Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 203: The saga of Ed Wood's historical marker

This house on Delano Street in Poughkeepsie was once Ed Wood's home.

And the year of Ed Wood continues! The 100th anniversary of Eddie's birth has brought with it many marvelous surprises, including some recognition from the director's home state of New York. On Wednesday, November 17, 2024, an official historical marker is being placed at 35 Delano Street in Poughkeepsie, New York to denote it as Ed Wood's childhood home. Amazingly, this blog played some small role in that achievement.

In June 2024, I received this intriguing email from a man named Robert McHugh:

I am a teacher near Poughkeepsie and for the past couple of years I have had my students apply for funding for historic markers for sites in Dutchess County. This year, one group of students decided to try for a marker about Ed Wood. They used some of the material from your site—the reference to the wedding announcement of his parents in the Kingston paper was especially helpful—as part of the grant application. 

Good news: they were successful and there is now a historic marker being made that will likely be installed sometime over the next few months. (It takes quite a while to fabricate them; I don't know if we will have it by October 10 for his birthday.) It's going to go in front of one of the homes he lived in, at 35 Delano St. 

I'm not sure if you happen to live anywhere near Poughkeepsie, but we would love to invite you to the unveiling, whenever that would be. 

Thanks for posting all that great information about him online.

I thanked Robert for the email and gave due credit to Greg Dziawer, who has written extensively about Ed Wood's early life in Poughkeepsie for this blog. Greg, in turn, has credited the formidable James Pontolillo for his tireless (and ongoing!) research into Ed's New York years. Unfortunately, since I live in the suburbs of Chicago and work full time, I had to tell Robert that attending the unveiling of the marker was not possible.

In October, Robert gave me an exciting update: "The Ed Wood marker has finally been made. Now we have to figure out how to install it and think about an unveiling ceremony." In assembling the ceremony, Robert reached out to director and film programmer Katie Cokinos, who organized the special screening of Ed Wood (1994) that I attended virtually on Ed's 100th birthday last month. Knowing I would be unable to be there in person, Katie very nicely asked me to write a speech for the occasion. Here is that speech:

Ladies and gentlemen:

We are gathered here on this wonderful occasion to honor the memory of a man who received very little recognition in his own lifetime. Edward Davis Wood, Jr. was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on October 10, 1924 and became enamored of show business and the movies at a young age. He even worked as an usher at the Bardavon Theater on Market Street. I can imagine he spent many hours in that place, staring up at the screen and gazing in amazement at the larger-than-life figures projected there. He especially loved the cowboy stars, like Buck Jones, and of course the great horror icon Bela Lugosi.

For many of us, that's where the journey would end. We're content just to watch the screen and to live vicariously through other people's stories. We still do that today, except the screens have gotten much smaller and we can carry them in our pockets. But that wasn't enough for our Eddie. He didn't just want to watch other people's adventures. He wanted to have adventures of his own. That instinct led him, after a stint in the Marines during World War II, to Hollywood in the late 1940s.

 

Heed the words of Lyle Talbot.

Once on the West Coast, Ed Wood did everything he could to make his mark as a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures. And that's not all! He acted on both stage and screen, made TV commercials and pilots, and penned countless novels, short stories, and magazine articles. There seemed to be no end to his creativity or his ambition. Along the way, he attempted just about every kind of story there is: science-fiction, horror, Westerns, and even crime thrillers. He may never have gotten to work with Buck Jones, but he did work extensively with Bela Lugosi and even befriended the great horror icon. Bela wound up appearing in all three of Ed's most famous films: GLEN OR GLENDA, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, and the infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

During his own, rather short time on this earth, Ed Wood received very little praise or recognition from the entertainment industry. He wasn't getting positive reviews in the press or awards from his colleagues. To the extent that Ed's films were noticed at all, they were mocked and derided for their low budgets, unlikely dialogue, and outrageous storylines. And yet, his quirky, memorable films have struck a nerve with fans for decades, and those fans have kept Eddie's memory alive long after his death in 1978. This year alone , the 100th anniversary of Ed Wood's birth, there have been at least three major new books about him, and his films continue to be shown in theaters across the country and re-released for home viewing as well.

And now, we place this marker at Ed Wood's childhood home. I am certain that Eddie would be flattered and thrilled by this honor. And if there is anything we can learn from his life, it's that we shouldn't be content to sit on the sidelines and watch other people do all the exciting things we wish we could do ourselves. As Lyle Talbot says in GLEN OR GLENDA, "We only have one life to live. We throw that one away, what is there left?"

I don't know if Katie will actually deliver that speech at the ceremony, but it was so nice to be asked. As for the marker, here is what it will look like. Perhaps, if you live near Poughkeepsie, you can stop by 35 Delano Street and see it for yourself someday.

This handsome blue and yellow marker stands as a tribute to Ed Wood.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 202: Kathy Wood gives her side of the story

Kathy Wood, seen here with her dog McGinty in 1988, was married to Ed for over twenty years. 

Bob Blackburn's recently-published book, Kathy Wood & I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood Jr. Rabbit Hole (Bear Manor Media, 2024), documents the author's decade-plus friendship with Ed Wood's widow, Kathleen O'Hara Everett Wood (1922-2006). Bob approached the publicity-shy Kathy shortly after attending a marathon of Wood's movies in 1992 and, after a few false starts, slowly but surely gained her trust. Bob remained her pal and confidant until Kathy's death in 2006.

Kathy's late husband started becoming more well-known during these years, largely because of Rudolph Grey's oral history, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. (1992). That book was adapted into a lavish, star-studded biopic called Ed Wood (1994) by director Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp in the title role and Patricia Arquette playing Kathy. The publicity generated by Burton's movie led to some home video rereleases of Ed's vintage films and a smattering of documentaries, TV specials, and articles about the infamous director and his career. A radio industry professional himself and the son of a popular sportscaster, Bob Blackburn was there to serve as Kathy's guide through these unlikely events.

