Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 290: Rene Bond (1950-1996): A Dossier

Rene Bond got a healthy amount of press coverage.

One thing I have accidentally learned in writing this column for over a decade is that America's newspapers have a surprisingly spicy, risque past. Strippers, burlesque houses, and pornographic films were openly advertised in otherwise-ordinary, wholesome daily papers across the country. These were the exact same publications where you'd read Ann Landers or catch up on the latest sports scores. They just treated "adult" advertisers like any other sponsors.

In the 1960s and '70s, fairly bold ads for X-rated movies would habitually run alongside ads for every other kind of movie on the market. It is not impossible, for example, that you could have seen Gerard Damiano's Deep Throat (1972) being promoted next to Disney's Napoleon and Samantha (1972). This is not an exaggeration. This kind of juxtaposition happened nearly every week for years. I constantly come across this stuff in my research. It's why we have newspaper clippings related to Ed Wood's adult films. If they played at an actual movie theater, we probably have ads for them.

This week, I am turning my attention to adult film actress Rene Bond (1950-1996), who starred in Ed Wood's Necromania (1971) and appeared in several more films either written or co-written by Eddie: The Class Reunion (1972), The Cocktail Hostesses (1973), Fugitive Girls (1974), and The Snow Bunnies (1972). She also appeared in the disputed Wood film Bloomer Girl (1972). That's six movies total, more than Tor Johnson, Paul Marco, or Criswell ever did with Ed. Though she occasionally used aliases (including Lilly Lovetree, Lotta Rocks, and Rosemary Camelot), Rene also worked under her own name and was definitely not shy about publicity. So I decided to see what America's newspapers had to say about her.

Podcast Tuesday: "Your Kids Caught You Smoking and They Said No Way"

Tom Bosley and Marion Ross in Let's Call it Quits.

Along with the many, many laws and rules we have to follow in our daily lives, we are also given innumerable warnings about our health and safety. Don't do drugs. Get eight hours of sleep. Brush your teeth. Eat your vegetables. Look both ways before you cross the street. Since human beings are typically averse to being bossed around, I think there is a strong temptation to ignore all of this stuff. To hell with them! I'll do what I want! And I sympathize with that.

But there are some warnings I wish we would have heeded sooner as a society. It certainly would have been better, for instance, if we'd all given up on smoking as soon as the Surgeon General's report came out in 1964. But we didn't. We kept right on smoking for decades, and it led to a lot of needless suffering and death. Only now, in the 21st century, are cigarettes starting to lose their grip on us. (Of course, they're only being replaced by vape pens, but, you know... baby steps.)

Over the years, there were many attempts to get Americans to kick the habit. In 1974, the American Cancer Society produced a half-hour, sitcom-like film called Let's Call it Quits starring Tom Bosley and Marion Ross of Happy Days and filmed on the set of The Brady Bunch. This week on These Days Are Ours, we talk about that film and our feelings on smoking in general. Please do join us. And don't smoke.

The unsolvable riddle that is 'Monster a Go-Go' (1965)

Herschell Gordon Lewis tried to make something marketable out of an unfinished Bill Rebane film.

An ad for the film.

If I asked you to imagine the movies that typically wound up on Mystery Science Theater 3000, you'd probably think of those crummy, low-budget science-fiction and horror films made between the 1950s and the 1970s. These were shoddily-produced exploitation flicks that were shipped out to undiscriminating drive-in audiences across America for decades. These quickies were relentlessly hawked through hyperbolic trailers, posters, and radio ads that routinely made promises the actual movies—often slow-moving, static, and talky—could never keep. They featured unconvincing monsters, aliens, spaceships, and mad scientists, and they had attention-grabbing titles, often containing words like "space," "attack," "creature," and "invasion."

As silly as these movies were, there's a kind of innocence or naivete to them. Eventually, as home video supplanted the drive-ins, exploitation movies increased the amount of sex and violence, and the old-school, MST3K-style movies started looking a little quaint in comparison. Today, these movies are mostly seen as curios of a bygone era, beloved by some, despised by a few, and ignored by most.

