Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 260: The lingering mysteries of 'The Sun Was Setting' (1951)

Angela Stevens swoons in the arms of Tom Keene aka Richard Powers.

History can play some funny tricks on us. Circa 1947, for example, a twentysomething ex-Marine named Ed Wood migrated from Poughkeepsie to Hollywood with dreams of becoming part of the motion picture industry. But that was just when an upstart called television was becoming a serious threat to the movies. 

The earliest scheduled TV shows, including such mainstays as The Texaco Star Theatre (1948-1956), The Lone Ranger (1949-1957) and The Ed Sullivan Show (aka Toast of the Town) (1948-1971), all came into existence during this time. I Love Lucy, another game changer, debuted in 1951. Clearly, it was a time of upheaval in the entertainment industry.

An unsold pilot.

And so, Ed Wood's early resume is littered with attempts to break into television, almost entirely without success. Many of his hopes were pinned on his friendship with Tom Keene (real name: George Duryea) (1896-1963), a handsome if somewhat bland New York actor who had been a prolific B-Western star in the 1930s and '40s. In the 1950s, television was overrun with cowboy shows, and Keene guested on several of them, including Judge Roy Bean, Hopalong Cassidy, and Corky and White Shadow. 

Given Tom Keene's name recognition and past success, Eddie thought a weekly Keene series was a slam dunk, so he kept making pilots starring the actor such as Crossroad Avenger (1953) and The Showdown (1952), all of which went unsold. Some of these did see the light of day, though, on anthology shows like Cowboy Theater that served as dumping grounds for orphaned pilots. In those days, there wasn't a lot of content to go around, and TV stations had to fill the hours with something.

Around this same time, Keene and Wood were involved a very different sort of TV production, one that had nothing to do with cowboys, Indians, or the range. The Sun Was Setting (1951) must be considered one of the true oddities in the Ed Wood filmography: a soapy 15-minute melodrama about a terminally-ill woman named June (Angela Stevens) who cannot risk leaving her New York apartment, though she desperately wants to. Keene, billed as "Richard Powers," costars as Paul, June's loving but understandably nervous boyfriend. And Phyllis Coates, just a year away from playing Lois Lane on the first season of The Adventures of Superman, rounds out the cast as June's supportive friend, Rene.

What makes The Sun Was Setting so unusual is that it is a straight drama, something Eddie rarely if ever attempted in his career. He made horror films, sci-fi films, Westerns, crime thrillers, and countless adult movies over the course of 30 years in show business, but The Sun stands apart from everything else on his resume. One wonders, then, why Eddie made this little movie. What were his hopes for it? Where did he think it would lead?

The mysteries of The Sun Was Setting begin with the production company logo at the very beginning: "W.D.B.C. Films Present." What in the holy hell was W.D.B.C Films? This company has no other credits other than this one, not even in other Ed Wood TV pilots. I searched and searched for any reference to this company in print, and all I could find was one fleeting reference in the July 14, 1952 issue of Sponsor, a trade magazine for radio and TV advertisers. The magazine includes a lengthy index of production companies. One of these companies is W.D.B.C., which is said to be located at KTTV Studios in Hollywood. The company is described as making "15-minute dramas," and the contact person is listed as Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Need a 15-minute drama? Call Ed Wood.

It's very possible that The Sun Was Setting was the only project that WDBC ever managed to finish, sort of like how Night of the Ghouls (1959) was the only completed film ever to emerge from Atomic Productions, another doomed Wood business venture from the 1950s. It's also interesting to note that the listing for WDBC happened to be directly above that of Adrian Weiss Productions, since Weiss (1918-2001) produced and directed the Wood-scripted The Bride and the Beast (1958). As for the company's name, consider that The Sun Was Setting has four credited producers: Ed Wood, Don Davis, Milton Bowron, and Joe Carter.

A 1954 article about Ben Brody.

But why was Eddie trying to make 15-minute dramas? Don't TV shows usually last a half-hour or a full hour? Well, there are a few factors to consider here. First, it was semi-common during this era of television for shows to run only a quarter of an hour. The comedy team of Bob and Ray, for instance, had a 15-minute series on NBC that ran from 1951-1953. This broadcasting format was revived many decades later by the Adult Swim cable network. (As of 2026, Adult Swim still has some 15-minute shows on its schedule.) It's also important to note that dramatic anthologies were common on TV in the 1950s, and The Sun Was Setting is clearly a self-contained story and not the pilot for a continuing series. Remember that Eddie's Final Curtain (1957) was also intended as the start of an anthology series.

It is possible that Ed Wood made The Sun Was Setting "on spec." That is, without guarantee of sale. This would not be unheard of, especially during this phase of his career. In the late 1940s and early '50s, Eddie made numerous commercials without ever having been hired to do so. He simply filmed them and hoped to sell them to companies when they were done. One such commercial, "Boiled in Oil," even featured Phyllis Coates!