As a bonus, Kathy Wood & I includes a letter that Kathy drafted in 1998 and submitted to a Los Angeles probate court as part of a dispute over Ed Wood's estate. Her purpose in writing it was to demonstrate that she was Ed's partner, not just his wife. I didn't mention any of this in my review of the book last week, but I thought Kathy's letter deserved some extra attention, as it's really the closest thing to an autobiography she ever wrote. It also offers a fascinating glimpse into Ed Wood's private life that we won't get anywhere else.

A Canadian who relocated to Los Angeles in 1954 for professional reasons, Kathy O'Hara Everett first spotted Edward Davis Wood, Jr. in 1955 when they both started attending meetings of the Church of Religious Science at the Wiltern Theatre. Kathy considered Ed quite handsome but noticed he was always alone at these lectures. They finally met a few months later when a down-on-his luck Eddie approached Kathy at a Hollywood night spot called The Cameo Room. They remained a couple for the rest of Ed's life, eloping to Las Vegas in 1956 and staying married for 22 years.

"Life with Eddie wasn't a bed of roses," Kathy writes, "and I paid dearly for loving and standing by him." This sentence serves as a thesis statement for the entire letter.

Kathy Wood helped write this scene.

By the time he met Kathy, Ed was 31 and had already made Glen or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), and Bride of the Monster (1955), but his most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), was still on the horizon. The creation of that now-classic sci-fi film is a big part of Kathy's letter. She served as Ed's typist and creative consultant on the script, as she details:

It was during this time that Eddie started writing Plan Nine from Outer Space (Grave Robbers From Outer Space). We spent many hours discussing the story and dialogue and the plot. I helped him with my ideas and typed a large part of the script as usual. It was a happy time and a crazy time. [...] Ed and I kept working on the Grave Robbers script, both of us throwing lines back and forth to each other. I remember one Sunday afternoon we were both stumped for some kind of horrific bomb. I grabbed our Bible and was reading it when some certain passage came to mind. Something about the powers of the sun (or the "Solarnite" bomb in the script). We had a lot of fun talking ideas back and forth on the script.

I've heard Kathy tell similar stories in documentaries about her husband, and I feel that the Bible passage she is referencing must be Revelation 16:8-9, which states: "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him." Let's face it, if there's a book of the Bible that would have appealed to Eddie, it's Revelation, with its often surreal, grotesque, apocalyptic imagery.

For the most part, Kathy's letter describes her often chaotic domestic life with Ed Wood. Surprisingly, there were many good times along the way—pool parties, vacations, nights on the town. The Woods were social animals, and their circle of friends included many of the kooky characters we know from Ed's movies: Duke Moore, David De Mering, Bunny Breckinridge, Tor and Karl Johnson, Kenne Duncan, Dudley Manlove, and Paul Marco. These folks often did what they could to save Ed from impending doom, but occasionally, they couldn't even save themselves. That's life in Hollywood for you. It seems Ed and Kathy could never hold onto a residence or a vehicle for long, and Kathy's letter is full of  stories of disputes with various landlords, including Plan 9 investor Ed Reynolds.

Money, or the lack of it, became the dominant issue in the Woods' lives. (Isn't that true for most of us?) While Kathy worked as a secretary and stenographer at various companies, including Muzak, Eddie's career as a writer-director was unreliable at best. He'd sell a screenplay or a novel, but the money would soon be gone. She also claims that some of Steve Apostolof's checks to Eddie bounced, which may explain her longstanding resentment toward the director-producer and his "cheap girly movies." Kathy does not dwell on Eddie's raging alcoholism, even though it was the chief cause of his professional decline and early death. As Kathy sees it, the drinking was just part of the problem, along with Eddie's "cranky" moods and his consumption of salty foods.

Every Ed Wood fan knows how this sordid story ends. In December 1978, the Woods were evicted from their Yucca St. apartment by the local sheriff and had to move in with actor Peter Coe. They'd undergone similar trials in the past, even rooming with Duke Moore in his one-bedroom unit for a while, but this final disgrace proved too much for Eddie. He died heartbroken—literally and figuratively—on December 10, 1978, at the age of 54. Kathy's letter comes to an abrupt conclusion here: "Our world had ended." There's no redemption arc, no deus ex machina, just loss and despair. She does not mention Ed's posthumous, ironic fame.

And yet, Kathy's letter is not merely an exercise in misery. She clearly had a lot of fond memories of her late husband, and that comes through in her writing about their marriage. She relates a bittersweet anecdote about the time Eddie tried (unsuccessfully) to nurse an injured bird back to health, for instance. She also remembers the way he kept her and a neighborhood child enraptured for hours with his action-packed and largely fabricated World War II stories. That child, Tim Brockman, grew up to be a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War.

Above all, through this letter, we get little glimpses of Ed Wood in his prime, back when he was still the life of the party. You can almost see why Kathy stuck by him for so many years, possibly hoping the old spark would somehow return. As it says on Kathy's grave: "She hitched her wagon to a star."

Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Angora Rabbit Hole is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions right here. Or you can purchase it directly from the publisher.

Podcast Tuesday: "Love in a Cold Climate"

There's a lot going on here, right?

It's now been more than two decades since I was a teacher. It's the only job I ever actually trained to do, and I completely failed at it. I was beyond terrible. After just a few miserable years of "teaching" English and Spanish at the junior and senior high school level in the early 2000s, I crashed, burned, and bailed. Since abruptly leaving education, I've been staggering blindly through the professional world with no game plan whatsoever. Out of necessity, I take literally whatever work comes along just to keep up with my rent and other bills. It's a stressful way to live, but fortunately, I still have some free time to write articles about Ed Wood and cohost a podcast about the sitcom Happy Days. 

Should I have stuck with it? I don't think so. For the first few years after my teaching career ended, I would have occasional nightmares that I was back in the classroom, losing control of my students, and I would wake up in the middle of the night in a total panic. Happily, that went away over time. I don't really think much about my days as an educator anymore... unless something triggers a flashback, that is. 

