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.

Ed Wood documentaries: Three early ones

LOOK BACK IN ANGORA

This is the only Ed Wood documentary, besides The Incredibly Strange Film Show, I am aware of to feature Ed’s wife Kathy Wood in interview segments. That alone makes it a valuable piece of Ed Wood history. Produced by Rhino Home Video in 1994, the documentary takes sound bites and images from Wood’s films and uses them to give the film a humorous narrative.

The opening gives us Kathy Wood commenting on how no one really cared much about Ed Wood until his death in 1978. Now, ironically, there is a renewed interest in his films and life. Ed’s marine buddy Joseph Robertson is also interviewed, and describes Ed’s fascination for wearing women’s clothing, even under his army outfit.

Robertson produced such 1960s cult classics as: The Crawling Hand and The Slime People. He went on to direct the adult feature entitled Love Feast, also known as The Photographer and Pretty Girls All In A Row (see my review of Love Feast on this website.).

This documentary also borrows segments of Conrad Brooks’ interviews from On The Trail of Ed Wood (see my review in this post.). The documentary is presented in segments that use Wood’s name in a clever way, such as: Drift Wood, Holly-Wood, Wood’s Stock Company, and Dead Wood.

THE ED WOOD STORY: THE PLAN 9 COMPANION

Of all the Ed Wood documentaries that have been released, I would have to say that this one is the best.

Not only because it carefully examines the career and films of Ed Wood, but also because it highlights the lives and careers of the key actors of Plan 9 From Outer Space: Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson and Criswell. This documentary also has informative insights and humorous commentary by famous fans of Ed Wood and Plan 9 From Outer Space, such as: Sam Raimi, Drew Friedman, Harry Medved, Bill Warren, Joe Dante, Forrest J. Ackerman and Wood’s biographer, Rudolph Grey.

Of great interest is the segment of Conrad Brooks taking the viewer on a tour of the old Quality Studios in Hollywood where Plan 9 was filmed. The first time I viewed the Plan 9 Companion, my heart raced with excitement in being able to see what Quality Studios looks like today. Conrad even reenacts a famous cemetery scene that was shot there with his co-star Carl Anthony.

Lee Harris, the host and narrator of The Plan 9 Companion, also takes us on a tour of the old cemetery location used in the opening shots of Plan 9. Director Mark P. Carducci produced the film with Harris in 1994 and released it to MPI Home Video. Vampira fans will also be pleased with this documentary, since Maila Nurmi offers many insights into her own career and the career of Ed Wood. 

ON THE TRAIL OF ED WOOD

Although the title of this documentary informs us of being on the trail of Ed Wood, perhaps a better title would have been: On The Trail Of Conrad Brooks. I say this only because the entire fifty-six-minute documentary is from the point of view of Conrad Brooks being interviewed in his home, unlike so many other Ed Wood documentaries that interview many of Wood’s stock actors and friends. I got the feeling that the producer Buddy Barnett and director Michael Copner did not have the time or budget to include other Ed Wood actors and friends in this documentary, or perhaps they weren’t interested in anyone else’s views about Wood?

However, there are some informative aspects of this documentary. Conrad takes us on a tour of Ed Wood’s Yucca apartment complex in Hollywood, the last apartment complex he lived in before his death at Peter Coe’s apartment in 1978.

The tour also takes us to the KFWB soundstage in Hollywood, which was Ted Allen’s studio in the 1950s when Bride of The Monster was filmed there. Conrad explains in the documentary that Tor Johnson demanded double his $100.00 salary for his acting roles in Wood’s films. According to Conrad, Wood almost reconsidered using Johnson in his films because of this demand.

He also claims that Ed took a job as a cab driver in the 1970s to make ends meet. Copner and Barnett, both contributing writers and founders of Cult Movies Magazine, released this documentary in 1990. If Copner or Barnett happen to read this article, we would greatly appreciate it if Cult Movies Magazine was back in publication. The magazine is a valuable resource.

-- Steve D. Stones

Nightmare of Ecstasy: A review

Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr., by Rudolph Grey, Feral Books

Review by Doug Gibson

"Only in the infinity of the depths of a man's mind can we really find the answer."-- From the 1953 film Glen or Glenda, written, directed, produced, and starred in by Ed Wood, Jr.

Edward D. Wood, Jr., died homeless in 1978. The former "C" movie director was an alcoholic with a brain that had virtually wasted away from an excess of booze and disappointment. He expired on a friend's bed while his wife in the next room ignored his pleas for help. For the last several years of his life, the only writing, starring and directing jobs he had were for pornography. There was no mention of his death in the Hollywood press. He directed only six films that were made available to mainstream audiences, the last in 1960.

Now, flash to 2017: the late Edward D. Wood, Jr. -- known as Ed Wood -- has become a cottage industry. His films, most notably Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space, are major cult favorites selling thousands of copies a year. A film, Ed Wood, was made starring Johnny Depp as Ed. It was an Oscar winner. Wood's cheapie, near-pornography fiction paperbacks from the 1960s are collector's items. Reprints have been sold from outlets such as the Quality Paperback Book Club and Amazon. One of Wood's last screenplays, I Awoke Early the Day I Died, was filmed and stars Billy Zane of Titanic fame. There are webpages devoted to Wood. Popular film publications write about him. His short stories are being published. Films are being found, including Final Curtain..

