Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 265: How accurate is 'Ed Wood' (1994) [PART 2]

Ed Wood (1994) references this production of The Casual Company.

When Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (1924-1978) relocated to Hollywood from his native Poughkeepsie in the late 1940s after his stint in the Marines, his goal was to break into the movie business. The silver screen had fascinated him as a boy, so once he became a man, he took Horace Greeley's famous advice: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Once settled in California, instead of relying on job offers from the major studios (Universal, Fox, Paramount), Ed Wood attempted to produce and/or direct his own low-budget movies. This was a youngster with initiative. A dreamer, you might say.

A young Ed Wood.

Unfortunately, Eddie's earliest Hollywood projects, like the crude Westerns Range Revenge and Crossroads of Laredo (both 1948), were never truly completed during the filmmaker's lifetime and were only released posthumously. I've pinpointed the made-for-TV melodrama The Sun Was Setting (1951) as the first production Eddie actually saw all the way through to completion, though I can find no record of it airing anywhere. Ed's attempts at making television commercials "on spec" and then selling them to clients likewise proved futile. You can still watch some of Eddie's self-made TV commercials today, but I don't think any companies ever used them.

What's most remarkable about Ed Wood's earliest years in Hollywood is how many short-lived production companies he managed to start and how many backers he managed to sweettalk into giving him money, despite having no proven track record of success. Eddie's graveyard of failed ventures includes: Wood-Thomas Productions, Story Ad Films, W.D.C.B. Films, Atomic Productions, and more.

Meanwhile, to earn a little money and (potentially) get his name out there, Eddie did a little theater work during those early years in Hollywood. The great James Pontolillo covers this topic extensively in his book, The Muddled Years of Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1946-1948 (2025). Besides acting in The Blackguard Returns, Eddie managed to stage a farce he'd written himself called The Casual Company: The Laugh of the Marines. This lighthearted office comedy, based on Ed's own military experience, had a brief run at the Village Playhouse in late 1948. In the October 26, 1948 edition of The Valley Times, critic Henry Arntsen described it as a "three-acter" revolving around "a group of pencil-pushing Marines at a Naval hospital." 

Podcast Tuesday: "Skype, We Hardly Knew Ye"

Julia Roberts in Mother's Day.

When Garry Marshall was directing Mother's Day (2016), did he know it was going to be his last movie? He must have at least suspected. He was 81 when this lighthearted all-star ensemble comedy was released, and he died of pneumonia less than three months after it premiered. At the time, he hadn't even made a feature film for five years, the longest significant gap in his directing career. He hadn't completely disappeared during that time, still working regularly as a character actor and popping up as a frequent talk show guest, but he was definitely slowing to a halt.

In a way, it's nice to know that Garry went out doing what he loved. I have rarely encountered a director who so wholeheartedly loved the filmmaking process. It was important for Garry that his actors were having a good time on the set, even when the movie they were making was of questionable quality. Even Rosie O'Donnell and Dana Delany had fond memories of making the abysmal Exit to Eden (1994). It's no wonder that actors kept working with Garry over and over.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we review Mother's Day in all its maternal glory. Is it one of Garry Marshall's proudest achievements? Or did his career end in disappointment? That's what we aim to find out.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 264: How accurate is 'Ed Wood' (1994) [PART 1]

Jeffrey Jones in Ed Wood. Inset: Criswell in Night of the Ghouls.

Ed Wood Wednesdays is, by far, the longest-running series in the history of this blog. It may be the most significant project of my entire life. I started it nearly 13 years ago, and it's nowhere near completion. But within that one big project, there have been a lot of smaller sub-projects, like my reviews of every story in Blood Splatters Quickly (2014) and my 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar. These have been some of the most enjoyable articles for me to write, so I'm always on the lookout for the next possible series-within-a-series. And now I think I've found it.

What I plan to do for the next however many weeks is go through Tim Burton's glossy biopic Ed Wood (1994) scene by scene and discuss how accurate—or inaccurate—it is, compared to the real life and career of Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (1924-1978). Before you get upset, please know that I am doing this purely as a tribute to the movie. I am not trying to criticize director Tim Burton or writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for taking liberties with the facts. I'm completely fine with them taking liberties with the facts, and I love Ed Wood just the way it is. But this series will (hopefully) allow me to talk about numerous aspects of Eddie's real life and work in an entertaining way.

Oh, and I fully expect to be corrected and nitpicked along the way by you, the readers. If you feel I've made a misstatement, let me know and I'll update the article. Anyway, let's get started.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 263: Victor Crowley himself

"Screw you, Miss Crowley."

Early in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), Ed (Johnny Depp) and his loyal repertory players gather at a cozy L.A. cocktail bar called Boardner's after staging a performance of Eddie's achingly earnest World War II play, The Casual Company, at a small theater in Hollywood. Even though it's raining and the press didn't actually show up for "press night," their spirits are nonetheless high. Ed even tells eager beaver actor Paul Marco (Max Casella): "Paul, your second act monologue actually gave me the chills."

A review from Miss Crowley.