I had such a flashback this week when my cohost and I reviewed a 1981 episode of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang called "Fjords and Sorcery." The episode is rooted in Norse mythology, and it brought me back to the sad days when I actually had to teach a mythology class to bored, hostile high school kids. I have no background in mythology, so I really knew no more about the subject than they did. So did those experiences color my opinion of the episode? You can find out below, and I hope that you do.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 201: 'Kathy Wood & I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood, Jr. Rabbit Hole' (2024)

Bob Blackburn (left) befriended Ed Wood's widow, Kathy, in her later years.

Picture this. 

You're about to go on a long bus trip—Tulsa to Milwaukee, let's say. Right before the bus leaves the station, a gentleman takes the seat next to you. With his graying beard, ponytail, casual wardrobe, and overall laid-back demeanor, he seems like he could be a classic rock DJ or possibly an ex-roadie. Maybe he's a distant relative of Jeff Bridges' The Dude from The Big Lebowski (1998). The gentleman notices you're wearing a Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) T-shirt and asks, in an unmistakable California accent, if you're an Ed Wood fan. You say sure. And then, with no more prompting than that, he launches into the story of how he met Ed's somewhat reclusive widow, Kathy, in the early '90s and remained her friend until her death in 2006. 

This was a fairly busy and interesting time in Kathy's life, since it saw the release of two major Wood-related films, Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) and Aris Ilipoulos' I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1997), plus the publication of Ed's long-lost manuscript, Hollywood Rat Race (1998). If that weren't enough, a couple of Ed's vintage novels came back into print during these years, and there were various stage shows and documentaries inspired by Ed's life and work. The gentleman sitting next to you on the bus tells you he was there to guide Kathy through all of this. He even put her in touch with legal counsel, specifically an entertainment lawyer named Robert Weinberg.

Bob's new book.

Imagine further that this conversation were transcribed word-for-word and then published as a book. You now have a good idea of what it's like to read Bob Blackburn's Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Ed Wood Jr. Rabbit Hole (Bear Manor, 2024). If you can't take Bob himself with you on your next bus trip, taking a copy of this book is the next best thing. Truth is, Bob makes for a very entertaining traveling companion. This book is every bit as informal and unpretentious as its author. Kathy Wood and I is not really a biography of Kathy or Ed; it's more of a collection of affectionate memories being recorded for posterity. Bob jumps around in the timeline quite a bit; you get the sense that he's writing these things down in the order they occur to him.

Years ago, when this series of mine was still in its infancy, I learned you don't get far in Woodology before crossing paths with Bob Blackburn. Forget finding him; he'll find you. The man is relentless. I've called him "the keeper of the flame," and that's really what he is in the world of Wood fandom. Not only did he start an extremely active Facebook group devoted to Ed Wood, he's also the man responsible for the three (count 'em) anthologies of Eddie's magazine work from the 1960s and '70s. Bob tracked down those stories and articles one by one, purchased the (often pricey) publications in which they first appeared, and then arranged for them to be republished so that we could enjoy them today.

And now, with this book, Bob has given us the most intimate portrayal of Kathy Wood that we're likely to get. Ed and Kathy met in late 1955 and were married in Las Vegas in 1956. Kathy remained with Ed until the truly bitter end in December 1978. She was his other half for the last two decades of his life, and yet, how much do we really know about her? As portrayed in Ed Wood by actress Patricia Arquette, she's a demure, soft-spoken lady who warms to the quirky yet lovable Eddie (Johnny Depp) quite quickly and isn't scared off by his cross-dressing or his dicey-at-best showbiz career. 

Rudolph Grey's oral history Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) gives us a few more glimpses of Kathy's tumultuous, sometimes violent life with Eddie in the 1960s and '70s. These are some of the most depressing passages in Grey's book, as Ed's alcoholism worsened and his career and lifestyle deteriorated dramatically during these years. No matter how bad things got, however, his wife remained by his side. Kathy Wood essentially grabbed Ed's hand as he dove headfirst into hell. And, for better or worse, she never let go. How many of us can say we'd have done the same?

Kathy Wood's favorite soup.

By the time she met Bob Blackburn in 1992, Kathy Wood was 70 years old, retired, and living on a fixed income in a modest Hollywood apartment not far from the one she and her husband had shared during their tragic final years together. In the 1980s, she'd had to undergo open heart surgery due to years of smoking, and this had slowed her down somewhat. Like many older people, she was quite set in her ways and not especially keen to make new friends or even talk to strangers. She was especially wary of Ed Wood fans who only approached her because of her famous dead husband, a man she both loved and hated.

But Bob was not discouraged. He was living in the same building as Kathy and gradually gained her trust, one interaction at a time. Eventually, their friendship progressed to the point that Bob would hang out at her apartment regularly and hear stories of the old days or just shoot the breeze. He even took Kathy to movies from time to time. (An appendix in the book dutifully lists all the films Bob and Kathy saw together.) As Kathy's health declined and her social circle shrank, Bob truly became one of her closest companions. In the abstract, Bob and Kathy's relationship bears a passing resemblance to the unlikely friendship that Ed Wood forged with Bela Lugosi toward the end of Bela's life in the 1950s.

The best thing about Kathy Wood and I is that it lets us spend some quality time, so to speak, with its title subject. We readers may never have gotten a chance to meet Kathy or speak with her, but Bob Blackburn certainly did, and now he's telling us what that experience was like—right down to fairly minute details, like Kathy's love of Andersen's split pea soup and her devotion to then-acclaimed actor Kevin Spacey. This book reminds us that Kathy Everett O'Hara's life did not end when Ed died in 1978. She survived for two and a half more decades and experienced such major events as the L.A. riots of 1992 and the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Above all, she was a human being, with all the foibles and complexities you'd expect anyone to have. Bob's book may be our last, best chance to get to know this woman.