So what made Ed Wood an American original, as he's described in Rudolph Grey's oral biography, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. From the recollections of friends, lovers, acquaintances and colleagues, Grey treats readers to Wood's life. It's a bizarre, hilarious, eccentric and sad look at the most unique soul who ever left small town life to try and hit it big in Hollywood. Wood was a reverse Sammy Glick -- full of enthusiasm and drive but not with a Machiavellian soul. As a result, everything he touched turned to lead instead of gold.

A heterosexual transvestite, Wood fought the Japanese in World War 2 wearing a bra and panties under his soldier's garb. After the war, he spent a couple of years with a traveling carnival and then headed to Hollywood. In the late 1940s Wood was an extremely handsome, energetic man who had no trouble attracting a team of actors, most of whom would stay with him for more than a decade. They included an aging Bela Lugosi, Vampira, a slinky horror TV show host, a psychic named Criswell, Wood's girlfriend Dolores Fuller, a 400-pound Swedish wrestler named Tor Johnson, and veteran character actor Lyle Talbot.

Wood finagled his first feature deal by convincing exploitation film producer George Weiss to let him make a film about a sex change, which was new and in the news in 1950. Instead, Wood made Glen or Glenda, an absurd, surrealistic autobiographical film about his own transvestite tendencies. Weiss took it, added some bond- age scenes, and released it as I Changed My Sex. It bombed then, but gradually grew to become the one Ed Wood film that enjoyed a real cult audience while he was alive.

Grey's biography details Wood's life as a "one-lung" producer in 1950s Hollywood. It was raise a few thousand dollars, shoot for a few days, shut down, raise some more money, and shoot some more film. The book is fascinating for its anecdotes of how Ed saved costs. He stole a rubber octopus from another studio for his film Bride of the Monster. He stole scene shots at motels, streets and parks. He used stock footage from other films in abundance, which often gave his films a disjointed, out-of-sequence look.

Wood's tender friendship with the aging, penniless Lugosi shows his altruistic side. It was a sincere desire to assist his boyhood film idol maintain dignity in his last years. Grey's book is a real treat for Wood fans. It contains a listing of all his film projects, whether they got off the ground or not, and a complete summary of his novels and stories.

It's easy to laugh at Ed Wood's movies. And they do appear silly. But he doesn't deserve the smarmy humor that often accompanies critiques of Ed Wood films. Wood's films often seem ridiculous because he had neither the time, nor money needed, to make a real Hollywood production. But -- and this is important -- THEY ARE NEVER DULL. Plan 9 From Outer Space may seem silly with its hubcaps-for-flying-saucers, daylight-to-night shots and stilted dialogue, but its anti-war sci-fi plot -- aliens raise the dead to convince earth to stop building weapons -- would be a crazy, exciting film with a $50 million budget.

Grey's book demonstrates what a crazy, original idea man Ed Wood was. That's why, of the thousands of low budget offerings that dotted movie screens in the 1950s, Ed Wood is the survivor. Perhaps Penn and Teller summed it up best: "We've seen Plan 9 From Outer Space 15 times. Who can say the same thing about an Emma Thompson movie?"

The Revenge of Dr. X - An Ed Wood Scripted Film

By Steve D. Stones

Ed Wood may not have directed "The Revenge of Dr. X" (1970) but his fingerprints are all over the film. Bad acting, strange dialogue, boring camera angles and mismatched stock footage from other films are all characteristics found in this film and any Wood film. Wood is said to have written the script.

To confuse the viewer, the opening credits indicate that John Ashley and Angelique Petty-John stars in the film, and it was produced and directed by Eddie Romero.  This would lead the viewer to believe that it is going to be one of Romero's Philippines Island films from the late 60s and 70s. It is not. The film has nothing to do with the Philippines, director Romero and actor John Ashley. Why then does the opening credits indicate this? I'm not sure anyone can answer this question, other than to say that Romero had made a film with the same title.

Dr. Braggen, played by actor James Craig, spends the first five minutes of the film yelling at other actors and pretending to have a nervous breakdown. Braggen works as a NASA scientist and hangs out in greenhouses in his spare time dabbling in botany. He flies to Japan for some rest and relaxation. There he is greeted by a pretty Japanese woman half his age. The two become partners in greenhouse experiments and eventually fall in love.

Perhaps the only exciting aspect of this film is a scene of topless Asian scuba divers about forty-seven minutes into the film. Up to that point, the film is a complete yawn fest and fails to hold the viewer's attention.  Even a land slide of boulders falling across the road as Braggen drives to a Japanese greenhouse cannot inject any excitement into the film.

Braggen cuts free a strange plant life in the ocean while diving with the topless Asian scuba divers. He takes the plant back to his greenhouse laboratory and conducts experiments on it. In a reference or homage to "Frankenstein" (1931), Braggen places the plant on an experiment table and raises him to the top of the greenhouse to jolt it with a strike of lightning.

