Today, we're putting together a jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces.
"The records will tell the story."
-Patrick/Patricia in Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (1953)
Today, as a change of pace, let's talk about Ed Wood's younger brother Bill. As far as I know, no one's ever written an article about this man, and I think it's high time someone did.
You might not know that Edward D. Wood, Jr. even had a brother if you had only seen the Tim Burton biopic from 1994 or most of the well-known documentaries about Eddie like Flying Saucers Over Hollywood or Look Back in Angora. Howard William Wood (1926-1986), referred to by relatives as William or Bill Wood, is not mentioned in any of them. He's barely mentioned in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). However, that landmark biography does contain a couple of interesting anecdotes about Eddie's younger sibling. In a chapter called "Childhood/The World Outside," Eddie's mother Lillian remembers:
Junior and his brother William, they always got along good. If anybody did anything to each other, they were right there to tackle 'em. But... he was very jealous of Junior. I don't know why, because we did for both of them. We never did for one and not the other. Never.
A small brass Buddha.
About 100 pages later, in the chapter "The Wood Spooks," Eddie's widow Kathy says:
When Eddie's brother Bill was sent to Vietnam, he came over to our house on the way over. It was around Christmas. I put out all the best silver and cooked a big dinner... We sat there drinking the whole bunch of us, and it ended up in a big fight. I had given Bill a little brass statue of Buddha a newscaster gave Ed. I said to him, "Take this with you for luck." From what I understand, he fell off the back of a transport truck in Japan and ended up in the hospital -- never did get to Vietnam! Bill was always a little bit jealous of Eddie, and I think his wife was the same way. They were jealous of his success.
And that's it. Bill is never mentioned in the book again. I must confess, I've read Nightmare dozens of times, and I didn't even remember the anecdote about the Buddha statue. Why a newscaster would give such a thing to Eddie is beyond my comprehension. The thread that connects Lillian's story to Kathy's story is Bill's jealousy of Ed. Certainly, Eddie's showbiz ventures attracted lots of press attention over the years. Apparently, Bill and Ed became estranged, and Bill spent his remaining years forging a life that was as far away from Ed's as possible.
Think ballet is strictly for sissies? Well, think again, bucko! The toughest guy in Milwaukee, auto mechanic and daredevil Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler), is about to show you that ballet is actually very cool. That's right. In the Season 5 Happy Days episode "Do You Want to Dance?" from May 1978, our favorite Midwestern greaser dates a ballet dancer named Colleen (real life ballerina Leslie Browne) and even helps her demonstrate some elegant moves to her students. Between makeout sessions, Colleen shows Fonzie that there's more to culture than Bill Haley records and motorcycle magazines. But there's a problem, you see. Colleen has dreams that may take her far away from Milwaukee. Will Fonzie stand in the way of those dreams?
Roger Ebert said that he was very rarely moved by love but that he was often moved by sacrifice. That's what "Do You Want to Dance?" is really all about. Fonzie wants to keep Colleen near him, but he knows deep down that she belongs in New York if she's going to reach her full potential as a dancer. I guess she couldn't do that in Milwaukee. I know this wasn't intentional, but a hidden theme of "Do You Want to Dance?" is that Milwaukee is a cultural wasteland where dreams go to die.
Anyway, my cohost and I discuss this episode (and a bunch of other stuff) in detail in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. You can find our latest show right here. Enjoy!
This week, Greg goes "fishing" for some rare paperbacks.
Finally. I had waited patiently for close to four weeks for the arrival of a box of vintage West Coast paperbacks that I had purchased on Ebay the day after Christmas. And then, just prior to the end of my work day, the box arrived safely on my doorstep via the good old US Postal Service. I couldn't wait to go though its contents, a can of Lionshead beer in my hand.
This was something of a fishing trip, as I was hoping to potentially ID another one of Ed Wood's X-rated novels. My quest was equal parts wrongheaded and near-impossible, since this box contained a smattering of 1960s adult paperbacks with only tenuous connections to Ed Wood. But the possibility was there, nevertheless!