Kathy Wood and I: How I Fell Down the Angora Rabbit Hole is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions right here. Or you can purchase it directly from the publisher.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: Was Ed Wood, Jr. the author Charlene White? (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Ed Wood had many pen names. Was this one of him?

A copy of the 1966 Charlene White sleaze novel Not So Funny was recently listed on Ebay with an asking price of $950 and authorship attributed to Ed Wood, Jr. But what evidence is there that Charlene White was one of Eddie’s pseudonyms?

Background

In 1966, Satellite Publications (Stanley Malkin and Eddy Mishkin's New York City-based operation that employed multiple other addresses in an attempt to mislead authorities) issued two books by Charlene White: Mask of Evil (hereafter Mask; [1] ) and Not So Funny (hereafter Funny; [2]). Both were mass market format paperback originals priced at 95 cents ($9.70 in 2024 dollars) and featured cover art by renowned commercial artist Eric Stanton [3]. The books also included black and white Stanton cartoon work as interior advertisements [4,5]. 

The print run sizes for these novels are unknown. Sleaze publishers like Satellite treated their paperback books just like the magazines they distributed – limited shelf life with new replacement titles issued monthly. Leftover stock was usually sold at a significant discount to a secondary market reseller. In some cases, the books were returned to the publisher who would strip off the original covers, glue on new ones, and then send them back out to market. As a result, the unwary customer could inadvertently purchase the same book twice.

Mask and Funny are rare collectible books that, due to the Stanton covers alone, currently command prices in the $200-$600 range depending upon their physical condition. Copies sometimes hit the market with considerably higher asking prices ($700-$1000) buoyed by the claim that Ed Wood is the author. Reputable antiquarian booksellers inform customers that this identification is unproven; individual online sellers rarely do so.

My first encounter with the claim that "Charlene White" was one of Eddie's pseudonyms occurred in an online Ed Wood forum/message board sometime around the year 2000. The idea gained significant traction with the 2012 release of Cornell University Library’s finding guide for its Ed Wood Collection. The core of the collection derives from a posthumous donation of works assembled by book collector and science-fiction editor Robert Legault (1958-2008) [6]. It was subsequently expanded with materials donated by writer/editor/publisher/collector Johan Kugelberg [7]. The Cornell collection is the largest publicly available repository of Ed Wood's published works. While Mask is in the collection, Funny is not represented there.

The Books

Mask of Evil cover.

Mask of Evil – This novel follows the sexual awakening and subsequent promiscuous escapades of Brigitte Lamersay, a 20-year-old, perpetually-innocent French nymph as she wends her way through Long Island (NY) high society in search of her adoptive mother’s long-lost American lover. There is a plot amongst all the sexual debauchery, but just barely. Much of the sex is non-consensual, fairly transgressive for the time, and leans heavily into sadism. 

One highlight of the novel is an unusual costume party (men as trees; women as flowers) that quickly degenerates into an anything-goes orgy. This is followed by masked sexual rituals that blogger Joe Blevins described as "Eyes Wide Shut with a brain injury… an enfeebled, lobotomized Eyes Wide Shut. It’s rich people having kinky mask parties." After many adventures, Brigitte finds her man and then a different kind of fun begins. 

The novel initially appears to end with Chapter 14. But after typesetting, the novel would have been 16 pages short of the publisher’s standard book length. So, we are then treated to a new, more complex ending spun out over Chapters 15-17 (meeting the required number of pages) written as if the events of Chapter 14 had never occurred. To complete the reader’s sense of déjà vu and disorientation, the last three paragraphs of Chapters14 and 17 are virtually identical.

Not So Funny cover.

Not So Funny – This novel follows Olga, a well-endowed 18-year-old girl who grows up in a small coal town. She runs away to the big city to escape the clutches of a filthy, physically abusive, and sexually predatory stepfather. While working as a waitress, Olga meets and quickly falls in love with a ruggedly handsome circus animal trainer named Craig. They marry and Olga goes on the road with her new husband. She immediately gains three sworn enemies in the closed community of the circus: her new father-in-law Andrew (who had pledged his son to marry a circus girl), Hilda (the circus girl in question), and Tina (jealous that her brother Karl – for whom she has an incestuous love – is attracted to Olga). 

Much of the novel is devoted to the ins and outs of this swirling melodrama and repeated attempts to undermine Olga in her husband's eyes. The most memorable part of the book revolves around Olga’s friendship with Elmer, a perpetually sad and reclusive clown. One night Elmer takes her in his small clown car to a rundown house in "the village." What transpires there is a phantasmagoric mix of a gay bathhouse encounter and the mirror maze scene from the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes leading to Olga’s sexual humiliation. Ultimately, all of the plots against Olga collapse as death and serious injury are visited upon her rivals by a seemingly just universe. Olga performs an illegal sex act on her husband Craig in the last few sentences of the book, making it clear that they will have a beautiful life together.

Having read both books several times, I have yet to decide whether they were written by the same author. The writing styles are dramatically different with the author of Mask appearing well-educated while the author of Funny seemingly barely escaped grade school. Mask is full of graphic, transgressive sexual acts. Funny is much tamer and, with few exceptions, stays on a "straight and narrow" path, sexually speaking. 

Moreover, Mask is overrun with characters, including many with no role whatsoever in advancing the plot, while Funny has a much tighter focus on eight individuals. The events of Mask take place in real-world locations (Long Island; Pelham, NY; Midtown Manhattan), with the Pelham, NY sequence accurately describing the town's geography. Funny, on the other hand, exists in a featureless void whose locations (the big city, the circus lot, the village) are simplistic generalities that are never described in any substantive way. 

Despite this, the books do share a number of elements: the sexual awakening of a young woman; the grateful sexual abuse victim trope; a similar approach toward introducing nudity and the initiation of sexual acts; orgasms described as planets crashing together (and on one occasion each as a kaleidoscope); repeated instances of sexual sadism; and masked, ceremonial sexual rituals. On this last point, both books feature women dressed as flowers erotically dancing to Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" (from the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker).

Is This You, Ed?

