Ed Wood: The Next One Will Be Better!
Part two of an Ed Wood retrospective: the fantasy of the filmmaker. Cover art by Matt Tarnowski.
“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend, future events such as these will affect YOU in the future.”
What you’ve just read is an example of some writing from Edward D. Wood, Jr., actor/director/writer/producer/editor extraordinaire. In fact, it’s the first thing that greets you when you watch his most well-known work, Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Wood’s films are full of opaque non-sequiturs that alternate with some of the most obvious and bluntly stated lines in film. From that quote alone, it’s clear how much of an unusual talent it would take to do justice to a dramatization of Ed Wood’s story. Tim Burton was the perfect person for the job.
There are a few similarities between Burton and Wood. Both were fans of early Universal horror films and sought to emulate or reference them in their work. Both had a devoted group of cast and crew members that worked on many of their films. And most interestingly, both befriended aging horror stars and used them in their early work — Wood worked with Dracula star Bela Lugosi, and Burton got to work with horror staple Vincent Price. It’s partly because of these parallels that Burton was drawn to the project, which he was originally set to just produce. Upon reading the script, he immediately agreed to direct and even refused to take a salary.
There’s a very specific subset of people who will appreciate Tim Burton’s Ed Wood the most. That’s not to say that people who are unfamiliar with his work won’t. A great biopic is one that still entertains those unfamiliar with its subject due to its strengths as a movie. But those oddballs who grew up watching Universal horror films, then moved on to 50s monster movies, and eventually the dregs of both of those subgenres, will likely regard this film as the culmination of a lot of time spent watching a lot of slop.
Ed Wood is more heavily indebted to the pre-Code pictures of the 1930s than Wood’s own 50s monster cheapies. Dark shadows abound, and sets are not just bombarded with harsh light. The camera is dynamic rather than positioned flatly in front of the actors. The acting is theatrical, rather than stilted and television-oriented. Topics like drug addiction and suicide are openly discussed, not merely hinted at. These stylistic choices, among others, ensure that the film stands out from other biopics.
The film primarily concerns the exploits of a group of misfits, led by Edward D. Wood Jr., all of whom are trying to make it in Hollywood and failing. Burton briefly covers some of Wood’s other work, but the bulk of the film focuses on three features - Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space. The movie sometimes plays almost as more of a fantasy than a biopic - Johnny Depp’s exuberant performance as the director who won’t let life get him down has to be seen to be believed. It’s so joyful that it makes you root for Wood, even as his cinematic shortcomings become more and more apparent.
For his directorial debut, Wood hijacks a film that producer George Weiss planned to make about Christine Jorgensen, a transgender woman, and turns it into an autobiographical picture. He tells Weiss he’s a transvestite, and who better to make a film about a trans woman, he reasons? The result is Glen or Glenda, which is widely panned and leads Ed to turn to independent funding for his next feature.
Any young filmmaker who grew up on early horror films would’ve been thrilled to happen upon Bela Lugosi trying out coffins in his classic cape. This is how the film presents Wood’s coincidental first meeting with Lugosi, though in real life, they were simply introduced by a friend.
At the time of their meeting, Lugosi was struggling to find roles, either typecast or written off as a has-been. Wood sees an opportunity for one of his favorite actors, and gives Lugosi the part of the omnipotent narrator in Glen or Glenda. Following the film’s failure, he uses Lugosi’s remaining star power to leverage guest spots on TV shows and at fundraisers to raise money for Bride of the Atom, his next feature.
Throughout these various events, Ed meets the cast of characters who would become regulars in many of his films, including Vampira, Tor Johnson, and The Amazing Criswell, among others. Ed wheels and deals to get funding from a number of sources for the film, including capitulating to a financier who demands his son is cast in the lead and that the film ends with an explosion. Bride of the Monster, as it’s later retitled, is a messy mad scientist story featuring poor effects, shoddy acting, and errors in the final cut, but how many Ed Wood films could be described that way? The film’s big finale required Ed and company to steal a large animatronic octopus from a prop warehouse, then fill a hole with water and have Lugosi (the mad scientist) thrash around, moving the tentacles as if the octopus was killing him. It plays as well as you imagine.
But the movie isn’t just a comedic overview of Wood’s career. The emotional core of the film is Lugosi’s post-Dracula struggle through life. He dealt with lack of work, typecasting, money troubles, and finally drug addiction. He endured decades of horror caused by chronic pain from sciatica, and it could only be relieved by the morphine that he gradually became more dependent on. Martin Landau turns in a heartbreakingly perfect performance.
Lugosi alludes to “needing his medicine,” but then we see track marks on his arm and learn what the medicine really is. Ultimately, as he gets more work in Wood’s films, his paychecks fuel his drug habit, and twice he calls Ed in the dead of night, drunk, drugged, or some combination of the two, and threatens to kill himself and others. Finally, he realizes he needs help, and commits himself to rehab. Seeing Count Dracula himself so totally diminished, restrained and shrieking in a cell, is deeply upsetting. Lugosi is forced to leave rehab because his money runs out, something Ed keeps from him. He’s not a well man when he leaves the facility, but he does get a few brief moments of joy.
The first comes shortly after he checks out. Ed shoots some B-roll footage of Bela outside his house, not knowing what it will be used for. It’s easy to be cynical and assume Wood is exploiting the actor while his health is failing, but I see it as him giving Bela one last moment of happiness. Following this, Bela gives an impromptu reading of his monologue from Bride of the Monster to a crowd gathering on the street. It’s a triumphant scene, but we know he’s not recovered from his addiction, and he never will be. Immediately after comes the most affecting moment of the film. Ed gets a call from an unknown party. His face falls, and we don’t need dialogue to know what’s happened. The music swells, and the scene cuts to Bela’s wake.
Never one to let life get him down, Ed picks up the pieces after Bela’s death, and quickly puts together a financing plan for his next picture, Grave Robbers from Outer Space. This time the cash comes from Ed’s landlord, with the assurance that the film will make enough money to cover production costs on the landlord’s production of a series of religious films. Lugosi returns from the grave to star in the film, with a combination of the archival footage Ed shot before his death, and a fake Shemp — a term coined by director Sam Raimi to describe a person who acts as a stand-in for another actor — to fill in the rest.
Predictably, Ed clashes with the producers, who require the entire cast and crew to be baptized before work begins. They demand the film’s title be changed due to their religious sensitivities about grave robbing, and Plan 9 is born. The production is as disastrous as Ed’s previous films, and the constant meddling of his religious financiers leads him to storm off the set and to a local bar. In a moment repeated in every Hollywood success story, right when Wood is at his lowest and most discouraged, a mentor appears with transformational advice. In a dimly-lit corner of the bar he finds Orson Welles, his favorite director, who tells him never to listen to the suits, and to do it his way. The newly empowered Wood hurries back to the production and forces the producers to capitulate.
The film’s events conclude in 1959, following the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Ed and his girlfriend Kathy head to Las Vegas to get married, in an open-top convertible in the pouring rain. True to his big-hearted, devil-may-care attitude throughout the film, Ed says, “It’ll probably stop by the time we get to the desert. Heck, it’ll probably stop by the time we get around the corner.” The camera cranes up, and the music turns wistful. Through text, we learn about the true fates of all the characters we’ve come to love. As expected, they are mostly depressing, bizarre, or off-putting.
Much discussion has been had regarding the blurring of truth and fiction in the film. It’s obvious that the life of an incompetent, impoverished director would not be nearly as wacky and zany as portrayed in the film. Ed’s life was a psychological horror movie of its own.
In Burton’s dramatization, his optimism guides him through his work while, in reality, his life was on a downward spiral. Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the film is its portrayal of Bela Lugosi. Lugosi’s hatred for Boris Karloff was certainly exaggerated. They were friends for a time, and though Lugosi did envy Karloff for his name’s constant appearance at the top of the bill when they shared the screen, it never escalated to the outright animosity seen in Ed Wood. The nature of Wood and Lugosi’s relationship is also debated. Unfortunately, the principal players were both long dead before the film was made, so writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski had to resort to potentially unreliable secondary sources for research.
The movie makes a Hollywood success story out of a life that definitely wasn’t one. Burton acknowledges this, confessing that he attempted to tell the story as Wood himself would have seen it, or at least as he might have explained it to others. In that regard, it succeeds completely. It hits every beat a biopic should, and viewers have to remind themselves every so often that they’re celebrating some of the worst movies of all time, since the film makes each of them seem like Citizen Kane.
In the end, Ed Wood is a deeply affecting look at one of the world’s worst filmmakers. It’s for all those people out there who loved monster movies as a kid and who want to know more about a disturbed visionary and his cast of misfits who made Plan 9 from Outer Space. The broad strokes are accurate, but what’s in between is heavily romanticized. And sometimes that’s fine.