Guffey. Szukalski was a great talent; unfortunately much of his work was destroyed during and after World War II. He's such an interesting character that his outlandish theories spark renewed interest in the man, a true survivor of an adversity-filled life. Ironically, a month ago I watched a great Netflix documentary on Stanislav Szukalski, "Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Stanislav Szukalski." I highly recommend it. Honestly, I doubt the artist ever saw "Return of the Ape Man." It's possible, of course. But I just think it's really cool to read an analysis of the Lugosi film that includes "Protong," etc.

Let me add a note here, to be fair to Guffey in particular. The authors are not claiming that there are deliberate connections to the arts, theories and genres mentioned as artistic connections to the Monogram 9 films. It's acknowledged often that the relationships are likely unintentional, more products of the directors' training or past experiences as they were learning the film craft. Like the creation of a cult film, the insertion of a philosophy is nearly always unintentional. To try to force it into a film never succeeds. It turns the film into something derivative, labored and clumsy.

The Monogram 9 were for the most part remarkable achievements given budgets and time constraints. Their legacies were fueled by an iconic, charismatic star and directors forced to rely on their first instincts to create a finished film within a two-week period. Monogram profit margins were tiny; no allowances were given for wasted time and money. It's a credit to Rhodes and Guffey that these films have been rewarded with a bit of scholarship that took far longer to create than the films being discussed.

Films of Ed Wood covered in depth in book

By Doug Gibson

The first thing that grabs me while reading the new book, "The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood," by Andrew J. Rausch and Charles E. Pratt Jr. (BearManor Media, 2015) is that there's virtually no contributions from Wood's "old guard," the folks that were around him from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's a strength of the book, to bring new blood to Wood study. We've heard too many of the old stories in print and screen.

But there's another bittersweet reason for the many omitted. Kathy Wood, Lyn Lemon, Paul Marco, Dolores Fuller, Gregory Walcott, Vampira, Loretta King, Norma McCarty, Don Nagel, David De Mering, Bunny Beckinridge, Mark Carducci, Valda Hansen, and others. They're all dead, some in the last few years. The main Wood friend of that long-gone era still kicking is Conrad Brooks and he's barely mentioned. Even Wood's initial stepladder to fame, Bela Lugosi, keeps a small presence in this volume. (Editor's note: Brooks has died since this review's initial publication).

"Cinematic Misadventures ..." is far from perfect, but it is a valuable book. Its ability to gather a collection of younger, eclectic characters to go on the record about their associations and obsessions with Ed Wood is evidence of the lingering influence of Wood's movies, and yes, legacy, folks. This man's going on 40 years dead and people are still talking about him while others, say, Samuel Arkoff, are interred into the cemetery of footnotes.

The strongest part of Rausch and Pratt's Ed Wood book is the interviews (there's 89 pages of Q and As, and bookended forwards and afterwords by Wood "scholars" Ted Newsom and David C. Hayes. The former did the still-awesome "Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora," and the latter examined Wood's fiction career in the book "Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Jr." (Since then, Bob Blackburn, one of Wood's co-heirs, has published two extensive collections of Wood's short fiction).

The interviews are great reading. There's one with Rudolph Grey, who still has written the best Wood book, "Nightmare of Ecstasy." He provides the interesting nugget that it's likely that portions of a lost Wood film, "Cry of the Banshee," are tucked into Wood's "Night of the Ghouls." I'm inclined to believe Grey, and assume he's referring to the exterior stock footage of ghost Jeannie Stevens, who harasses Valda Hansen in the film.

Speaking of stock footage from "... Ghouls," there's a fascinating interview with a pair, including Marco's nephew, who discovered and had restored the once-lost "Final Curtain," a long scene of which is stock footage in "Ghouls. It has Duke Moore, in tuxedo, roaming an old stage and discovering ghost Stevens. I've always loved the improvisation of Wood, how he manages to make that insert work by having "Night of the Ghouls" policeman Moore in tux readying to go to the opera. It's also interesting to learn from the interview that decaying film smells like vinegar.

There's an entertaining interview with Rob Craig, who wrote an eccentrically interesting criticism of Wood's work a few years ago, and has since tackled Andy Milligan. I don't always agree with Craig, but I appreciate his taking the time to deconstruct the filmmakers who worked far away from the roads covered in tinsel.

I have a hard time sitting through 10 minutes of Andre Perkowski's $500 film homages to Wood's previous works, but the interview with this micro-micro budget filmmaker was extremely interesting. He says he's read about 50 of Wood's novels, so for about $25,000 maybe we'll see 48 or 49 more Perkowski Wood homage films.