And what did the box ultimately contain? Did I unearth a new Ed Wood classic? Well, I am proud to share my findings with you in the following video.
We're back! Did you miss us? That's right, These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcastreturns with its first new episode of 2021. We took a few weeks off for the holidays, but we figured we had better get back to the job of reviewing Happy Days episodes, since we have about 144 more of them to cover. At the rate we're currently going, we should be done by 2024!
This week's podcast is devoted to the lowly Season 5 clip show "Richie's Girl Exposes the Cunninghams" aka "The Fourth Anniversary Show." The thin plot has college student Lori Beth (Lynda Goodfriend) interviewing her boyfriend's family and friends so she can put together a report about the average American middle class family. This one was so obscure that it didn't even air in Happy Days' usual Tuesday night timeslot. Instead, ABC dumped this thing on a Friday night, where it was followed by a episode of the doomed Barney Miller spinoff, Fish.
Did "Richie's Girl Exposes the Cunninghams" deserve this ignoble fate? Does it rise above the status of mere clip show to become something truly special? Find out by listening to our latest podcast.
The pioneering film Tongue has a surprising connection to Ed Wood.
"We were then satisfied that, with proper lubrication and better adjustments, a little more power could be expected."
Orville Wright
Logo for the Foxy series of loops.
I've spent a good deal of time these last few years untangling Ed Wood's involvement in 8mm porn loops in the 1970s, and one of my surest conclusions is that Eddie wrote the subtitles for numerous silent loops during this time.
Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that the subtitled loops—regardless of which series released them—had strong internal consistencies. In fact, the subtitles are just one of the major correspondences in these movies. Beyond that, I've ID'ed numerous set decorations as well as cinematic tropes ranging from editing to camera setups and movement.
Released between 1971 and 1978, these particular loops on which Eddie worked were produced by Noel Bloom. During these same years, Noel's father Bernie employed Ed as an adult magazine staff writer. As I've shown before, however, Noel was not only producing his own loops but was occasionally releasing foreign ones, usually Danish, with English subtitles.
Occasionally, Noel Bloom also distributed loops that were excerpts from adult feature films. To wit: Foxy, loop #3, "Lube Job." It, too, was given the customary subtitling treatment, as follows:
LUBE JOB
The onscreen title appears almost immediately. The loop commences with an elaborate, 360-degree shot that lasts a minute and a half and pans the entire room and beyond. Not long into the shot, we see the source of the film's title: a small, semicircular sign that reads LUBE JOB in red neon letters. This same sign will reappear later in the film but in reverse, indicating that the footage somehow got flipped in post-production.
We are in a well-appointed mansion, where a party is clearly on the precipice of turning into an orgy. The revelers are partially or wholly unclad and are beginning to pair off.
Woman in Red Dress: HI THERE.
Man: GREAT PARTY.
Brigitte: UMMM!!!!
Although unnamed, the performer saying this line—a common utterance for women performing fellatio in these loops—is vintage adult film notable Brigitte Maier. Yes, the sex has ensued.
Woman #1: OH, IT IS SO HARD!
Woman #2: DEEPER! DEEPER!
That type of repetition in the subtitles is common in these loops.
Man #1: AHHH!!!
That line depicts the sound of the man climaxing.
Man #2: PUMP, BABY! PUMP!
More characteristic repetition.
Man #2: AHHH!!!
Man #2: AHHH!!!
Man #2: PUMP, BABY! PUMP!
Some repetitive repetition, for good measure.
Man #1 with Brigitte: SUCK IT BABY, SUCK IT!
Man #2 with Brigitte: NOW ME!
Is he excited, or demanding?
Brigitte: UMMM!!
Either way, she is immediately accommodating.
Brigitte: UMMM!!!
Man #2 with Brigitte: AHHH!!!!
Unknown Woman: AHHHH!!!!
Note the additional "H" here, compared to the previous moan. By this point, I have pretty much lost count of who's who within the barrage of cuts and closeups highlighting the action for the final two-thirds of the runtime.
