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.

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 Sinister Urge ... Ed Wood's 'anti-porn' film

The Sinister Urge , 1960, 75 minutes, Headliner Productions; directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr., screenplay by Wood. Starring Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Jean Fontaine, Carl Anthony, Dino Fantini.

By Doug Gibson

The Sinister Urge is probably the least of Wood's mainstream films -- after he made it he started his slow slide into pornography -- but it's still a treat for cult movie fans, and Wood buffs who haven't seen it are in for a big treat. The plot concerns two hard-working detectives (Duncan and Moore) doing their best Gannon and Friday imitations. They're committed to smashing the smut picture racket, and in doing so viewers see several plump bathing beauties die at the hands of a teenage maniac (Fantini) who goes crazy when he sees an uncovered breast.

Many Wood regulars work in The Sinister Urge. Besides Duncan and Moore, there's Anthony, Harvey B. Dunne, John Carpenter, Conrad Brooks and Wood also has a cameo. Duncan's girlfriend at the time, a stripper named Betty Boatner, plays the murder victim in the opening scene. Fontaine, who acts as a sort of a Godmother of pornography, is hysterical. She spends half her time lolling around in bedtime garb, and carps hysterically in a cigarette-smoke-infested voice that s deeper than Clint Eastwood's.

The whole film cost slightly more than $20,000, and its tightness shows that Wood -- at least when sober -- was a director who could turn in a film on budget and in time. Due to the cheapness, most of the film seems to revolve within a single small set that takes turns being a police station, living room, and office. There are a few outdoor scenes, which due to the tiny budget appear amateurish. Scenes from Wood's never-finished film Hellborn were inserted into The Sinister Urge as part of a disjointed attempt to link the dangers of teenage violence into the plot of The Sinister Urge. It's fun to watch Wood and Brooks playing teens fighting each other in this sequence.

The Sinister Urge was considered an exploitation film in 1960 but it's very tame today. There are lots of chases but very little violence. It's worth a rental and can easily be purchased from several companies. There is also a MST3K version that's amusing.

Rudolph Grey's oral biography of Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy, has a lot of info on The Sinister Urge, including Wood's shooting proposal -- which is very detailed -- that he gave to Headliner Productions head Roy Reid. A sequel was planned but never filmed. Much of the cast came from acting teacher Harry Keaton's class. Keaton had a small role in the film. He was Buster Keaton's brother. Duncan had a reputation as a heavy in the B-western films racket. Despie its low budget, The Sinister Urge is very competently directed. As mentioned, Wood shows he was capable of using discipline and following a budget. Star Fantini recalls seeing the film in New York City's 42nd Street area. Fontaine had a nightclub act, according to Grey's book on Wood.

Ed Wood also wrote novels; review of Death of a Transvestite

Death of a Transvestite, by Ed Wood Jr., 172 pages, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1999. Originally published by Pad Library in 1967 under the title Let Me Die in Drag.

Review by Doug Gibson

Besides making some of the most cultish ... and unique films ever produced, Ed Wood produced a lot of writing. He may have written more than 100 novels, and perhaps 1000 short stories. Friends recall that the prolific Wood could wake up, sit down in front of a typewriter and finish an entire screenplay by the evening. Wood's second career writing novels and stories, however, took off in tandem with his alcoholism. He wrote exploitation novels for the cheap paperback market, receiving only a few hundred dollars a book and no royalties. Many of his books have pseudonyms, and by the end of his life, he was writing mainly pornography.

In Nightmare of Ecstasy, Rudolph Gray's excellent oral biography of Wood, the author points to Killer in Drag and Death of a Transvestite as Wood's strongest literary efforts. He's probably right. Death of a Transvestite, a sequel to Killer in Drag, was written before Wood had more or less entirely gravitated to porno. It's a sleazy but entertaining tale of Glenn, a hit man for the Mafia who is also a transvestite, albeit a heterosexual one. The story begins with Glenn in prison, facing execution, relating the story of his life to the warden. In return, the warden will allow Glenn to be executed in drag.

It's actually better than it sounds. Wood was too lazy a researcher to produce a great book, but he captures the underbelly of the characters and settings. Cliches, sleazy prose, sex scenes, violent deaths and hyperbole abound in Death of a Transvestite, but the novel has heart. You root for Glenn. Try to imagine Elmore Leonard producing a first draft of a novel written in a couple of days without spell checks and, presto, you have Death of a Transvestite.

Most of Wood's books are out of print of course, and they command a very high price (in the hundreds of dollars) when an original can be found. However, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, a publisher with offices in New York and London, has reintroduced a few of Wood's novels. (Some were introduced in England in the late 80s) Death of a Transvestite and Killer in Drag can be found at most bookstores, and another Wood re-release, an earlier previously unpublished novel called Hollywood Rat Race, can be purchased via Amazon.

A comparison between Ed Wood the film and Ed Wood the book

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. One day I'll add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. After years of not being available for viewing, Final Curtain finally had a screen showing and was released to YouTube a while back. You can see it here and we have embedded it below. Night of the Ghouls was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Comparing "Ed Wood" the movie with the book

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. One day I'll add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Grey's Ed Wood versus Burton's Ed Wood - an analysis

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. One day I'll add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:



Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.



Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.



Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.



Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.



Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Plan9Crunch re-run: Ed Wood versus Nightmare of Ecstasy

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. I will likely add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Ed Wood versus Nightmare of Ecstasy

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. I will likely add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

A review of Nightmare of Ecstasy

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 2000: 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 are 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. Cult Movies magazine, a popular film publication, has a story about Ed Wood in just about every issue.

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?"