And former Apostolof/Wood actress Brenda Fogarty is just brilliant in responding to a theory the authors have that the content of Wood's films must have reflected his personal, cultural and political beliefs. (That's like claiming Stephen King is a racist if he has a character use the "N word.) Fogarty points out that the misogyny and male fantasy rape in the turgid, offensive porn that Wood and Apostolof produced was grinded out to appeal to the dysfunctional, maladjusted audience for that cinema sewer, and cannot be ascertained as the filmmakers' personal beliefs.

The same argument is applicable to the author' criticisms of Wood's moralistic stance in "The Sinister Urge," the "anti-pornography" hypocrisy in that film, and the overly moralistic tone in "The Violent Years." Those films were pre-porn-era  titillation, which regularly used "moral lessons" as a hook to bring in the peepshow crowd. Heck, "Orgy of the Dead" used faux morals too to present bad strip acts! To sum up: you can criticize Wood for making depraved films, but you can't definitively tag him as that in real life, no more than you can tag George Orwell as an anti-Semite for statements in his classic novel "Down and Out in Paris and London," or Charles Bukowski as adopting what his characters in novels say, and the list goes on.

The movie summaries of Ed Wood's resume are the weakest part of the book. There are, however, much-needed and appreciated pages on three Wood-scripted films that have not been covered much. They include the early 1960s' films "Shotgun Wedding" and "Married Too Young," and the really interesting "Venus Flytrap," from 1970. I've got to see this film via amazon instant video, because it seems like a gem based on its description. There's also tidbits of interesting new info such as learning that "Jail Bait" star Clancy Malone previously delivered Wood's groceries, or that Apostolof was so fed up with Wood's drinking during the "Orgy of the Dead" shoot that he didn't use him again for several years.

Also, there's a long chapter on the 1998 "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died," scripted by Wood and directed by Aris Iliopulos, who attracted a good cast and budget. The authors tag this as "Wood's masterpiece." I'd like to test that theory but legal problem have kept this film from U.S. distribution. There is also an interesting interview with Iliopulos. (Look at the cast of "I Wake Up ..." It's incredible.)

The book's chief flaw is that far too many pages are devoted to Wood's mediocre pornography efforts post-"Orgy of the Dead." Films such as "Necromania," "For Love and Money," "One Million AC/DC," "Young Marrieds," "Nympho Cycles," "Snow Bunnies," etc. could have all been dispensed with one or two paragraphs. The only two Wood-involved films that merit chapters after 1965 are the aforementioned "Venus Flytrap" and "Fugitive Girls," a Wood/Apostolof R-rated film that almost, the authors appropriately note, reaches the level of AIP drive in fare of the 1970s.

The porn chapters are boring, the authors despise the turgid quality of the films and pay homage to such poor quality by offering the worst writing of "Cinematic Misadventures." I never, ever want to read this again in any Wood-themed book: In the chapter on "Necromania," the authors write: "... the women's vaginas are so grotesquely hairy that they look like they've got bear heads in leg locks."

That simply jumps the TMI shark,

Despite all, this is a valuable addition to Wood's films study, and well worth buying for genre fans (it's available via Kindle too). Rausch and Pratt have accomplished what was clearly a goal; to find new information on Wood's career and legacy. The interviews and the film chapters accomplish that, with wide variances of worth and quality in the wealth of information gathered.

Vintage comedy star Edgar Kennedy subject of biography

Review by Doug Gibson

Soon after the legendary boxer Jack Dempsey won the heavyweight championship, Hollywood beckoned. The first of several films made was a serial, called The Adventures of Daredevil Jack (1920). In his autobiography, Dempsey good naturedly opines that he saved the girl and punched others out in his films.

Only a couple of reels of Daredevil Jack survives, stored at UCLA's film archives. Far more interesting are stills showing fight scenes in the ring. Preserved are three stills of Dempsey encountering, fighting, and defeating a burly opponent in the ring. That opponent was Edgar Kennedy, a remarkable product of vintage Hollywood.

In his autobiography, "Dempsey," as Cassera notes, the Manassa Mauler recalled that, during the shoot, Kennedy knocking the putty off his "actor's nose," and later, Dempsey says, he knocked Kennedy's toupee off.

Kennedy, one of the first of Max Sennett's Keystone Kops, is one of those actors with an iconic face that too many can't place. We owe film historian Bill Cassera a debt for writing the biography "Edgar Kennedy: Master of the Slow Burn," Bear Manor Media, 2005. Boosted by extensive recollections from Kennedy's daughter, Colleen, other contributions from the family, and thorough research from the author, this is a definitive biography. It captures the feel of the Hollywood/entertainment world from the infancy of sound to the post-World War II era.

Kennedy was born in central California. His father died when he was 10, creating a challenge for his mother to keep Edgar and family maintained in a comfortable existence that included a homestead in Monterey County. This included a stint in San Francisco, where the family ran a boarding house. They eventually moved to San Rafael, where Edgar showed early talent on the school stage.

