Ed Wood

[Terry]

I dug out my Ed Wood box a couple nights ago. What wonderfully bad and unintentionally funny films. Last night I also watched Tim Burton's masterpiece Ed Wood, featuring Johnny Depp as Ed and Vincent D'Onofrio as Welles (whose voice was dubbed by the fellow who did The Brain from Warner Brother's Pinky and The Brain series [which featured three shorts based on Welles - including a hilarious depiction of that "In July" peas commercial blooper.]) I only wish I found any other of Burton's films to be so good.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that as I started watching Bride of the Monster, I noticed in the credits that one of the make-up artists was Maurice Seiderman, who of course worked his magical wonders on Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil. That Seiderman would have worked on a three-day Wood film itself is bizarre - how did Wood enlist him? Does that mean Seiderman's career wasn't what it might have been at that point? And since Wood was, by all accounts, a tremendous Welles fan, how must Ed have felt working with Seiderman? I can only imagine Ed praising Maurice to the sky and then pumping him for information on Orson.

Anyway, it's an odd link between the so-called greatest and worst film directors of all time. I can't think of anyone better than Welles at the moment, but I've certainly seen worse films than anything in Ed's ouvre.

[catbuglah]

I thought that Johnny Depp movie was pretty good - the director I think managed to creatively solve the inherent problems of doing a movie about movies - :O The treatment was pretty light and superficial :laugh: but it makes me think a bio film on Welles could work - Robert Downey don't look nothing like Orson, but acting-wise, it'd be pretty interesting.

[Clive Dale]

Is it true that the meeting between the only two working actor writer producer directors (the best and worst of all time) at Musso and Frank's is fiction?

I enjoy stories that have incidents such as that or the play "Orson's Shadow" in which the real Orson is set somewhere where he actually was at the time events take place, but the inidents are fiction. Like fade to black.

[Terry]

According to screen writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski the meeting of Ed and Orson was pure contrivance. They took advantage of the fact that Welles was in Hollywood at the time and was experiencing his own career slump.

I checked the IMDb concerning Seiderman. He had no screen credits for ten years up to the point where he worked on Bride of the Monster, and his next credit after that was Touch of Evil. I doubt Welles pumped him for information about Ed Wood.

There's also that strange story which Maila "Vampira" Nurmi tells regarding Orson giving her the clap...

[jaime marzol]

yeap, i heard that story about orson giving vampira the clap. i heard it on THE HAUNTED WORLD OF ED WOOD dvd. not

not long ago i was reading a book by nicholas ray, I WAS INTERRUPTED, and ray mentions how vampira and james dean visited him one night. vampira got around. she was a knock out in those days, and orson was goofy about dark haired women.

i also like ed wood films

[Michael]

Interesting discussion. My, my it's been a long time since I've posted! And here I am posting about Ed Wood... But I just had to give my two cents worth that I too enjoy most of his films. He certainly is not the worst director ever as some of his "classics" are so entertaining - though, of course, not for the reasons he wanted I'm sure! But goodness, his dialogue is so... well what can what say? It was so... um... Woodsian.

Interesting too about the make up artist connection between Welles & Wood. Small world.

[jaime marzol]

just recently i got ADVENTURES OF A SWASHBUCKLER: ERROL FLYNN. it has about 2 hrs of interview footage supplement that was not used in documentary.

the woman flynn was married to was on the zacca when they filmed LADY FROM SHANGHAI. no bombshells. welles was very polite, he was charming, a genius, rita was charming. when errol had too much to drink he would try to direct the picture but welles always handled him very nice.

when i heard this i remembered all that bunk higham wrote about the filming of LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

[Terry]

Interesting post, Jaime.

Especially when this thread has so far been about Ed Wood, not about Errol Flynn.

Since you bring him up, however, Ed did used to wear a thin little Errol Flynn mustache, and Ed's friends thought he looked like Flynn.

Give me more non-sequitors and I'll happily try to tie them in.

[Terry]

Catbuglah - I agree that the screenplay for Tim Burton's Ed Wood was pretty light and superficial. The only depth that film offers - and it is considerable - comes from Martin Landau's uncanny and affecting performance as Bela Lugosi.

One of the things I love most about the film is the cinematography - the frame compositions, the blocking, the crane shots, the use of black and white - it's all done very classically (I'm not sure if it's film noir) and very outside the vogue for other films from the 90s.

Regarding the current vogue for camerawork, on TV and on the big screens, I can't even stand to watch all the wobbling and jerking steadycams, the jarring quick zooms, the frenetic editing when a sustained medium shot would have been better, the lack of any sense of blocking (a quick zoom to that actor's nostril is about what they use.) I just wish films looked as they used to. Or that Kane were to become more influential again.