There certainly is a smattering of elements in Mask and Funny that might lead one to think that they were written by Eddie. One of Mask’s main characters has the alliterative name of Randy Ransome/Randon Ransome. Both books contain a sex scene where an orgasm is described as a kaleidoscope of colors, a practice that Eddie used in 17 of his 27 known novels (a rate of 63%; see Sources for the list of known novels). Funny includes a snake element that plays a pivotal role in one of the failed attempts to drive Olga away from the circus. Snakes, in some form, appear in 23 of 27 of Ed’s known novels (85%). 

Finally, there is this inspirational section of text from Mask:

Suddenly, she knew she had to scream. Her lips parted without volition and a harsh, rough sound poured from her. At the same time the young man's breathing became jagged, cutting litany. Infinity became finite and stood still.

Eddie had a penchant for invoking the concept of infinity in his writings.

On the other hand, Eddie never explicitly claimed that "Charlene White" was one of his pseudonyms. Neither Mask nor Funny was included in a list of published works that Eddie generated in the mid-1970s. Nor do they appear similar to the titles of any of his still-missing novels. As the participants on The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #22 concluded, the Wood-like elements in Mask are part of a larger text that was clearly not written by Eddie. His typical obsession with angora, excessive drinking, and a close attention to female clothing are nowhere to be found in either of these novels.

In an attempt to identify diagnostic features in Eddie’s writings, since 2016 I have applied grammar and language analysis tools, as well as statistical measures of word usage and textual complexity, to a group of 27 known Wood novels (see the list in Sources). After several iterations, a group of 45 keywords emerged that are common in Eddie’s novels. His use of this group averages 75% (Side-Show Siren is low at 53%; The Gay Underworld is high at 91%). By comparison, Mask and Funny infrequently use only a handful of the keywords, scoring a paltry 28% and 11% respectively. A twelve-word subset of the 45 keywords is particularly diagnostic because of their very high prevalence in Eddie’s novels.

• angora, fluff, lovely, pink, sheer, simply, sweater – 100%

• delight, nylon, panties – 96%

• furry, negligee – 92%

Mask uses only two keywords of this subset (negligee, pink); Funny does not use any of them.

One final metric that I’ve developed I like to call (tongue-in-cheek) Woodiness. It’s a numerical measure of keyword usage that is prorated to the average use of each individual keyword. Thus, an instance of a more commonly used keyword "scores" more points than a less commonly used keyword. The following plot shows this data [8]. Eddie's known novels have an average Woodiness value of 2754 (Side-Show Siren is low at 1224; TV Lust is high at 5493). In comparison, Mask and Funny score only 176 and 23 respectively. By all measures, these two books in no way resemble Eddie’s known novels.

Mask of Evil and Not So Funny are certainly worth collecting for their iconic Eric Stanton cover art, quirky story lines, and as relics of the battle waged by American publishers to expand the boundaries of our First Amendment protections. But don't collect them thinking they were authored by Ed Wood, Jr. Because all of the evidence is that they were written by someone else.

Sources

• Ed Wood, Jr. Collection, #7779, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM07779.html).

• The Ed Wood Jr. Sleaze Paperbacks Collection (https://www.boo-hooray.com/pages/archives/67/the-ed-wood-jr-sleaze-paperbacks-collection)

• The Hunt for Edward D. Wood, Jr. website (http://www.edwoodonline.com/thehunt/MAIN.html).

• The Ed Wood Summit Podcast, 2022, Episode #22, “Tearing off the Mask of Evil,” Greg Dziawer with James Pontolillo and Joe Blevins. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eV1nxszQDh0&t=3s&pp=2AEDkAIB).

• Brittany A. Daley, et al. (Eds.), 2005, Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties, Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 287 pp.

• Charlene White, 1966, Mask of Evil, FN 226, Buffalo, NY: First Niter Books Inc., 157 pp.

• Charlene White, 1966, Not So Funny, AH 145, Buffalo, NY: After Hours Books Inc., 157 pp.

• List of 27 known Ed Wood, Jr. novels: Black Lace Drag (1963), Parisian Passions (1966), Side Show Siren (1966), Drag Trade (1967), Security Risk (1967), Watts… the Difference (1967) Watts… After (1967), Devil Girls (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), It Takes One to Know One (1967), Suburbia Confidential (1967), The Gay Underworld (1968), Night Time Lez (1968) Sex, Shrouds and Caskets (1968), Young, Gay and Black (1968), Purple Thighs (1968), Hell Chicks (1968), Carnival Piece (1968), The Sexecutives (1968), Toni: Black Tigress (1969), To Make A Homo (1971), The Only House (1972), Mary-Go-Round (1972), Diary of a Transvestite Hooker (1973), Forced Entry (1974), Sex Salvation [Saving Grace] (1975), and TV Lust (1977).

• A number of Eddie’s well-known works were not included in this list because they were either not novels (e.g., socio-medical studies [The Oralists] and SECS Press collaborations) or they were written under goal-based restrictions that limited the content (e.g., movie tie-ins [Orgy of the Dead], photo novels [Raped in the Grass], and stage adaptations [Casual Company]).

Podcast Tuesday: "A Nice Pair of Cupcakes"

The future chick Cupcake (left) meets her exact double on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

I'm sure you've heard the theory that, somewhere in this world, there is a person who looks exactly like you. Same facial features, same hair, same body type, etc. There may even be more than one such person. The scientific validity of this is dubious at best, but it's still fun to think about. And it's a great plot device for writers, which is why it has turned up in so many movies, TV shows, plays, novels, short stories, etc. Two lookalike characters could intentionally switch places with each other, or one could simply be confused for the other and get into all kinds of wacky predicaments. Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Mark Twain has had a go at this kind of story.