Then, actor Conrad Brooks (Brent Hinkley) bounds in with a copy of The Los Angeles Register and says he has "the early edition, hot off the presses." He hands the paper to Ed Wood. As the smiling actors crowd around him, Eddie eagerly flips to a newly-published review of The Casual Company by theatrical critic Victor Crowley. But the mood soon sours as they read the article, which Burton shows us in a closeup. Here is what Mr. Crowley has to say about their efforts:

World War II, a time for brave men with "guts," forms the backdrop for "The Casual Company," which opened last night in Hollywood. Let me tell you this is definitely a play about "guts." It certainly took "guts" to stage this disappointment. Penned by one Edward D. Wood, Jr., who also has the "guts" to take credit for directing this foxhole piece, "The Casual Company" takes place on a bare stage with only rudimentary lighting. Fortunately, the soldiers' costumes are very realistic.

The actors, once boisterous, now fall silent. Bunny Breckinridge (Bill Murray) is the first to speak: "Oh, what does that old queen know? She didn't even show. Sent her copy boy to do the dirty work." Meanwhile, poor Paul is trying to figure out what "ostentatious" means, while Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker) wonders aloud: "Do I really have a face like a horse?" 

But Eddie, the eternal optimist, zeroes in on the one compliment: "The soldiers' costumes are very realistic." Later in the movie, he'll bring this up when he interviews for a directing job with producer George Weiss (Mike Starr): "I just did a play in Hollywood, and Victor Crowley himself praised its realism!" Eddie also says that good reviews are not necessary for showbiz success and points to "the latest Francis the mule picture" as an example.

Podcast Tuesday: "Garry Marshall Drops the Ball"

Zac Efron and Michelle Pfeiffer in New Year's Eve (2011).

A vintage matchbook.

Are you a New Year's Eve person? Does that holiday mean anything to you? I can't say that December 31 holds too many special memories for me, fond or otherwise. For the last few decades—not just years, but decades—I have stayed home on the last day of the year and only intermittently glanced up at the countdown festivities on TV. So a movie like Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve (2011), in which a bunch of celebrities celebrate the titular holiday in various wacky ways, does not have a lot of intrinsic appeal for me. File it alongside Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976). Nice try, but I'm not terribly interested.

However, if I rummage through my own storehouse of memories in search of ones related specifically to New Year's Eve, I can zero in on a now long-gone restaurant called The Greenery in Clio, Michigan. A classy place, the kind you might take your grandparents for an evening out. The food there was pretty bland, and my family definitely didn't go there on a regular basis. But, for whatever reason, my parents took us to The Greenery every New Year's Eve for years. The place's best feature was an extremely generous and varied dessert bar. That was definitely the highlight of December 31 for me. (The lowlight was the drive home, since there always seemed to be a winter storm raging that night.) Other than that, I can't say I'm for or against this particular holiday.

Nevertheless, in this week's edition of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we are tackling the aforementioned New Year's Eve movie from 2011. As with Valentine's Day (2010), Garry Marshall assembled a boatload of TV stars, movie stars, and pop stars and put them in little, interconnected vignettes, all happening on one special day. If you've ever wanted to see Jon Bon Jovi, Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, Robert De Niro, and Ludacris in one movie.... well, here's your chance. Our review is included below. Do me a favor and listen to it. Thanks.

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.)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 261: More about 'The Sun Was Setting' (1951) and other things

A typical New York sunset, as (not) seen in The Sun Was Setting.

When I started writing this series of articles back in July 2013, my plan was to blitz through Ed Wood's filmography in just a couple of months. And so, I covered a great deal of territory in each article. In the very first week alone, I briefly covered Ed Wood's youth in Poughkeepsie and reviewed Crossroads of Laredo (1948), The Sun Was Setting (1951), Crossroad Avenger (1953), and even Eddie's failed attempts at making TV commercials in the late 1940s. That's absolutely nuts. Nowadays, each one of those topics would get its own individual article, perhaps more than one.

Cut to January 2026. I'm now giving greater attention to these and other topics related to Ed Wood. Last week, for example, I did a deep-dive into Ed's 15-minute made-for-TV melodrama The Sun Was Setting. This strange story, centering around a terminally-ill New York woman (Angela Stevens) who cannot leave her apartment, was the one and only production of a short-lived company called W.D.B.C. Films that Eddie formed with his pal Don Davis and two other men, Milton Bowron and Joe Carter. Bowron and Carter were Los Angeles real estate salesmen who never dabbled in show business again. (I'm guessing it was a "fool me once..." situation.)

Podcast Tuesday: "Jennifers, Julias & Jessicas"

"Starring everybody and me!"

"Hyperlink cinema."

 It's a term I'd either forgotten or had never heard until recently. Either way, it refers to those movies that are sort of like anthologies but not quite. "Hyperlink" films tell multiple, basically self-contained stories, but the characters in those different stories know each other and occasionally interact. Some characters even take part in more than one story per movie. Think of Pulp Fiction (1994), Magnolia (1999), Nashville (1975), Crash (2004), and many more. In Pulp Fiction, for example, there are three different stories ("The Bonnie Situation," "The Gold Watch," and "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"), and John Travolta's heroin-shooting hitman is a factor in all three of them.

Toward the end of his career, director Garry Marshall (1934-2016) got way into hyperlink cinema. He made three of these movies back-to-back, the first being Valentine's Day (2010). The setup is very simple: it's Valentine's Day in Los Angeles, and we follow the romantic ups-and-downs of various characters, all played by major movie stars. It's actually kind of mind-boggling how many Oscar winners there are in this one, extremely slight romcom.

But does "slight" equal worthless? That's what we aim to find out in this week's edition of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.