[catbuglah]

Right Landau :angry: that's true - Oscar winner - I liked the message - follow your dreams - pursue your passions, even if you don't necessarily have the tools and your vision is quirky - the enthusiasm will carry you - :p - It's just when I afterwards went to read up on Ed Wood on the net - I got the impression that the movie was a wacky, feel-good, 50's parody interpretation of the man - Well done, but... - to actually recreate the original films was quite remarkable - I'd be cool if they'd do that with a film on Welles, but the difficulties would be formidable... (Maybe D'Onofrio as Welles, he looks like him and he's a good actor)

I actually, don't mind mind today's cinematography - Attention Deficit Disorder cinema - :O I don't watch much but I saw this Ludlum thing with Matt Damon I don't know when - totally disconjuncted, confragulated, disassembled - you blink and lose track of the story - bring on the nostril zooms :;): - I can deal with it. But on the other hand, I like David Mamet...

[Terry]

Here's Ed's filmography. He also directed a number of TV commercials in the 40s.

Crossroads of Laredo (short - writer/director)
1951 The Sun Was Setting (TV short - writer/director)
1953 Glen or Glenda (actor, writer/director)
1953 Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid (TV short - writer/director)
1953 Trick Shooting with Kenne Duncan (short - writer/director)
1953 Boots (writer)
1954 The Lawless Rider (writer)
1954 Jailbait (writer/director)
1955 Bride of the Monster (writer/director)
1956 Plan 9 from Outer Space (writer/director)
1956 The Violent Years (writer)
1957 The Night the Banshee Cried (writer)
1957 Final Curtain (short - writer/director)
1957 The Unearthly (writer)
1958 The Bride and the Beast (writer)
1959 Revenge of the Virgins (writer)
1959 Night of the Ghouls (writer/director)
1961 Anatomy of a Psycho (writer)
1961 The Sinister Urge (writer/director)
1962 Married Too Young (writer)
1963 Shotgun Wedding (writer)
1965 Orgy of the Dead (writer)
1967 For Love and Money (writer)
1969 Operation Redlight (writer)
1969 One Million AC/DC (writer)
1969 Pretty Models All in a Row (actor)
1970 Take It Out in Trade (writer/director)
1970 The Double Garden (writer)
1970 Excited (writer/director)
1970 Mrs Stone's Thing (actor)
1971 The Only House (writer)
1971 Necromania (writer/director)
1972 The Undergraduate (writer)
1972 Drop-Out Wife (writer)
1972 Class Reunion (writer)
1972 The Snow Bunnies (writer)
1974 Five Loose Women (actor, writer)
1976 The Beach Bunnies (writer)
1976 The Cocktail Hostesses (writer)
1978 Hot Ice (writer)

Ed died jobless, penniless and homeless.

[Clive Dale]

Here's What imdb said about Ed

Born October 10th, the same day that his idol Orson Welles died many years later.

[Terry]

Oh, that's too great! Thanks, Clive.

Here are some other odd connections:

I've located a couple sources online stating that Gary Graver did some of the camerawork on One Million AC/DC, for which Wood provided what little there was in the way of a screenplay (it was a soft-core nudie sort of thing.) Ed wrote that under the psuedonym Akdov (also cited as Akdon) Telmig.

Gary Graver was billed as Akdov Telmig for a number of films he shot in the 90s.

[Clive Dale]

Spell Akdov backwards and then spell Telmig backwards and you'll see where they got the name.

Maybe Orson would have been amused by Ed Woods films.
I mean the flying saucer footage he included in F for Fake could have been from Plan 9 From Outer Space.

[jaime marzol]

the ed wood screenplay doesn't deserve any slag. it's a marvel of good writing and structure, and burton edited the film the same way. you can watch the film with a clock, and the structure sings. it's a great arrangement of of plot points and sub plots. it's right in the pocket time wise. if it had been written for a film school project, it would get an 'A.'

what a lot of people complain about is that in the film ed has the complexity of a big, happy M&M. but if you watch the documentaries, ed was a happy go lucky guy till the later part of his life. the film only covers till PLAN 9 in 1956, ed hit the skids in the 60s, so some of that crit is not deserved.

if anyone wants a good read on ed, THE NIGHTMARE OF ECSTASY, is a worthy offering. and especially his later years. the last chapter of this book, ed's downfall, dropped my jaw.

also, any one notice burton's film of ed wood has touch of evil lighting? didn't surprise me one bit. lots of welles in his work. has any one compared the ending of the stranger, and the ending of batman 1? has any one noticed in batman 2 the sleigh? the kane like estate? something or other zooming through the sign atop a gate to the kane like estate much the same as el rancho sign in kane?

and hadji, of course i knew ed's friends thought he resembled errol flynn, and since we are on a welles site talking about ed, ed resembled flynn, and flynn was friends with welles, i felt the flynn post was right in with the spirit of things. though i never thought ed looked like flynn. he looks more like wilbur from MR. ED.