The sitcom Happy Days was not exactly immune from clichés and stock situations, but they never did the classic "doppelganger" plot, unless you count the fact that actor Al Molinaro played two characters: amiable restaurateur Al Delvecchio and Al's rarely-seen brother, Father Delvecchio, a Catholic priest. Have no fear, though. The animated version of Happy Days did this type of story at least twice. In Season 1, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is mistaken for an outlaw in the Old West. Then, in Season 2, Cupcake (Didi Conn) meets her own double in 19th century Siam.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that Season 2 episode, appropriately titled "Double Jeopardy." As usual, we talk about a bunch of other stuff, including Peter Lorre's career and whether or not all the races will blend into one by the 25th century. We'd love it if you would join us.

Did you know I have a YouTube channel? I do. It's awesome, and you should definitely check it out!

How can I "pivot to video" if no one pivots with me?

If you're reading this article right now, you obviously know I have a blog. Thank you for reading it. But I'm a multimedia, multi-platform artiste, baby. I cover the waterfront. I'm everywhere all at once. I hope by now you're aware of my podcast, which has been going for six years now. (New episode on October 29, by the way.) If you look to the right-hand margin of this blog, you'll see a sidebar with links to all my other social media accounts and places online where you'll find my work. So much stuff there, well beyond the scope of this blog. I'm posting this little article to alert you to the existence of my YouTube channel. Lots of fun, goofy content over there, some of it Ed Wood-related and some not. Check it out and consider subscribing.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: A look at Ed Wood's 'A Study of Fetishes & Fantasies' (1973) (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Ed Wood gets kinky in this rarely-read 1973 book.

Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Norman Bates, 1973, A Study of Fetishes & Fantasies, Edusex Press ED 113, Los Angeles, CA: Gallery Press, Inc., 191 pp.

In 1973, the wisdom contained in this book commanded the princely sum of $3.95 ($27.98 today). By comparison, a gallon of regular gas was 40 cents, a copy of Playboy magazine was a $1.00, a gallon of milk was $1.31, and a first-class postage stamp would set you back eight cents. Careful editing has never been a hallmark of the adult publishing industry. So it is not surprising that the interior title page bears a slightly different title (A Study in Fetishes and Fantasies) and different author names (Norman Bates and Dick Trent) than shown on the covers. The introduction is also credited to Dick Trent and Norman Bates. As Ed's fans know, Dick Trent was one of Eddie's most commonly-used pseudonyms. Norman Bates, meanwhile, was fellow wage-slave writer Charles D. Anderson. 

An eye-catching front cover.

The book's most noticeable feature (and primary selling point) is its numerous pornographic photos. As one latter-day observer put it: "The photos are quite graphic, very 1970s, and are as easy on the sensitive eye as a papercut across the eyeball might be." Eighty-three black-and-white photos are arranged so that almost every two-page spread throughout the book consists of a page of text on the left and a captioned full-page photo on the right. Two eight-page full color photo inserts are also included, one near the front and one near the back of the book. 

The photos' subject matter is overwhelmingly heterosexual, including a selection of interracial couplings. There are a limited number of photos of lesbianism but – uncharacteristically for Gallery Press at this time – no photos of male homosexual acts. Three of the photos depict a man and woman having sex in a casket and are seemingly taken from the final sex scene in Eddie’s movie Necromania (1971). But the photos represent angles and depict actions, e.g., Maria Arnold on top of Ric Lutze during intercourse, not shown in the film itself. The photo captions throughout the book have that slightly odd ring to them that was the Gallery Press house style.

As is usual for an adult "sex study" from this era, a large portion of the book consists of extended quotes taken from other publications. The bibliography is entirely composed of medical and sociological textbooks or citations to mainstream news articles. Nothing is referenced from the contemporaneous sleaze literature. These borrowed portions are held together with the authors' paraphrasing and riffing on ideas drawn from the same sources or their fertile imaginations. There are sections throughout Fetishes & Fantasies that have Eddie's stylistic fingerprints all over them as seen in the excerpts which follow.

The small indignities of being Freddy Krueger

R.I.P. Ernest Rutherford.

The character of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) started out as a serious threat in Wes Craven's horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). In that film, Freddy is a vicious, hideously scarred killer who preys on suburban teenagers in the dream world. As the series progressed, however, Freddy became a pop culture sensation and, improbably, an icon to children and teens across America. The movies became campier in tone, and Freddy started cracking a lot more jokes between murders. Do you think he ever felt pressured to come up with clever one-liners and puns? I pondered that issue and turned it into the web comic above. Hope you enjoy.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 200: Ed Wood at 100

Ed Wood recently reached an important milestone.

October 10, 2024 was just another average Thursday to most people in the world, but to Ed Wood fans, it was something like a holy day of obligation. For that was the day that the notorious director of Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) turned 100. Or would have turned 100 if he hadn't died of alcohol-related heart failure in December 1978 at the age of 54. 

We used to call such special occasions "birthdays," even when the honoree was deceased. In more recent years, though, we've collectively decided that dead people don't have birthdays anymore. Now, they have "birth anniversaries" or "birthdates." I guess we were afraid of offending dead people. So let's say that October 10 was Ed Wood's 100th birth anniversary.

Whatever you call it, the day was marked by screenings of Ed Wood films at theaters across the country, especially in his home state of New York and his adopted state of California. It warms my heart to think that this man, largely ignored during his own life, should inspire such tributes nearly half a century after his death. I knew that I would probably have to attend at least one such event. But which one? Would there be a screening within reasonable driving distance of my apartment?

An Upstate Films screening in Ed's home state.

Fortunately, a few weeks ago, I was contacted by a nonprofit organization called Upstate Films, whose stated goal is to bring "transformative cinema experiences" to the Hudson Valley region of New York State. The group's screenings take place at a few venues, including the Starr Cinema in Rhinebeck and the Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties. Rhinebeck is in Dutchess County, just half an hour north of Ed's hometown of Poughkeepsie. It was their plan to honor their (almost) hometown boy with a screening of Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) on October 10, and they wanted a Wood expert on hand to offer some remarks.