If you stand way back and squint, Monster a Go-Go (1965) is the very kind of movie I've been describing. It was even used on MST3K in 1993 during the show's fourth season on Comedy Central. In the broadest sense, the film is typical genre fare. The plot goes something like this: an American space capsule has crash-landed in a field in Illinois. On board is astronaut Frank Douglas, but radiation has transformed him into a hideous, eight-foot-tall, Frankenstein-like monster with blisters all over his face. Still wearing his spacesuit, he mindlessly roams the area, occasionally murdering civilians. The military tries to locate Douglas and put a stop to his rampage. Meanwhile, scientists attempt to come up with an antidote for his condition, and Frank's grieving family worries about him. Complicating matters is the fact that Douglas is highly radioactive. It all leads to a tense finale set in the Chicago sewers.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 289: The screenplay for 'The Sun Was Setting' (1951)

"You horrible room!": Angela Stevens as June Drake in Ed Wood's The Sun Was Setting.

Here's a quirk of B-movie history for you. At least three of Ed Wood's unproduced screenplays have been published in book form: The Vampire's Tomb (1954), The Ghoul Goes West (1953-55), and The Frank Leahy Legend (1974). But only two of Eddie's produced scripts have ever been published to my knowledge: Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and Bride of the Monster (1955). I'd love to analyze and scrutinize Eddie's screenplays more closely—both the ones that were made and the ones that weren't—but they're just not available to me. I have no idea how people get them.

In the case of Eddie's made-for-TV melodrama The Sun Was Setting (1951), I thought I'd take matters into my own hands and recreate the script myself by carefully transcribing the finished film. This is not the first time I've done something like this. Years ago, I painstakingly transcribed Glen or Glenda (1953). But that transcript is still a mess in terms of formatting. Perhaps someday, I will finish it. The Sun Was Setting is more manageable, due to its shorter runtime. In any event, it is my hope that this quasi-script will give us an opportunity to see how Ed Wood constructed a screen story.

NOTE BEFORE WE CONTINUE: This is not in any way, shape, or form the actual screenplay that Ed Wood used when making the movie. It is purely a fan-made work. It is not formatted as a standard Hollywood script would be. Instead, this material is presented in a form that I feel would be more easily readable. If you feel you can do better, you likely can and should. In fact, I invite you to do so. J.B. 

So I watched 'Coyote vs. Acme' and...

Wile E. Coyote and Will Forte team up in Coyote vs. Acme.

An uphill climb to the big screen.

It's not often I review recent movies on this blog. Then again, it's rare that I actually watch any film made in this century. Or this millennium, come to think of it. It's not that I'm against current movies; I just have so much old stuff to review that I don't get around to the new stuff that much.

I made an exception for Dave Green's Coyote vs. Acme (2026), the long-delayed feature film that Warner Bros. shelved for tax purposes several years ago, now finally released through the intercession of a company called Ketchup Entertainment. If you're reading this blog, you probably don't need me to explain what this movie is. You already know the characters and the basic plot. Like me, you grew up with Looney Tunes and its cadre of wacky animated characters: Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. You're probably also familiar with the fictional Acme Corporation and its wide variety of faulty products.

So what did I think of Coyote vs. Acme? Short answer: I liked it. It's inventive, amusing, and well-made, and an elaborate tribute to the cartoons I loved in my youth. I recommend it unreservedly to Looney Tunes fanatics, especially those who also happen to be fans of actor and comedian Will Forte. In the past, Will has demonstrated his range on such shows as Saturday Night Live, The Great North, and The Last Man on Earth, plus such feature films as MacGruber (2010) and Nebraska (2014). If you've witnessed Mr. Forte at work, you likely do not need to be sold on his talents.

Do I have anything of particular value to say about Coyote vs. Acme? Any special insight to bring to this material? Well...

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 288: 'Invisible Ghost' (1941) and 'Deanimated' (2002)

Artist Martin Arnold did some interesting things to The Invisible Ghost (1941).

It was a long way down for Bela Lugosi. We know that his Hollywood career peaked with his indelible, much-imitated portrayal of the title role in Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) for Universal. Over time, however, the Hungarian actor's fortunes were plagued by numerous factors: typecasting, shifting audience tastes, plus Lugosi's thick accent and ruinous drug addiction. By the 1950s, when he started working with Edward D. Wood, Jr., his once-sparkling career was utterly in the doldrums. Any work was welcome. Hence Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), and the posthumously released Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).

