Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 262: B-Movie Maniacs (2014- )

Some of the Ed Wood movies featured on B-Movie Maniacs.

It's tempting to say that social media has been nothing but a blight upon the human race. And it's not difficult to find evidence to support that argument. People tend to revert to their worst selves online, and social media platforms allow us to spread gossip, hatred, and misinformation at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, thanks to Instagram and TikTok, we're chasing after material possessions we don't need and body types we can't attain. Even when we're not attacking our neighbors or draining our bank accounts, we're rotting our brains by doomscrolling through photos and videos for hours on end.

No doubt about it, social media has done some terrible things to us as a species. It may even be the invention that ultimately dooms the human race, accomplishing what nuclear bombs, automobiles, and cigarettes couldn't do. It could be deadlier even than Solaronite. I'm definitely part of the problem. I mean, just look at the sidebar on this blog (it's that column of text on the right side of the screen). You'll see that I have accounts on over a dozen different platforms. I'm as addicted to this junk as you are. Maybe more.

To be clear, I'm no fan of Mark Zuckerberg or what he has created. For me, Faceboook is mostly a nuisance, a place where my old high school classmates post their alarming political views and brag about how well their lives are going. Yuck. But Facebook also has an active Ed Wood fan community, and that has played a major role in the history of this series. Social media has allowed Woodologists to get in touch with me and share information, photos, articles, and more. Without those fans, I might have been tempted to ditch FB and many other platforms years ago. (So, yes, you guys are enabling my addiction.)

A typical Jerry Warren film.

Then there is B-Movie Maniacs, which has become an odd but steady presence in my life in recent years. What exactly is it? In essence, it's a weekly online watch party whose participants all screen a particular movie chosen by the moderator and then comment on the plot and characters through social media, mainly Twitter/X and Bluesky. The way it works is, the moderator announces the movie a couple of hours in advance and provides a link to it on YouTube or some other video streaming service. At precisely 11:00pm EST (that's 10:00 CST and 8:00 PST), you press play and start the movie. That way, everyone is watching the same film at the same time. I've been participating in B-Movie Maniacs for longer than I can remember, but I've only recently switched from my Twitter account to my Bluesky account, simply because I get more engagement there.

As its name suggests, B-Movie Maniacs (BMM) showcases low-budget exploitation films of the past, mainly sci-fi and horror flicks from the 1950s and '60s, though it has been known to dip into made-for-TV movies from the 1970s as well. I don't know how long this has been going on, but both the official Twitter account and website date back to 2014. Naturally, the films of Edward D. Wood, Jr. come up in the rotation now and again. In recent weeks, B-Movie Maniacs has been highlighting Wood's films and those of one of Wood's contemporaries, director Jerry Warren (1925-1988). 

Both Wood and Warren have been called the "worst director of all time," but Warren has no significant cult following that I'm aware of. Warren's indifferently-made films, including Teenage Zombies (1959), Man Beast (1956), and The Wild World of Batwoman (1966), have a curiously stultifying quality to them that's difficult to define. It's as if the director deliberately wanted to punish his viewers by denying them even one iota of fun or intrigue. Warren himself does not seem to have been as dynamic or eccentric a figure as Wood. He was simply a man trying to make a profit in the film industry by catering to commercial trends and keeping his budgets (and effort) as low as possible.

Just about every Friday night, you'll find me on Bluesky, offering live commentaries on these movies with the hashtag #bmoviemaniacs. Some of the films are new to me; others are ones I've seen many dozens of times before. Certain BMM selections, including House on Haunted Hill (1959) and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), are scheduled once per year without fail, and there are annual events like "Septagar" in which we watch the films of actor John Agar (1921-2002). Recently, rugged, lantern-jawed actor Clint Walker (1927-2018) received his own monthlong tribute.

Whenever one of Ed Wood's movies is chosen for BMM, such as Bride of the Monster (1955), Night of the Ghouls (1959), or Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), I do my best to see it with fresh eyes, as if I'm screening it for the first time ever. Sometimes, this gives me an idea for an article for this series. Maybe I'll notice a supporting actor or a particular line of dialogue, and it will send me down yet another rabbit hole of research. All in all, I'd say that BMM has directly or indirectly inspired at least a dozen articles in this series so far. My recent tribute to Plan 9 supporting player Bill Ash is a good example.

