Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 275: "Remembering Ed D. Wood, Jr." (1987)

Tor Johnson attacks Bela Lugosi in the pages of Filmfax.

A feature about Ed.

I was not a major reader of sci-fi and horror movie magazines when I was a kid. Oh, sure, I'd skim through Fangoria and the like at the local Walgreen's, but I rarely brought any issues home with me. What did I have to buy them with, my sparkling personality? If my parents gave me a couple of bucks to spend in those days, I'd buy comic books or MAD instead. Even as a teenager and young adult, I only bought movie magazines if they contained an article I really wanted. Any substantial story about John Waters, for instance, warranted an immediate purchase. By the late 1990s, when I was in college, I was largely getting my movie information from the internet.

As a result, I missed out on the print magazines that were so influential on other budding film fanatics, especially those of previous generations. This week, I'm choosing to spotlight just one of those gone-but-not-forgotten publications: Filmfax, which ran for 166 issues from 1986 to 2024. The creation of editor Michael Stein, Filmfax originally billed itself as "The Magazine of Unusual Film & Television." By the end of its run, that tagline had changed to "The Magazine of Unusual Film, Television & Retro Pop Culture." In its sixth issue, dated March/April 1987, Filmfax ran a sprawling,12-page feature about writer-director Edward D. Wood, Jr. It consisted of:

• a career overview, including quotes from actor and friend David Ward

• a preview of Rudolph Grey's then-untitled Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992)

• an extended interview with actor and Wood associate Paul Marco (1927-2006)

• a filmography compiled by Jan Henderson

This wasn't even Filmfax's first Ed Wood feature, since they spotlighted Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) in the very first issue. In those primitive, pre-internet days, a magazine like this must have been a veritable goldmine of valuable information for Wood fans. But does it still have anything to offer us in 2026? Let's find out.

Author Ted Okuda.

The Ed Wood coverage in this issue begins with an article by film historian Ted Okuda entitled "Remembering Ed D. Wood Jr.: A Moviemaker." Now, it must be noted that this issue of Filmfax came out well ahead of Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994). Eddie hadn't been romanticized or lionized nearly as much in 1987; his public image was still largely shaped by Harry and Michael Medved's derisive The Golden Turkey Awards (1980). Eddie was simply the guy whose movies you watched because they were so bad they were funny. His name conjured up images of flying saucers on strings, plywood graves, and angora sweaters.

Ted Okuda is not necessarily an Ed Wood fan, just a prolific and knowledgeable author who has covered many topics in his career, ranging from Chicago television to classic comedy shorts. He begins his article this way: "For some of us, it might be hard to imagine an audience of average moviegoers sitting through an entire Ed D. Wood, Jr. film, especially back in the '50s when most of them were originally released." Okay, so is this going to be a hit piece? Well, no, not exactly. While strongly emphasizing the cheapness and absurdity of Ed's films, Okuda also expresses some admiration for Eddie's sheer persistence in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

The author gives us a zippy, CliffsNotes version of Eddie's life and career, from his birth in Poughkeepsie in 1924 to his sad alcoholic's death in Hollywood in 1978, plus the posthumous (and, in the author's opinion, "inexplicable") cult following that Eddie acquired in the 1980s. Along the way, we stop at all the expected places: Marines, Lugosi, Glenda, Plan 9, unpaid lab bills, descent into pornography, etc., etc. For serious Woodologists, this is all very familiar territory, but Okuda at least has his facts straight. And I had forgotten that The Sinister Urge (1960) was also known as The Young and the Immoral. 

Things start getting interesting when Okuda interviews actor David Ward (1932-2018), a latter-day Ed Wood associate who appeared in Drop Out Wife (1972) and The Cocktail Hostesses (1973). Ward says he met Eddie through actor Kenne Duncan. This was well after Eddie's 1950s heyday, so David was not around to witness the making of films like Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) first-hand. Nevertheless, Eddie told him a lot of anecdotes about the good old days. "He liked to exaggerate a lot," David says. So believe what you will.

Ward relates the famous yarn about Ed Wood stealing a rubber octopus from Wake of the Red Witch (1948) for Bride of the Monster. He also says that Eddie had to repair some damage he did to Griffith Park during the making of that movie. As for the flying saucers in Plan 9, Eddie said that they were made from hubcaps and that they had been nominated for an Academy Award. (Neither claim is remotely true.) When the subject turns to actor Tom Keene, Ward says that the former Western star was suffering from arthritis while making the unsold pilot Crossroad Avenger and was in danger of shooting himself in the foot rather than shooting the bad guys.

I've long known that Eddie wanted to make an anthology film based on his short stories "Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor," "To Kill a Saturday Night," and "Epitaph for the Village Drunk." I also knew that David Ward was supposed to be part of that project and that the chosen stories represented three different phases of life: youth, middle age, and old age. But this interview with Ward added a few details. For one thing, the film was going to follow a single character through all these stages, and the moral of the story was going to be that "life goes on." Ward also discusses the screenplay that would eventually be filmed as I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998) and the doomed Lugosi: Post-Mortem project.

David Ward says that Eddie had a talent for raising money—this is something we see repeatedly in Ed Wood—but was ultimately doomed because "he didn't have a good business sense." The filmmaker's alcoholism also contributed to his decline. Ultimately, Ed lost all his money and most of his friends and ended up living "in a scummy apartment in Hollywood [where] prostitutes and dope pushers hung out." This is the tragic story we've heard over and over, but Ward gives us an idea of what Eddie really looked like during this sad time:

"At the end, Ed was just skin and bones. He didn't take care of himself. He wasn't eating properly. He didn't have the money for it. Instead of buying food, he'd buy booze. And then he'd get the shakes if he didn't get the booze."

Ted Okuda then asks David Ward about Ed Wood's ironic posthumous fame. While David says the nature of Eddie's popularity is unfortunate, since people are laughing at his work rather than admiring it, he says Ed would have enjoyed all the attention. And, besides, Ed actually got to make movies, which is more than most people can say. "Whether they realize it or not," David muses, "it's Eddie who's having the last laugh."

There's much more Ed Wood coverage in Filmfax #6, but I want to give this material the full attention it deserves. So I think we'll adjourn for now and revisit this remarkable magazine in future installments of Ed Wood Wednesdays.  In the meantime, should you wish to peruse these articles for yourself, I have posted the relevant pages to the Ed Wood Wednesdays Tumblr. Enjoy.