But Bela's career was vast and varied. By the time he made Dracula, he'd already accumulated numerous movie credits, foreign and domestic. From 1917 to 1921, he appeared in silent films made in Hungary and Germany. From 1923 onward, he appeared in American-made films, first silent then sound. And all this was in addition to maintaining an extremely active stage career. 

In the turbulent decades between Dracula and Glen or Glenda, Lugosi made dozens of films of wildly varying quality, ranging from major studio productions to low-budget B-movies and serials. In 1941, Lugosi began a productive if not exactly glamorous association with a Poverty Row studio called Monogram Pictures. Nine films in total eventuated from this. For a detailed and thoughtful analysis of this era, I'd highly recommend Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Guffey's Bela Lugosi and the Monogram Nine (2019). 

Podcast Tuesday: "We Have Nothing To Fear But OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING OVER THERE?"

Erin Moran in Galaxy of Terror (1981).

The actors on long-running sitcoms can get antsy sometimes. Playing the same character every week, year after year. Same jokes, same stories. It gets old after a while. Worse yet, the public gets the idea that playing this one character is all you can do. There is no surer career-killer than being typecast in a sitcom role. And so, TV actors tend to glom onto whatever movie offers come their way. Anything to prove they have a little range.

During his seven-season run on Happy Days, for instance, Ron Howard appeared in Eat My Dust (1976), The Shootist (1976), and More American Graffiti (1979) as well as the made-for-TV movies Huckleberry Finn (1975) and I'm a Fool (1977). He also directed the made-for-TV movie Cotton Candy (1978) and the feature film Grand Theft Auto (1977). Meanwhile, Ron's costar Henry Winkler stayed for all 11 seasons of Happy Days but still managed to find some extracurricular acting work, like the movies Heroes (1977) and The One and Only (1978), plus the made-for-TV movie An American Christmas Carol (1979).

But what of young Erin Moran, who played Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days? People may think that this sitcom and its spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi were the only major projects Erin ever worked on. But her resume is more diverse than that. For instance, between the eighth and ninth seasons of the show in 1981, Erin acted in a sci-fi thriller called Galaxy of Terror produced by Roger Corman, who had previously produced both Grand Theft Auto and Eat My Dust.

As you may have already guessed by now, we are reviewing Galaxy of Terror on this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Hit the play button down there to learn more.

The enduring, plain jane beauty of "Johnny Angel"

Shelley Fabares croons "Johnny Angel" on The Donna Reed Show.

Actress Shelley Fabares, who died on August 22 at the age of 82, never considered herself much of a singer, despite the fact that she scored a #1 hit single in America. In interviews, she talked about how the producers of The Donna Reed Show (1958-1966) strongarmed both her and costar Paul Petersen into recording pop singles. The makers of the sitcom were apparently eager to replicate the multimedia success of Ricky Nelson from The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and made it clear that, if Shelley didn't comply, she'd be written out of the show. And so, in late 1961, she became a reluctant pop star. Shelley recalled being extremely nervous to step into an actual recording studio, surrounded by talented professional musicians, but she somehow got through it.

Shelley's big musical moment.

The song she recorded, a winsome ballad called "Johnny Angel," debuted on February 1, 1962 during a fourth season episode of The Donna Reed Show called "Donna's Prima Donna." The public's response was simply overwhelming. By April 1962, "Johnny Angel" was the most popular song in America. Shelley was still no singer, and her music career was not sustainable for long. While she had a few more charting singles, including a direct sequel to "Johnny Angel," Shelley largely stuck to acting for the rest of her life. Later in her career, she was a regular on the popular ABC sitcom Coach, which ran from 1989 to 1997. Shelley Fabares' musical legacy is largely limited to this one song: two minutes and 19 seconds of audio cotton candy. 

As for The Donna Reed Show, it lasted four more seasons and eventually became a staple of syndicated reruns. I'm sure many people of my generation, born well after the original run of the show, became familiar with Donna Reed because of its frequent airings on Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite. What distinguishes this series is that it has nothing to distinguish it. Unlike The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy, it is not built around a wild comedian with an over-the-top personality. It doesn't tap into "kid logic" the way Leave it to Beaver and Dennis the Menace do. It doesn't even have an unusual family structure, like My Three Sons or The Brady Bunch. Nope, it's just an unadorned, straight-down-the-line sitcom about a nuclear family in mid-20th-century America. This is exactly the kind of blandly wholesome show that inspired Gary Ross' film Pleasantville (1998).