Moving forward a few years, a young Edgar tested his skills professionally in two diverse fields; singing and boxing. In the latter he was one of many California heavyweights seeking fame and money in the small clubs. He had early success as an amateur, winning a local title. As a professional he had mixed success, winning a few and losing a few, before giving up a professional career. He loved boxing his entire life, spending the rest of his life with the boxing gym and ring close, sparring and training.

As a singer, Edgar was good enough to be on the stage but not as a featured role. A career in films interested him. He received a big break when Sennett offered him roles with the Kops and other films. It led to a three-decade plus career that by any definition was very successful, providing his family a comfortable life.

Kennedy was in so many films, with so many comedy greats, it's hard to keep track. Tillie's Punctured Romance, Duck Soup, Hollywood Hotel, A Star is Born, Diplomaniacs, Mickey ... and so on. He could do drama as well as comedy. In the World War 2-era film, "Hitler's Madman, he has, for example, a strong role as a reclusive hermit who opposes Nazi atrocities. He also directed many films and was active on the stage through his career, sometimes with his wife Patricia, a former dancer.

Harry Langdon, Charles Chaplin, Ben Turpin, Mabel Normand, Laurel & Hardy, Wheeler and Woolsey, Fatty Arbuckle, Ted Healy, The Marx Brothers ... add 50 more prominent names, and you wouldn't have all the film immortals Kennedy worked with. As Cassera recounts, he was an active member of the Hollywood community, participating in celebrity/charity sporting events and other fundraisers. He was a local Air Raid Warden during the Second World War.

Kennedy's most prominent starring role was as "The Average Man" in RKO's series of comedy shorts, which began in the early 30s and lasted until Kennedy's death in 1948. The premise had Kennedy as a harried man with a ditzy wife, a conniving mother in law, and a ne'er do well brother in law. Misfortunes, usually created by Edgar's' two in-law adversaries, would slowly antagonize Edgar toward a temper tantrum eruption that climaxed the two reelers.

Kennedy's strong comic timing was key to the long-running success of the series, too forgotten now, as so many are due to the iconic status of the Three Stooges. Kennedy's "hand moving across the face" as he struggled to keep his temper, was iconic in the '30s and '40s. Collections of Kennedy's work where he is the star can be purchased via amazon (here) and a few of The Average Man shorts are on YouTube (Watch below). Occasional cast changes to the Average Man series did not harm the quality since Kennedy was its foundation.



Cassera notes that famed Hollywood scribe Louella Parsons compared Kennedy's Average Man to novelist Sinclair Lewis' conformist creation, businessman George Babbitt. Physically, they were both pink, a little balding, a little too fat, a little ridiculous, blundering. However, Babbitt was a successful, often unethical civic leader, while The Average Man just wants those in laws out of the house, Cassera notes.

Kennedy, however, as the biography includes, was outspoken on issues. For example, he was a strong defender of the silent film mode of acting. He criticized a tendency of some sound actors to simply say the words at the expense of emotion and conveying meaning. In an interview in 1938 for World Film News, he said " ... In the old days, if you didn't act it, nobody knew what it was supposed to be. Nowadays, talk, talk, talk, talk, it's all on the soundtrack, and you can get by without acting at all. ..."

Kennedy, a devoted family man who loved the peace of his home outside Los Angeles, was a lifelong heavy smoker. That unfortunately caught up with him as he contracted cancer in 1948 and did not survive the year. He was only 58.

Cassera's book, reasonably priced, can also be obtained via amazon. Besides providing an appreciation of a comic talent, it places the reader into vintage Hollywood, always a fun place to escape to for a while. Cassera has also written enjoyable biographies of Vernon Dent and Ted Healy.

Dracula's Daughter the latest Scripts From the Crypt offering

Review by Doug Gibson

The latest BearManorMedia Scripts From the Crypt offering, "Dracula's Daughter" (buy it here) continues the high quality of the cult films books' series. Penned mostly by Gary D Rhodes, it satisfies a constant of our genre fans: it breaks new ground. New nuggets, big and small, of scholarship are unearthed. And, as with all the books, you have Tom Weaver's observations and opinions. Love them or hate them, they are unique and the product of an original mind. There's also an introduction and essay on the music of the film from contributors David Colton and Michael Lee.

The best reading comes from Rhodes' exhaustive treatment of the film's creation. Early on, he discusses the role of women in vampire lore, using Theda Bara and other vamps to explain that vampire once meant a woman who sucked the heart and soul out of their doomed male lovers. This is relevant because later we learn that early treatments for the film included a female vampire who was sexually aggressive and delighted in the torture, degradation and dissipation of her male captives. (I am assuming blog readers have seen "Dracula's Daughter." If not, do so now.) Gloria Holden's sympathetic yet resolute Countess emerged as a result of the watering down of the plot's actions.