Last week (January 30), the BMM film was The Violent Years (1956), which Eddie wrote for director William Morgan. As you likely already know, it's a delirious, distinctly Woodian take on the juvenile delinquency epidemic of the 1950s. The characters in this movie act like aliens in human bodies, and the dialogue sounds like it was inexpertly translated from a foreign language. The dreamlike plot centers around a young woman named Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead) who comes from a wealthy family but seeks out a life of crime simply for "kicks" because she is bored. This makes the movie an obvious counterpart to Wood's earlier Jail Bait (1954). Like the doomed Don Gregor (Clancy Malone) in that film, Paula is severely punished for her crimes. 

Lee Constant as tough gal Sheila.

Having coldly killed several people, including a cop, the wayward young woman is sentenced to life in prison by the pious, pontificating Judge Clara (I. Stanford Jolley), who is only disappointed that he can't send her to the chair as he would like. He can take comfort in the fact that Paula soon dies while giving birth to an illegitimate baby in a prison hospital. Her utterly clueless parents (Barbara Weeks and Art Millan) try to get custody of their own grandchild, but they are denied by the merciless and all-powerful Judge Clara, who ends the film with one of his many lectures.

So what stood out to me this time about The Violent Years? Well, for one thing, I was struck by the mother-and-daughter scenes between Barbara Weeks and Jean Moorhead. The dialogue they share is some of the most strangely stilted in the entire Wood canon, and both actresses really commit to their utterly ridiculous, impossible characters. Perhaps, somewhere down the line, I will have to write articles about the careers of these two fabulous ladies. But the cast of The Violent Years is full of intriguing supporting players, including the members of Paula's all-girl gang and the low-rent losers they tend to date. One actress who really caught my eye this time was Lee Constant, who plays ill-tempered crime boss Sheila. Had I really never noticed this incredible performance before? 

A few weeks ago, the movie we watched was Bride of the Monster. This was one of the first Ed Wood movies I ever saw, and I've probably sat through it at least 50 times in the last 35 years. (That may sound like a lot, but it only averages out to about one and a half times per year.) Are there still things to notice in this movie after so many screenings? Sure. During this viewing, for instance, I thought about the scene in which the hypnotized Janet Lawton (Loretta King) enters the lab of Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) wearing a white wedding dress. Where on earth did Vornoff get a wedding dress in Janet's size so quickly? She definitely didn't bring it with her. Does Vornoff just have a closet full of wedding dresses in case a pretty gal shows up at his home? I had also failed to notice Officer Kelton's (Paul Marco) oft-repeated catchphrase: "Yes, sir!" Now I'll have to listen for it in the two other Kelton movies. 

I think the most interesting thing I observed during this particular viewing of Bride is that, while rummaging through Vornoff's home, Lt. Dick Craig (Tony McCoy) finds a dossier of information left behind by Professor Strowski (George Becwar). That dossier contains an 8x10 glossy of Bela Lugosi wearing a black homburg hat and a black cape. This exact same picture is often used as a publicity still for Plan 9 from Outer Space, since Lugosi wears that outfit in the "lost roses of her cheeks" scene. I recently speculated that this picture may have been part of Ed Wood's fundraising campaign for The Ghoul Goes West. But here it is in one of Eddie's other movies! It's like he was giving us a preview of how Bela would look in Plan 9.

The last thing I'll share from my most recent viewing of Bride of the Monster is one particular establishing shot I'd never noticed before. About half an hour into the movie, Dick and his partner Martin (Don Nagel) go to a cafe to make a phone call to Captain Robbins (Harvey B. Dunn). The script refers only to this location as a "small gas station." There are indeed gas pumps in front, but this place seems to serve as an all-purpose pit stop for travelers. It's doubtful Ed Wood had this entire facade built for just one brief shot, so where did it come from? Did he steal it from another movie?

A quaint and curious business seen in Bride of the Monster.

That's why I'm grateful to B-Movie Maniacs. It encourages active viewing. And, after over 30 years of studying the same films of Ed Wood over and over again, that's exactly the kind of encouragement I need sometime.