I'm not sure how Upstate Films found me, but somehow they did. Even more unusually, they called me on the phone and left a voicemail. This is hardly the normal way to get in touch with me, but I'll admit that it got my attention. Eventually. See, I don't check my voicemail very often. But when I heard their message a few days after they left it, I gave Upstate Films a call back. A gentleman eventually put me in touch with the woman who was spearheading the event: a filmmaker in her own right named Katie Cokinos. We had a delightful chat that lasted about 40 minutes, and I exchanged emails with Katie and a few other folks from Upstate Films in the leadup to the show.

Katie is a big fan of the Burton biopic but admitted she wasn't all that conversant with Ed Wood's movies, not even the "famous" ones he made in the 1950s. That was where I came in. I've been studying and writing about these movies for years now and can talk about them for hours. But there are some potential pitfalls here. For many people, Ed Wood is simply a wide-eyed dreamer who made a handful of quirky low-budget movies in the 1950s. Such viewers are typically not comfortable delving into the darker, sadder, sleazier aspects of Ed's story, namely his descent into poverty and pornography, fueled by his out-of-control alcohol addiction.

On the very rare occasions when I am asked to be a podcast guest or interview subject, I try to gauge whether the host is okay with talking about the more sordid aspects of Ed Wood's life and career. If not, I know to stick to the relatively benign 1950s stuff: angora sweaters, UFOs on strings, plywood cemeteries, etc. From my discussions with Katie, I knew this was going to be one of those "keep it light and fun" kind of interviews. I explained that it would not be possible for me to travel to Rhinebeck to attend the screening in person, but I would be happy to make my presentation via Zoom. This was amenable to Upstate Films, and arrangements were soon made. Before it vanishes forever from the internet, here is a listing for the event, including my self-penned introduction.

It's wonderful to be here. It's certainly a thrill.

In addition to making some remarks and answering questions after the film, I was asked to prepare a highlight reel from Ed's 1950s movies. I wanted to focus on what I considered the "greatest hits" from this era, especially the moments that were relevant to the Tim Burton film. Below is the video presentation that I created for that night, containing my favorite moments from Glenda and Bride. (For Plan 9, I merely suggested they show the film's iconic trailer.)

On October 10, I was asked to do a soundcheck a couple of hours in advance of the screening. This was how I realized that not everyone at the Starr Cinema was as interested in Eddie and his movies as I was. Katie had been very keen to hear what I had to say, naturally, as had the Upstate Films people I'd been dealing with up to that point. For some of the other employees, however, this was just another screening, and I was just some random dude they had to deal with that day. I also learned that it was quite unusual for a guest speaker to appear via Zoom rather than in person, so I was presenting them with some unique technical challenges. The fact that I was speaking after the movie also meant that they had to stay a little longer at the end of their workday. Sorry, folks. What can I say?

I want to emphasize that no one was rude or hostile, just curt and businesslike. A tech guy asked me to start talking so he could hear how my voice sounded over the speakers. I responded by reading a passage from Ed Wood's short story "The Night the Banshee Cried." For some reason, I started hamming it up a bit for this employee, who was busy adjusting various things around the theater. I thought he'd get a kick out of it. After a few minutes, though, I noticed he had not said anything or responded in any way.

"W-was that good? I asked, tentatively.

"Mm hmm," he responded flatly. "You're coming through very clear. Maybe a half-second delay."

He sounded like a bored drive-through employee telling me to pull up to the next window. Or a traffic cop letting me off with a warning this time. I have to admit, I was a little deflated. 

My post-movie presentation, however, went swimmingly. Katie Cokinos acted as moderator and was as enthused as ever. Fielding questions from both the audience and from Katie, I talked about how I came to be an Ed Wood fan and how accurate or inaccurate the 1994 biopic is. Other topics included: the long-planned yet seemingly never-to-be statue of Ed Wood in Poughkeepsie; the fate of Ed's mortal remains; Ed's somewhat embellished war record; and whether or not Lillian Wood dressed her son in women's clothing when he was a child. Katie was kind enough to ask me about Ed's "monster nudies," which gave me an opportunity to plug Dad Made Dirty Movies (2020). The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes.

The way the Zoom call was set up, by the way, I could see the Starr Cinema auditorium from my end. As I suspected, the audience was incredibly miniscule, and a few sleepy folks shuffled out as my portion of the show began. I think, by the end, I was talking to no more than a dozen people. But that didn't bother me. It's about comparable with the stats on many of my articles, videos, and podcasts. What mattered was that I was able to spend this day doing something Woodian. I'd have felt guilty somehow if I hadn't marked the occasion.

Ed, wherever you are, I hope you appreciated the gesture.

The interior of the Starr Cinema. (And this is pretty much how it looked when I spoke.)

Podcast Tuesday: "Journey to the Center of the Fonz"

This week, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) goes underground on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

We've all been trained by science fiction to think that outer space is mankind's ultimate goal. There's a whole universe out there, just waiting for us, and we should explore it. That make sense. When our own planet (inevitably) blows up or becomes uninhabitable, we may even have to move to outer space so that humanity can continue. The problem is that getting to outer space is currently quite expensive and difficult, and space is really not hospitable to human life anyway. That doesn't stop us from dreaming, though. 

Every once in a while, a sci-fi author will give us an alternative to exploring outer space. There's so much of our home planet that we haven't explored yet, namely the oceans. A lot could be happening down there, like talking fish people or sunken cities or whatever. That's why we have shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, SeaQuest DSV, Sealab 2020, Sealab 2021, The Man from Atlantis, and even Snorks. The sea is not quite as enticing to us as outer space, but it's (potentially) pretty darned interesting anyway. 

Another alternative to outer space is the strange, vast world that exists beneath the surface of the earth, right below our feet. I don't think there are too many stories about this topic, but some famous ones do exist. The movie The Mole People (1956) comes to mind as an example, as does Below the Earth's Surface (2008). Let's not forget The Phantom Empire (1935) and Unknown World (1951). The granddaddy of them all is Jules Verne's novel Voyage to the Center of the Earth (1864), which has been adapted to film numerous times, most notably in 1959 with James Mason.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we are reviewing the episode "It's All Downhill from Here," which is the Happy Days version of a "hollow earth" story. Was it worth the trip? You can find out below.

