Ed Wood, Jr.

:For the biopic film, see Ed Wood (film)

Movies

"If you want to know me, see 'Glen or Glenda', that's me, that's my story. No question. But 'Plan 9' is my pride and joy. We used Cadillac hubcaps for flying saucers in that." - Ed Wood.

Related Topics:
Cadillac - Hubcap - Flying saucers

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Wood's movies were notoriously low budget, and car hubcaps were famously used as flying saucers in Plan 9 from Outer Space (actually, the first time one sees the saucers, they are model kit UFOs but the store from which they had been purchased had run out of kits by the time more had to be constructed so Wood improvised with the hubcaps only in the later shots). The octopus at the end of Bride of the Monster was supposed to have a motor to create the effect of a violent flailing beast but the motor could not be located at the time, so it looks as though the actor in the scene is wrestling with pure rubber.

Related Topics:
Plan 9 from Outer Space - UFO - Octopus - Bride of the Monster

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One of Wood's heroes was Orson Welles, whom Wood admired because of his ambition and passion for making films. Wood also prided himself on the fact that he was the only film-maker other than Welles to be writer, director and usually an actor in most of his films, although it is likely that Wood took on all of these positions mostly to save time and money. Unlike his counterpart in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, though, Wood never actually met his hero.

Related Topics:
Orson Welles - Writer - Director - Actor - Tim Burton - Ed Wood

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His movies have a rushed quality to them, usually because Wood and his crew were working on a tight schedule due to funding constraints. While most directors film only one scene per day (or just a fraction of one in more modern pictures), Wood would complete up to thirty. He seldom ordered a single re-take, even if the original was obviously flawed.

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A number of has-been celebrities were involved in the most iconic films of Wood's career. Bela Lugosi had earned lasting fame for his performances in White Zombie and Dracula, but became an alcoholic and morphine-addict when Hollywood decided they'd had enough of his genre movies. Lugosi was given a second chance by Wood and starred in Wood's best and most famous pictures. Some suggest that Wood exploited Lugosi's fame, which he probably did to an extent, but most documents and interviews with other Wood alumni suggest that the two of them were good friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his depression and addiction. Other Wood alumni include the Swedish wrestler, Tor Johnson; the TV presenter, Vampira; the camp John 'Bunny' Breckinridge and the TV mystic, Criswell who would often open Wood's films with a spooky (and awkwardly written) prologue. This cast (sometimes referred to by modern fans as 'The Wood Spooks') would appear time and time again in Wood's bigger movies so that he would be guaranteed stars to put on the billing and be more likely to attract funding. The Wood Spooks would sometimes feature in his pictures completely illogically. For instance, Vampira's character in Plan 9 served little or no purpose to the plot and the horror presence of Lugosi in Glen or Glenda is completely out of place.

Related Topics:
Bela Lugosi - White Zombie - Dracula - Alcoholic - Morphine - Hollywood - Genre - Depression - Wrestler - Tor Johnson - Vampira - John 'Bunny' Breckinridge - Mystic - Criswell - Prologue

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Wood would go to radical extremes to drum up funding for his movies. Most notably, on Plan 9 from Outer Space he convinced members of the Southern Baptist church to invest the initial capital. There were always bilateral catches to these unorthodox funding methods though, and in this case the Baptists wanted a member of their own church to take a lead role in the film and demanded that every member of the cast (including Vampira, Tor, 'Bunny' and Criswell) be baptised prior to filming. They also changed the name of the movie from Grave Robbers from Outer Space and removed much of what they considered profanity from the script. Such editing from producers and financiers was one factor contributing to Wood's depression and was something he personally attributed to his lack of commercial success.

Related Topics:
Southern Baptist church - Bilateral - Baptised - Profanity

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Angora, Wood's most fond fetish, was regularly featured in his films (most notably in Glen or Glenda). Kathy O'Hara and others recall that Ed's transvestitism was not a sexual inclination but rather that angora appealed to him because of the neo-maternal comfort of it.

Related Topics:
Angora - Fetish - Glen or Glenda - Maternal

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