For me, the greatest mystery of The Sun Was Setting is revealed during the show's final credits. Eddie is proudly credited as the writer, producer, and director of the film, but someone named Ben Brody is credited with "additional dialogue and co-direction." This elusive Brody fellow has no other films or TV shows on his resume, and he does not merit even a single mention in Nightmare of Ecstasy (1952). I can find virtually nothing about this man. Was he the same Ben Brody who designed women's handbags in the late 1940s? Or was he the same Ben Brody who staged an annual talent competition called "Grease Paint Derby" in conjunction with the Los Angeles Daily News in the early-to-mid-1950s? Both are possible. Of the two, I think it's the "Grease Paint" guy and not the handbag guy.

The second-most mysterious person in the credits is one Hayes Stewart, supposedly Eddie's assistant director. Another one-and-doner with no previous or subsequent credits, Mr. Stewart has left even less of a paper trail than Ben Brody. If you find even a single mention of him in a magazine, book, or newspaper, let me know.

Very recently, in an Ed Wood forum on Facebook, the estimable Doug Gibson of the Plan 9 Crunch blog raised a key question about The Sun Was Setting: did this thing ever actually air on television? By sheer coincidence, I had been researching that very same topic and found not one confirmed airing of this program, either in Los Angeles or anywhere else in the country. And I tried numerous variations on the title, including The Sun Also Sets. But this doesn't necessarily mean that The Sun never aired. If I had to guess, I would say that it probably did air somewhere, perhaps in some less-desirable time slot. Why? For the same reason Eddie's unsold Western pilots eventually aired: they helped fill in gaps in the schedule when TV stations had nothing else to show. I'm sure they were available cheap.

According to Nightmare of Ecstasy, The Sun Was Setting was filmed "at KTTV studios, Sunset and Van Ness, during the week of December 17, 1951." Though not technically dazzling in any way—the action is confined to one apartment set, rather like a stage play—it is more or less competently shot and features three accomplished actors in its cast. In terms of production value, it is about on par with the average soap opera. (The soaps had been around on radio since 1930 and came to TV in 1949.) So this would have blended in with the other programming options of the day. 

Many of the crew members on The Sun Was Setting were longtime Hollywood professionals with impressive resumes: set designer Frank Paul Sylos, editor Dan Nathan, cameraman Ray Flin, script supervisor Bobby Sierks, hair stylist Josephine Sweeney, and makeup artist Curly Batson. They help The Sun look more like a "real" TV show. On a technical level, the only real oddities in this production are a couple of jarring, unmotivated closeups of actress Angela Stevens. My guess is that Dan Nathan used these inserts to bridge two different takes of the same scene.

Ironically, the normalcy of The Sun Was Setting may have worked against it in the long run. Besides the involvement of Tom Keene, who plays a prominent role in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), this straightlaced TV drama has very little of what Ed Wood fans are generally seeking. You certainly won't find any mad scientists, zombies, flying saucers, or even angora sweaters here. Well, star Angela Stevens does briefly don a fur coat near the end of the film. Does that count?

On the Big Box of Wood (2011) DVD boxed set, host Ted Newsom declares that The Sun was considered for inclusion but ultimately deemed too dull to bother with. Rob Craig's otherwise-exhaustive Ed Wood, Mad Genius (2009) skips it entirely, as does David C. Hayes' Muddled Mind (2001). In The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood (2015), co-authors Andrew Rausch and Charles Pratt begrudgingly mention the film but say virtually nothing about it beyond the fact that it exists.

Are they all undervaluing this neglected little film? Maybe a little. In revisiting The Sun Was Setting, I found some traces of the classic Woodian eccentricity his fans have come to expect. While this made-for-TV drama is not much like Eddie's feature films, it is somewhat similar in both structure and tone to his numerous short stories. In fact, I can easily imagine Eddie turning this script into a short story, perhaps adding a bit more sex appeal to it. June, for instance, might be wearing a flimsy, see-through negligee as she paces around her apartment. Perhaps she'd try to seduce Paul... or even Rene.

Is this the face of terminal illness?

What struck me this time around was the absurdity and artificiality of this ostensibly serious story. We are told that June is deathly ill from an "infection," but she neither looks nor acts like a sick woman. In fact, she's quite vigorous as she argues with Paul and Rene. And her illness is such that she could safely see a movie or go to dinner, but a visit to Chinatown or "the village" (presumably, Greenwich) would kill her? What exactly does June have? The story has set up a highly artificial situation in which June simply cannot leave this room. As long as she stays in there, she's perfectly fine. The second she tries to leave, she dies.