A poster for Tongue.
Late last year, I penned a tribute to my friend Niva Ruschell, the driving force behind the production of the classic porn blaxploitation film Tongue (1976). Although she was betrayed by her partners and cut out of Tongue before it made it to post-production, she remained rightfully proud of the film until the end as something quite unique. Little did she know, until I informed her of it just a few years ago, that she had unwittingly collaborated with Ed Wood. She was a fan of Ed's, though had never met him.
As you may have guessed by now, "Lube Job" is excerpted from Tongue. Foxy was one of the later Bloom-produced subtitled 8mm series, before most efforts were rolled up under the megalithic Swedish Erotica brand. In fact, by the time Ed Wood died in late 1978, Swedish Erotica was at its height of loop production. Tellingly, perhaps, the subtitling of the loops ceased after Ed's passing.
The box cover summary for "Lube Job" is also worth the read. While Eddie is almost certainly the culprit behind the subtitles, it's plausible that he also wrote the box cover summaries and perhaps even came up with the actual loop titles.
An enormously opulent mansion is the setting for one of the wildest parties ever filmed. Many couples, black and white and exotic Oriental engage in a sordid pleasure orgy, oblivious to anything but the wanton pursuit of lust and sexual satisfaction. Super close-ups reveal an intimacy rarely seen, as probing fingers and turgid organs explore the sensual spectrum! Don't miss this one!
A little trivia Niva mentioned to me regarding the summary: the "enormously opulent mansion" was owned by the film's backers, a pair of drug dealers from Detroit, and was located in the Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills. If you want to move there now, the average sale price for a home is $11 million.
For the record, we have a mere 16 lines and only 32 subtitled words in total throughout "Lube Job." While I've seen films with fewer subtitles, the two-words-per-line average is the lowest of the hundreds of loops I've screened. As time wore on, the subtitles tended to this minimalist approach, merely stating or accentuating the obvious, with little to no attempt at providing full sentences or unseen narrative details. In the case of "Lube Job," there's no narrative to speak of beyond the orgy.
On a related note, the post-production of Tongue was performed at the Cinema 35 Project Center on Hollywood and Western, run by Jack Descent, who had previously shot and co-produced the "lost" film Operation Redlight (1969), which Ed Wood starred in and scripted. The angora sweater Eddie wore in Redlight even hung in the front office at Cinema 35 for a time in the early '70s.
The orgy footage used in "Lube Job" is lifted from a much longer sequence in Tongue. According to Niva, this part of the film was inspired by Fellini's Satyricon (1969). On the Tongue soundtrack album, side two opens with a lengthy track called "Party Time," mixed by Jack Descent. The audio is lifted straight from the actual film soundtrack and comprises the entire sequence excerpted in "Lube Job."
That's just one loop and its story. There are hundreds and hundreds more that must be told!
BONUS: Check out this 2019 interview by Peter Flash (with an assist by me) at Adult DVD Talk with Niva Ruschell, detailing the incredible story behind the making of Tongue.
Late last year,I had the idea to gather some of my friends and colleagues in the world of Woodology for a discussion about Ed Wood's life and work. On Sunday, January 3, 2021, we made that idea a reality, talking for an hour and a half by Zoom. Besides myself, the panelists that afternoon included: film archivist Keith Crocker, humorist and performer Mike H, author James Pontolillo, and the founder of this blog, Joe Blevins.
Our conversation was far-ranging and touched on myriad aspects of Ed Wood's life and career, from his 1950s films to his extensive work in pornography in the 1970s. We also shared items from our personal Wood collections, including some astonishing artifacts from the past. And we discussed our own histories with Ed Wood -- what drew us to his work and why we continue to be fascinated with him today.
The entire conversation has now been uploaded to YouTube. Be sure to check out the description box beneath the video; it contains links to the panelists' numerous other projects.
I am grateful to all the panelists, who literally spanned from coast to coast.