The plant grows to a gigantic size after the lightning jolt and develops an appearance similar to the creature in "She Creature" (1956), minus the giant breasts.  It is here that the plot starts to look similar to "Day of The Triffids" (1963) and "Little Shop of Horrors" (1960). To stay alive, the creature hunts for human flesh and blood.

The most annoying aspect of "The Revenge of Dr. X" is actor Craig's constant yelling at other actors in many scenes. Why the beautiful Japanese woman assistant would fall in love with this cantankerous numb-skull is anyone's guess.  Their attraction for each other is not very convincing because of Craig's constant yelling and selfish quest for conducting his nefarious experiments.

If you're a fan of Ed Wood, this film may be of interest to you. Any other viewer may find it boring and difficult to sit through. However, the giant Venus fly trap creature is quite interesting, like so many other low-budget creatures. If you're in the mood for giant plants, watch the more superior "Day of The Triffids" and "Little Shop of Horrors." Happy viewing.  Watch the entire film below:

Reviews of documentaries about Edward D. Wood Jr.

THE ED WOOD STORY: THE PLAN 9 COMPANION Of all the Ed Wood documentaries that have been released in the last fifteen years or so, I would have to say that this one is the best. Not only because it carefully examines the career and films of Ed Wood, but also because it highlights the lives and careers of the key actors of Plan 9 From Outer Space: Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson and Criswell. This documentary also has informative insights and humorous commentary by famous fans of Ed Wood and Plan 9 From Outer Space, such as: Sam Raimi, Drew Friedman, Harry Medved, Bill Warren, Joe Dante, Forrest J. Ackerman and Wood’s biographer, Rudolph Grey. Of great interest is the segment of Conrad Brooks taking the viewer on a tour of the old Quality Studios in Hollywood where Plan 9 was filmed. The first time I viewed the Plan 9 Companion, my heart raced with excitement in being able to see what Quality Studios looks like today. Conrad even reenacts a famous cemetery scene that was shot there with his co-star Carl Anthony. Lee Harris, the host and narrator of The Plan 9 Companion, also takes us on a tour of the old cemetery location used in the opening shots of Plan 9. Director Mark P. Carducci produced the film with Harris in 1994 and released it to MPI Home Video. Vampira fans will also be pleased with this documentary, since Maila Nurmi offers many insights into her own career and the career of Ed Wood. ON

THE TRAIL OF ED WOOD Although the title of this documentary informs us of being on the trail of Ed Wood, perhaps a better title would have been: On The Trail Of Conrad Brooks. I say this only because the entire fifty-six-minute documentary is from the point of view of Conrad Brooks being interviewed in his home, unlike so many other Ed Wood documentaries that interview many of Wood’s stock actors and friends. I got the feeling that the producer Buddy Barnett and director Michael Copner did not have the time or budget to include other Ed Wood actors and friends in this documentary, or perhaps they weren’t interested in anyone else’s views about Wood? However, there are some informative aspects of this documentary. Conrad takes us on a tour of Ed Wood’s Yucca apartment complex in Hollywood, the last apartment complex he lived in before his death at Peter Coe’s apartment in 1978. The tour also takes us to the KFWB soundstage in Hollywood, which was Ted Allen’s studio in the 1950s when Bride of The Monster was filmed there. Conrad explains in the documentary that Tor Johnson demanded double his $100.00 salary for his acting roles in Wood’s films. According to Conrad, Wood almost reconsidered using Johnson in his films because of this demand. He also claims that Ed took a job as a cab driver in the 1970s to make ends meet. Copner and Barnett, both contributing writers and founders of Cult Movies Magazine, released this documentary in 1990. If Copner or Barnett happen to read this article, we would greatly appreciate it if Cult Movies Magazine was back in publication. The magazine is a valuable resource.

 LOOK BACK IN ANGORA This is the only Ed Wood documentary, besides The Incredibly Strange Film Show, I am aware of to feature Ed’s wife Kathy Wood in interview segments. That alone makes it a valuable piece of Ed Wood history. Produced by Rhino Home Video in 1994, the documentary takes sound bites and images from Wood’s films and uses them to give the film a humorous narrative. The opening gives us Kathy Wood commenting on how no one really cared much about Ed Wood until his death in 1978. Now, ironically, there is a renewed interest in his films and life. Ed’s marine buddy Joseph Robertson is also interviewed, and describes Ed’s fascination for wearing women’s clothing, even under his army outfit. Robertson produced such 1960s cult classics as: The Crawling Hand and The Slime People. He went on to direct the adult feature entitled Love Feast, also known as The Photographer and Pretty Girls All In A Row (see my review of Love Feast on this website.). This documentary also borrows segments of Conrad Brooks’ interviews from On The Trail of Ed Wood (see my review above of On The Trail of Ed Wood.). The documentary is presented in segments that use Wood’s name in a clever way, such as: Drift Wood, Holly-Wood, Wood’s Stock Company, and Dead Wood.

  -- Steve D. Stones