You'd think that, if June really were ill and confined to her apartment, she'd be in her pajamas and she'd look a little unkempt. Instead, she's made up, perfectly coiffed, and neatly dressed. She's even wearing earrings! At first, I thought it was because she was expecting someone to show up. But when Paul strides into her apartment, it's a total surprise to her. Paul wants to marry her, but June declines. When he presses her for a reason, she makes the following speech:

Four months ago, I was given six months to live. Four months of that six are gone. Two months. There's not much time left, is there? I don't really mind. I've lived a rather full life. I've done most of the things I really wanted to do. I couldn't take it if you were any more to me than you are now. Don't you realize in two months June Drake will be dead?

Paul apologizes, but June reassures him that she is happy. She explains:

You know, some people seek all their lives for happiness. I found it by just sitting in this room waiting for death to take me on. At first, I couldn't believe it. I could see death's dark figure lurking in every corner, feel its fingers digging into my shoulders. I hated life then. One day, as I was looking out of the window, I realized the sun was setting. The radiance of it suddenly thrilled me. The life of that day was passing. But it wasn't really gone, just passing along to return again another day. When I leave this world, I, too, will go on to another, one more beautiful and more forgiving than this. It will be beautiful there. I must leave you behind for a while, darling, but one day we'll meet again. I know we will. And I am happy, real happy.

These lines (and others in the film) are positively rife with Woodian themes and motifs, beyond just the use of words like "radiance" and "thrilled." Where to begin? Well, how about death? I've long identified death as one of Ed's three muses, the others being alcohol and women's clothing. For obvious reasons, June obsesses about death and the afterlife throughout this story. She imagines death (or Death) as a lurking figure with intrusive fingers. Eddie loved to have his characters extend their fingers menacingly at each other. Consider Vampira in Plan 9, Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) in Bride of the Monster (1955), or the strange people in the nightmare sequence from Glen or Glenda (1953). And this finger-wagging stuff occasionally turns up in Eddie's novels and short stories, too. Here are some representative quotes:

• And the hour of midnight silently overcame me. The coffin lid had a strange sound as it opened ... a sound like the beating of my own heart back in the black carriage. It was all together yet separated ... both were there ... and the fingers came out of the slight opening. ("Dracula Revisited," 1971)

• His taloned fingers would find the buttons on the front of her angora sweater, and they would melt back to the material from which they were constructed ... and she would feel that same searing cold as it flashed through her breasts. ("Hellfire," 1972)

• My fingers are extremely long and slender; the nails long-pointed! Looking down at them as I wiggle each finger, then all of them together with the swirling ground fog as a backdrop my mind seems to realize snakes skirting off into some darkness. ("The Night the Banshee Cried," 1971)

We must also consider the very title of this short film: The Sun Was Setting. Eddie was positively fixated on twilight or dusk, that ambiguous transitional time between day and night. His characters mention it again and again in his movies, stories, and novels. Other than perhaps a noisy thunderstorm, there was nothing that grabbed Eddie's attention quite like a sunset. It must have fascinated him all his life. In Orgy of the Dead (1965), Criswell describes the movie as "a story of those in the twilight time." Eddie's first novel, Killer in Drag (1963), was even republished in 1967 as The Twilight Land. And when does the trouble start in Plan 9, another death-fixated movie? At the "sundown of the day yet also the sundown of the old man's heart."

Eddie was still a young man when he made The Sun Was Shining, only 27 years old. And yet he had already faced some professional setbacks by this point in his career and was on his way to becoming a chronic alcoholic. It's possible he had come to realize that his journey through Hollywood would be more difficult than he had originally thought. Could he have already been looking forward to the afterlife at 27? Is that what he meant by a world "more beautiful and more forgiving than this"? These are questions to ponder as we watch this movie.

I've compared The Sun Was Setting to a soap opera, and that brings up something else that is extraordinary about this film. As with the soaps, The Sun seems mainly aimed at an adult female audience, the wives and mothers of the world. They're the ones most likely to sympathize with June Drake, a woman who feels boxed in by life. All she wants is a little fun, even if for just a few seconds, but all she gets is condescending, well-meaning advice from people who feel they know better. While Eddie was far from an ideal husband in his own marriage(s), he seems to have had some understanding of the plight of women in our society. You can also see that in his later film scripts, such as Drop Out Wife (1972), even though that film completely cops out in the last few minutes. And The Sun ultimately punishes June for her willfulness and defiance.

All things considered, The Sun Was Shining holds a key place in Ed Wood's history and filmography. I'd even be comfortable naming it Eddie's first film. Any of the home movies Ed made as a lad in Poughkeepsie have long since gone missing. Ed's crude, very early Westerns, Crossroads of Laredo and Range Revenge (both shot in 1948), were never completed during Eddie's lifetime; both were released posthumously (1995 and 1993 respectively). That leaves The Sun Was Shining, a fully-completed production with known Hollywood professionals in front of and behind the camera. For such an obscure bit of movie history, it's even fairly well documented. We not only have a behind-the-scenes photo, we even have outtakes. How did this stuff survive?

Angela Stevens and Tom Keene smile for Ed Wood.