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Appendix: The Correspondence of Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi"

Ed Wood was a man of letters. Many of them.

NOTE: This article concludes my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Appendix" by Frank Dello Stritto and Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Synopsis: Circa April 1973, author Frank Dello Stritto visited the Ackermansion, the Los Angeles home of Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J. Ackerman. While there, he found some old letters that had been written by Ed Wood in March 1954, most of them addressed to actor Bela Lugosi. Dello Stritto meticulously dictated them into a tape recorder, then transcribed the recordings when he got home to New Jersey. What follows are nine of those letters.

Edwin Schallert.

March 1, 1954: Ed is trying to secure work for Bela, who is headlining a revue at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas. During a recent work trip to Vegas, Ed managed to run up a bill of $300, which amounts to over $3,000 in today's money. Bela is now obligated to pay most of this, with Ed contributing $48 of his own money. Ed disputes the bill and says it is very important to him that people know he is not trying to take advantage of Bela in any way, financially or otherwise. Eddie Fox, the publicity director for the Silver Slipper, is in Los Angeles to meet with a talent agent named Lou Sherrill. Ed says he will meet with Eddie Fox to discuss the matter personally, and he chastises Bela for mentioning the money dispute to Lou Sherrill. ("You could have come to me first.")

Meanwhile, Ed is convinced that the upcoming film The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954) will be "a hell of a lift" for Lugosi's career. He imagines the news stories it will generate, bringing attention to both Lugosi and the Silver Slipper. Furthermore, Ed says that Lou Sherrill has an idea for a new nightclub act starring Bela. Ed tells Bela that the actor's comeback is in full swing and that more triumphs lie ahead. As an example, Ed says he is talking to Los Angeles Times writer Edwin Schallert, who is planning a big article about Bela Lugosi. Schallert is headed to Vegas to review actor Howard Keel's show, and he will be swinging by the Silver Slipper to check out Bela's revue.

Ed warns Bela not to get taken by all the "sharpies" in Las Vegas. Ed says that, when he was there on business, he kept track of every expense he incurred. Bela should not pay for anything that Ed did not account for personally. He worries that he now looks bad in the eyes of Lou Sherrill. Ed stresses that Bela needs to tell Lou this was all a misunderstanding and that Ed is not a conman or a parasite.

Ed then returns to the subject of the Bowery Boys movie. Ed tells Bela not to worry about learning all the dialogue in the script. "We'll get it this time," he says. Ed claims to have a three-picture deal with Howco and declares that at least one of these films will be a star vehicle for Bela. According to Ed, horror films are enjoying newfound popularity at the moment; he points to some 3D films from Universal and Warner Bros. as examples. Bela's new film should fit right in. Eddie closes the letter by rehashing the matter of the $300 bill and emphasizing that he is being honest and scrupulous in his dealings with Bela.

March 5, 1954: Several days later, Ed responds to a "seven-point note" from Lugosi. Ed says that Schallert's story has not been printed yet. When it is, Ed will buy ten copies and send five to Lou Sherrill. Ed also thanks Bela for explaining the previous awkward situation to Lou via telegram. ("His attitude changed for the better almost immediately.")

Ed says that "the troubles on my picture [presumably 1954's Jail Bait] have ended," meaning that he will now be able to pay his previous debt to Bela. On the other hand, producer George Weiss says that Ed and Bela's previous film, Glen or Glenda (1953), has not turned a profit yet.  Ed is dubious of this, because Weiss has managed to pay off $1,000 in debts since it opened and Ed is owed 50% of the take. Ed further claims he has two more films in the works and thinks he can get Bela $5,000 for ten days of work. Ed will be producing Bela's movie for Monogram and will decide who gets paid what.

Ed mentions some press clippings that Bela has sent him. Ed says he forwarded these to Alex Gordon for preservation. Ed also congratulates Bela on extending his Vegas show another two weeks and says that it will not be difficult to line up some film work for the veteran actor now. He boasts that, between himself and Lou Sherrill, Bela now has "two good men on [his] side." Ed closes the letter by promising to write again soon. He also asks about some "collars" and some publicity photos.

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Afterword"

The day Ed Wood stood still.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Afterword" by Fred Adams, Jr.

Synopsis: In this appreciative essay, the author talks about how Ed Wood's ineptitude is ironically what brought him everlasting fame. People love to poke fun at how cheap and shoddy Ed's 1950s films were, but we shouldn't overlook the director's resourcefulness and ingenuity in making them with such limited resources. He didn't have big budgets, and he had to use his friends and acquaintances to play many of the roles in his movies. Would prestigious directors like Cecil B. DeMille and Robert Wise have fared as well under such circumstances?

Recognizable stars like Tor Johnson, Vampira, and Lyle Talbot may have been slumming when they appeared in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), but at least they were working. Ed Wood is often called out for his reliance on stock footage and library music, but even big-budget films have used these shortcuts. Besides, Ed didn't have the money to hire composers or film expensive action sequences. He wasn't working in the studio system; he was piecing these films together from whatever scraps of material he had. Plan 9 can be seen, then, as Ed Wood's ultimate labor of love.

Excerpt:

Plan 9 was finished for $60,000. Imagine Robert Wise filming The Day the Earth Stood Still on that budget. Gort would have had stovepipes for legs and a welding mask for his face. Forbidden Planet cost just under $2 million, $125,000 of it spent to build Robby the Robot. With that kind of budget, Ed Wood might have enlisted the likes of Ray Harryhausen to animate his flying saucers instead of using Cadillac hubcaps dangling from fishing line.

An inverted ice cream cone.

Reflections: This fun little essay by author Fred Adams, Jr. (presumably this gentleman) gave me flashbacks to a track called "Cheepnis" by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention from the double live album Roxy & