The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr.
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bela Lugosi Jr., Conrad Brooks, Dolores Fuller, Loretta King, Reverend Lynn LemonBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Unknown; English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr.
Movie Review: Amusing, Unexpectedly Poignant Portrait Of The Infamous Director
Summary: 5 Stars
Ed Wood is generally regarded as a person it is acceptable to ridicule. Born in 1924 in Poughkeepsie, New York, he spent his childhood and youth in thrall to pulp fiction, comic books, and movie matinees. After distinguishing himself in combat during World War II, he drifted to Hollywood with an itch to drink, wear women's clothes, and make movies. He did all three--and in the case of the latter Wood, although he would act, write, direct, and otherwise participate in at least thirty-eight films, is generally considered one of the most profoundly inept artists in the history of cinema.
Wood is best known for a series of ultra-low budget films he wrote and directed in the 1950s: GLEN OR GLENDA, JAIL BAIT, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS, and most infamously PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. By the mid-1960s Wood's drinking problem, always significant, began to overcome him, and he eeked out a living by writing and occasionally directing pornography. He died of heart failure, most like brought on by his many years of alcoholism, in 1978.
At the time of his death none of the trade papers even bothered to print an obituary. Two years later he was made famous by the book THE GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS--but it was fame of a dubious sort inasmuch as the book described Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE as the worst film ever made. Largely due to this description, Wood's films began to surface again and became popular due to their very ineptness. By 1996 interest was such that producers Crawford John Thomas and Brett Thompson were able to swing a documentary.
Directed by Brett Thompson, THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EDWARD D. WOOD JR. is essentially a series of interviews intercut with each other and footage drawn largely from Wood's various films. As a premise, it is hardly original--but it works extremely well, and Thompson astutely introduces as many of his interview subjects as possible in a highly theatrical and very retro manner that plays remarkably well into the story of both Wood's folly and ultimate self-destruction. The subjects are often quite remarkable as individuals: the articulate, self-mocking Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi), who appeared in PLAN 9; the fluttery and intensely sincere Delores Fuller, Wood's former lover and sometimes film star; the very handsome and flatly forthright Bela Lugosi, Jr.; and many, many others.
Slowly but surely, the subjects unravel Ed Wood to the viewer, some of them taking him very seriously (more than one considered him a very talented man who simply never got the breaks), some ripping into him as incompetent both as a filmmaker and a person (Vampire describes him as a buffon and Lugosi Jr. as "a user and a looser.") And more than once they contradict each other in their accounts--most particularly Delores Fuller and Loretta King, who flatly dispute each other's statements and who give rise to the thought that Wood himself may well have told very different stories to each.
As the documentary progresses it acquires a certain sense of nostalgia for the days of B movies, when almost any one--including Ed Wood--could manage to line up backers for an inexpensive horror flick, no matter how bad it might be. When it at last concludes, it delivers a surprising sense of sadness, loss, poignancy for the man who dreamed far, far beyond the scope of his talents. While it may not be on a "serious" subject, the documentary delivers what it set out to: a portrait of Wood as a human being. As such, it becomes a bit difficult to laugh at him at all, no matter how much we may laugh at the various films he created.
When released theatrically, the documentary ran at ninety minutes; with previously cut material restored the DVD runs at one hundred twelve. It also comes loaded with extras, including Wood's first known film, an unfinished western titled STREETS OF LAREDO; footage of the documentary's Hollywood premiere; a reunion of Wood's cast members at a Palm Springs film festival; a much more. Although you might think THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EDWARD D. WOOD, JR. would appeal most to Wood fans, I suspect it will also appeal to any one interested in the film industry of the 1950s--and it will prove much more touching than they expect. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Summary of The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr.
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