This year marks the 30th anniversary of Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, a biopic about director of the same name. In honor of the anniversary, we’re taking a look at Ed Wood, a legendary filmmaker, and the term “legendary” is used loosely. A follow-up, written by a guest contributor, will discuss Ed Wood as he is presented in Burton’s film.
Edward Davis Wood Jr., born October 10, 1924, led what many would consider a normal childhood. As a child, he enjoyed reading comic books and pulp magazines, but his true love was film. He loved the medium so much that he would rummage through the trash at movie theaters to salvage stills from films once they weren’t playing anymore. Aside from his own personal eccentricities, including a love for women’s angora sweaters, Wood was a passionate kid who made his own films on a Kodak Cine Special.
After stints as a theater usher and serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, he ventured out to Hollywood to realize his childhood dream.
Wood was a filmmaker in the most literal sense. He made films, he wrote scripts, directed actors, and shot scenes, among other jobs. There’s no denying that he was doing what he loved, even when doing so gave him a less than stellar reputation in Hollywood history. Today, his work is described as low-budget, poorly acted, and stilted.
He didn’t direct many films, but his most of his work that is known to audiences consists of his science fiction-horror films. Bride of the Monster, Night of the Ghouls, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and The Bride and the Beast have earned their statuses as Z-movie blunders.
There isn’t a lot on Ed Wood out there. Aside from Burton’s film, there is a 1995 documentary (The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr.), and the stories conveyed through his friends and coworkers. When he died in 1978, there wasn’t even an obituary for him, since he wasn’t well known enough to warrant one.
Despite what film critics and enthusiasts think of Wood’s work, that note alone is quite sad. One might feel sorry for him without fully knowing the man behind the movies. Fledgling filmmakers may want to view Ed Wood as more of a cautionary tale than an outright negative figure.
Burton’s film portrays Wood’s shortcomings through his own naïveté. One could look at Wood as a sympathetic figure, an aspiring creative who fell in love with film as a child and strived to make it big in Hollywood. The documentary includes personal writings about his passion, and, specifically, his adoration toward Bela Lugosi.
“Destiny had designed the fact that Lugosi’s and mine’s trails would cross,” Wood wrote.
That “trails would cross” lead to a partnership that spanned Wood’s career. In 1952, he was introduced to the actor through a friend. Accounts detail a close friendship between the two.
The 1950s was an uneasy time for Lugosi who, due to aging, his thick accent, and drug abuse, struggled to find consistent work. To some, Wood helped out one of his heroes and gave him work, keeping him in front of the camera until his death in 1956. To others, Wood exploited a struggling actor by putting him into films with little to no dignity behind them.
It’s likely Wood just didn’t realize how his actions could be viewed by others and, in his mind, saw that he was doing a service to both his career as well as Lugosi’s. However, in Bride of the Monster, Lugosi, aged 72 at the time, had to shoot a climactic scene in which he fights an octopus. The scene required him to shoot scenes in cold water outdoors, which could have led to health complications, such as hypothermia.
Wood’s passion and enthusiasm was hard to ignore, both from his writings and Burton’s film. Although his optimism carried him through his career, it was his inability to improve or take criticism and a lack of self-awareness that marked his downfall.
As an up-and-coming creative, he was in his early 30s when he traveled to Hollywood, there are obstacles to finding success. With no experience, studios might not consider him for large budgets or casts of well-known actors to bolster his work. We might look at this and use that as an explanation for why his films turned out how they were. He just never had the money to create something great to give him a break.
While Wood did try his hand at various ventures to pay the bills and get noticed, including stage plays, early TV commercials, and low-budget films, he continually faced mixed to negative reviews from critics. Instead of trying to hone his craft or taking on roles that, although not as glamorous as “director,” may have helped him gain experience, he pushed on, determined that if he just kept going, something positive was bound to happen. Despite this, his work never seemed to improve.
The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. notes that he was a fast typer, which could explain his attitude of just continuing to write and write, always coming up with his next project.
Several actors who worked with him noted that the dialogue they were given to perform was poorly written, and they were often confused or even embarrassed to say their lines. His direction led to interesting approaches to scene work. One infamous scene from Plan 9 From Outer Space shows two cops investigating a crime scene, and one cop scratches his head with the barrel of his gun toward his head.
Given Wood’s output, it may come as a surprise that another one of Wood’s idols was Orson Welles. Citizen Kane became a blueprint for Wood. Since Welles had taken control of the project, from writing to directing to starring, and while he was in his mid-20s, Wood took some pages from Welles’ book. As an independent, Wood had to. So, he wrote his own screenplays, directed, and produced them, but largely shied away from starring roles, save for 1953’s Glen or Glenda, which he saw as a personal project.
It could be that, through taking on these positions in the filmmaking process, Wood might become next Welles. However, pulling from a great doesn’t always mean success, as one has to understand what made a film or director beloved and be able to apply it to their work successfully and with a unique flair.
While it was true that Wood never had the largest budgets for his films, which may have helped him achieve his lofty goals, the budgets he did have were gained through cheap deals made with anyone he could rope into working with him. He acted like a Hollywood professional while only having his on-the-fly pitches to steer him. He came up with film ideas based on posters, images, and stock footage, resulting in films that didn’t entirely work plot-wise. He was quick to change his pitches and ideas to please others, whether or not he liked these changes or thought the film would improve.
The production stage was never easy. For example, Bride of the Monster, which also began his partnership with wrestler Tor Johnson, there was no confirmed budget during shooting. This led to multiple halts as Wood scrambled to earn more money. When he needed to cut corners, he resorted to shooting as few takes as possible and often haggling for more money from investors. This was a practice that continued throughout his career. Those who knew Wood noted this and didn’t make any mention of him realizing what he was doing.
His personal life didn’t fare much better. A known alcoholic, any money he was able to make from film projects and novels fueled his addiction. He was also a womanizer and cycled through a number of relationships, and he became violent while drinking. Perhaps he dove deeply into film to escape his real-world troubles.
When he stopped writing horror and science fiction films in the 1960s, he turned to shooting pornography. By the time he died, he was an addict, nearly homeless, and poor.
His films haven’t become cult classics, although they might be in the so-bad-it’s-somewhat-funny category. Could he have improved if he had been confidently backed by a studio, given a good budget, and competent actors? Maybe. Could his self-driven nature and naïveté have gotten in the way of improving, even if he received these resources? Maybe.
All we know for sure is that Ed Wood’s story unfortunately resembles that of many optimistic creatives, those who can drive themselves to Hollywood but find themselves with a jalopy once they get kicked off of enough studio lots. If you continue to be rejected and don’t think about why, this becomes an obstacle to success.
For every John Carpenter that breaks through, there are probably 500 directors, writers, and actors who don’t even get the sort of attention that Wood received and continues to receive today. He never got the critical praise he was looking for, and he likely will not find it 70 years since he made his films.
We could give him sympathy and say that he tried. We could scorn his filmography and look down upon his cheapness. Whatever we decide to do, what’s clear is that Ed Wood is a person, like any other director, with his strengths and weaknesses. His weaknesses outweighed the strengths, tragically.
It doesn’t make him a great director that he suffered, as many great creatives have and will continue to. It’s unfortunate to see that he never did improve. We can only show so much sympathy on the part of someone else’s unfulfilled dreams.
The difference between Ed Wood and the countless, nameless creatives who strive for something great is that Wood is remembered, warts and all.