Ed Wood: The Worst Movie Director Ever

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Ed Wood: A Salute To Incompetence

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.

Ed Wood: His Story 

Ed Wood Biography

Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (October 10, 1924 - December 10, 1978), better known as Ed Wood, was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor, who often performed many of these functions simultaneously. In the 1950s, Wood made a run of cheap and poorly produced genre films, now humorously celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, large amounts of ill-fitting stock footage, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements, al...

The Top Five Reasons Ed Wood is the Worst Movie Director 

  1. Numerous technical errors.

  2. Unsophisticated special effects.

  3. Idiosyncratic dialogue.

  4. Eccentric casts.

  5. Outlandish plot elements.

Plan 9 From Outer Space 

Ed Wood's Masterpiece

Plan 9 From Outer Space is cult director Ed Wood's "cinematic masterpiece" - and also regarded as one of the worst movies ever made. Plan Nine is so bad it's good!

Alien invaders use their dreaded "Plan Nine" to re-animate dead earthlings. They wreak havoc and unleash a host of things bizarre, macabre, horrific, and just plain horrible. Using footage from a Bela Lugosi movie he was unable to finish (due to Lugosi's untimely death), Wood proved again he would and could make a film under any circumstances. Hubcaps on wires doubling for flying saucers, stumbling living dead, concrete visible beneath fake grass, and mattresses visible for actors to fall on are just a few of the unbelievable gaffes and goofs you'll see.

The result is a comical and campy spoof of science fiction movies themselves. The cast includes TV horror queen Vampira, a host of zombies, military buffoons, and Lugosi in his last performance. Plan Nine has taken on a legendary status of its own and is a MUST for any serious cult film fan.

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Ed Wood's "Masterpiece"

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Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. 


Nightmare of Ecstasy:
The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

This book is a labor of love, taking ten years and many interviews, as well as research, to give us the best hope we'll ever have of getting an understanding of maverick Ed Wood.

The structure is mostly clips from interviews, letters, and some of Wood's works, mostly interviewes. Thus one gets a sense of Ed Wood that in no way tries to be objective - instead it's about people who knew him, and their statements stand on their own (even when they conflict). There is actual research done as well - filmographies, book summaries, a small history - but most of the book is interviews.

The style however actually works - someone like Ed Wood may not always leave a very good trail. In addition, being very much a unique person in the unique culture of bargain-basement Hollywood, personal testimony is just about the only way to have a hope to comprehend his stories.

The result is a fascinating, personal, and respectful book on a surprisingly complex man. Don't expect any punches pulled either - Ed Wood for all his likeability and charm (which he had in spades), was an occasional conman, and as his life degenerated, he fell into alchoholism, poverty, and domestic violence. Do expect a very personal portrait.

This book is an absolute must for any fan of Wood, B-movies, and the underside of Hollywood.

The Best of Ed Wood on Twitter 

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Johnny Depp is Ed Wood 

Tim Burton's Ed Wood

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Ed Wood: The DVD 


Ed Wood
(Special Edition)

From Tim Burton, acclaimed director of BIG FISH, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and BATMAN, and the producer of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, comes the hilarious, true-life story of the wackiest filmmaker in Hollywood history, Ed Wood! Johnny Depp stars as the high-spirited movieman who refuses to let unfinished scenes, terrible reviews, and hostile studio executives derail his big-screen dreams. With an oddball collection of showbiz misfits, Ed takes the art of bad moviemaking to an all-time low!

The all-star cast features Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette and an Academy Award-winning performance by Martin Landau (Best Supporting Actor, 1994) as Bela Lugosi. Hailed by critics everywhere, this laugh-packed comedy hit is sure to entertain everyone!

Ed Wood Quotes 

Ed Wood Quote Unquote

» Are you people insane? I'm the director. I make the casting decisions around here.

» He's too short, he's too... tall, he's... just not going to work.

» It's not a monster movie. It's a supernatural thriller.

» Mr. Reynolds, this is the acorn that will grow a great oak! I'll just get a double to finish his scenes, and we'll release it as Bela Lugosi's Final Film!

» Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.

» Really? Worst film you ever saw. Well, my next one will be better. Hello. Hello.

» This story's gonna grab people. It's about this guy, he's crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses. Should he tell her? Should he not tell her? He's torn, Georgie. This is drama.

» We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

» We shot ten minutes of the movie, and now we're looking for completion funds.

» Well, I started thinking about what you were saying about how your movies need to make a profit. Now, what is the one thing, if you put it in a movie, it'll be successful?

» What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?

» Why if I had half a chance, I could make an entire movie using this stock footage. The story opens on these mysterious explosions. Nobody knows what's causing them, but it's upsetting all the buffalo. So, the military are called in to solve the mystery.

» Yes, but if you take that crap and put a star in it, then you've got something.


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Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster 

For years, conventional wisdom has had it that Ed Wood Jr.'s Plan 9 from Outer Space is the ultimate "bad movie," a sort of Holy Grail of cinematic ineptitude. Often lost in the shuffle, though, is Bride of the Monster.

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Vornoff, a mad scientist working on a race of superbeings in his lab. His process of clamping a metal lampshade onto the heads of his subjects and zapping them with radiation usually kills them, but the monstrous Lobo (Tor Johnson) survives and becomes Vornoff's assistant. Vornoff's plans go awry, though, when he tries to get a nosy reporter to mate with Lobo and winds up being given the atom treatment himself. Suffice it to say that there's a grappling match between Vornoff and Lobo until the evil doctor falls into a pit and wrestles a rubber octopus. Stock footage of lightning and an atomic explosion round things out for a great non sequitur of an ending.

Knowing Bela Lugosi's sad state by the time that he and Ed Wood had teamed up makes it hard to watch this movie without feeling a pang of pathos for the 73-year-old actor; indeed, Bride was his last speaking role. Still, any movie with as many obvious gaffes in direction, editing, set design, narrative (heck, take your pick) as Bride is a must for any connoisseur of bad movies. And of course, the gargantuan Tor Johnson gets to utter the deathless line: "Time for... go to bed." --Jerry Renshaw

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Ed Wood: Night of the Ghouls 

Another Ed Wood "Classic"

For many years I have told the almost unbelievable, related the unreal, and showed it to be more than fact," drones Ed Wood's favorite host, platinum-coifed "psychic" Criswell, from his coffin. More than fact, possibly, but less than credible and rather far from competent--but then that's why we watch Wood's movies.

This pseudosequel to Bride of the Monster refers back to the story of a mad scientist and his monster often enough, but this time the old house is home to a phony spiritualist named Dr. Acula (former B-movie heavy Kenne Duncan) bilking thousands from rich, gullible clients. Opera-loving Lieutenant Bradford (Duke Moore) is sent out in his tuxedo to investigate and tangles with the scarred, angora-loving brute Lobo (Tor Johnson, the only survivor from Bride of the Monster), while the real dead rise to take their revenge on the charlatan Acula.

It's a true Wood production, shot on cramped sets the size of a closet and filled with unrelated stock footage (the prologue is dedicated to the dangers of juvenile delinquency because Wood had leftover scenes from an unfinished film). The part of Acula was originally written for Bela Lugosi, whose hamminess would have brought a touch of theatrical camp to the part, but Criswell's inflated narration adds just the right touch of histrionics.

It's not as much absurd fun as Bride of the Monster or Wood's masterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it has its moments. -- Sean Axmaker.

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