As Rhodes' notes, "Dracula's Daughter," a 1936 release, emerged as the moralistic production code was gaining strength. Scripts and treatments for the film endured rough seas with the censors. John Balderston, Kurt Neumann, and RC Sherriff all had their hands on the typewriter. Eventually Garrett Fort's subdued, more sanitized script became the film. Milton Carruth, who edited "Dracula," also impacted "Dracula's Daughter" with his editing, Rhodes notes.

Some of the early treatments would have been interestingly daring. The Countess as a man hunter, entering the film after already killing a lover/slave. She nearly physically, spiritually and mentally destroys the hero before succumbing. Screenwriters assured the Laemmle overlords, soon to lose the studio, that a woman conducting such sexual sadism on men would pass code approval. Witness what Balderston wrote in his treatment: "The use of a female vampire instead of a male gives us the chance to play up SEX and CRUELTY legitimately."

At one time James Whale was slated to direct. He might have been able to convey such a film in a subtle manner to fool the censors. Lambert Hillyer, a talented, workmanlike, solid director who eventually got the role, lacked the Whale magic to do that had he even tried.

We learn that Bela Lugosi was once considered to be in the film. He was even paid $4,000. However, a reading of the fascinating screenplay excerpt, from Sherriff, of a prologue that would have featured Lugosi creating his daughter, is so bizarre and sexually depraved that I think it would have trouble getting made even in the pre-code era. Lugosi, and a bunch of sadistic companions terrorize the peasantry, kidnapping women, and with exaggerated faux grotesque courtesy, torturing and murdering them. "Dracula's Daughter" is made a vampire by the Count.

But that is not the "Dracula's Daughter" that we watch today. It's a fine film with a haunting performance by Gloria Holden. Otto Kruger and Marguerite Churchill are a better hero couple than David Manners and Helen Chandler. Kruger and Churchill actually have romantic chemistry. Irving Pichel is very creepy as Holden's mortal companion, and presumably her lover. His quiet rage at watching Holden prefer Kruger to him as an immortal companion is suitably sinister. Nan Gray (Grey) is great as a poor girl, perhaps streetwalker, who eventually dies, we assume due to the Countess' unquenchable thirst. And Edward Van Sloan is back as Van Helsing, inexplicably called Von Helsing in the sequel.

Yes, Dracula's Daughter is an above-average film. The book informs us that it received generally good reviews and appears to have done well at the box office. But as Weaver rather shrewdly notes, one can watch "Dracula's Daughter" and not be convinced that the title character is really a vampire. We know she is only because that is the script's design. But this is a bloodless film. As Weaver points out, she is killed by an arrow shot through her heart; anyone would die of that.

"Dracula's Daughter," as much as I enjoy it, is neutered by the production code. It's respected within the genre, but never will it be placed anywhere near the pedestal that say, "Bride of Frankenstein" has. "Dracula's Daughter" is not a film that takes risks or tries to pierce our deepest obsessions or fears as James Whale does. It's a worthy entry at a time when Universal was still making at least A-minus budgeted horror flicks. Perhaps its finest moment is that it takes the action back to Transylvania in the final reel, something that "Dracula," still a better film, did not do.

Lest anyone think I am ungrateful, let me reiterate my deep appreciation for writers such as Rhodes and Weaver, and others, as well as thanks to BearManor Media for publishing these types of books. They are manna for me and I'm sure so many others. So much minutiae to eagerly wade through -- we love it! We learn, for example, the salaries of the stars. Holden, incredibly, only received $1,450 for a performance that is almost iconic. Kruger did a great job, but really, $9,583.30 is out of whack compared to Holden. Churchill received $1,250, Van Sloan $2,400, Pichel, who really earns it, $2,950, and unbelievably, Nan Gray (Grey), who probably is second-most remembered due to the much-debated lesbian overtones to her scene with Holden, received a paltry $200!

The entire script as shot is in the book, and as I have mentioned, the many treatments are included. There's a section on contemporary reviews the movie received; there's a fascinating press book. As mentioned, the whole back story of the film is captured, including even a "Junior" Laemmle-inspired treatment for the end. There's dozens of photos, and a tender heart-wrenching letter from Holden late in life to film fan David Del Valle, in which she stoically talks about the tragic death of her son, We even get a treatment for an adaptation of "Carmilla," another female vampire tale. This one wasn't filmed

I could spend many more paragraphs detailing what's in these pages. But just go buy the book. It's a gem. I can't wait for the next one, which is slated to be about two unrealized films from "Dracula" director Tod Browning.