Movie Review: Ed Wood

Ed Wood

Many of today's movie buffs also appreciate some of yesterday's cinematic efforts. Still others harbor the guilty pleasure of the occasional B-movie. Lady Liberty is one of those who can be perfectly happy with either, but gets a particular kick out of the film that is both. Ed Wood is not that film. But in a moment, you'll see why the subject was broached...

Ed Wood was a real Hollywood director who made genre films in the 1950's. He idolized Orson Wells and his masterpiece, Citizen Kane, and had grandiose dreams of making his own commercial and critical success. Like Wells, Wood was not only a director but a script writer, actor, and movie producer. Unlike Wells, however, Wood had very little talent other than managing to fast talk a few dollars out of low-end investors so he could make yet another of his low-budget - and not coincidentally really bad - movies. Through a series of disappointing events, Wood did manage to meet a movie star who he believed would change the course of his career. Bela Lugosi, by then an elderly long time drug addict, became Wood's friend as well as a star in his hurried little films. Lugosi's last film turned out to be Wood's worst effort ever - and the movie that ended up making him famous: Plan 9 From Outer Space.

If you've never seen Plan 9, rent it some evening when you're having a few friends over. Pour yourself a drink or two, sit in front of the VCR, and prepare to laugh yourselves silly. Plan 9 is so bad that it's very, very entertaining. Policemen running through a graveyard trip on the cardboard tombstones and send them flying. Pieplates are set on fire and thrown in the air to represent flying saucers. Bela Lugosi, who died before the film was finished, never-the-less appears through much of the film courtesy of an LA chiropractor who carefully keeps most of his face covered with his cape so as to fool us into thinking it's Lugosi on screen. The acting is - in a word - awful. And the direction is so bad that the only thing worse is a truly terrible script. Plan 9 From Outer Space eventually won the dubious distinction of being voted the worst movie ever made. Ed Wood was simultaneously named worst director. To this day, both Plan 9 and its writer/director/producer have a cult following.

The movie Ed Wood tells Wood's story, from struggle to struggle, through the making of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Wood, a man with bad teeth, a twisted cinemetic vision, and a habit of wearing women's clothing, is played by Johnny Depp. Depp, usually a terrific actor, outdoes himself here by taking on Wood's frenetic persona. Martin Landau, in the role of Bela Lugosi, gives the performance of his life. Co-stars include Sarah Jessica Parker as a dim but sweet blonde starlet and Wood's girlfriend; Bill Murray as Bunny, a man who desperately wants to be a woman; and Patricia Arquette, as a sweet and naive girl who falls in love with Ed Wood.

Director Tim Burton avoids his usual dark set, but still produces a visually stark movie by making his own film appear as if it were one of those from the 1950's. Done entirely in black and white, the sound is more hollow than today's equipment usually gives, and the actors are very much in over-the-top mode. Depp especially gives a performance right out of the dramas of the time. Even the movie titles lend themselves the the periodicity of the piece. My only complaint is that the movie moves along too slowly in places, but even that goes right along with the 50's feel.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Ed Wood is rated R. I didn't see anything particularly objectionable (no overt sex, nudity, or bad language), but Lugosi's drug use is obvious and the entire plot is relatively mature. I'd say the 14 and over set will be able to follow and appreciate this biopic.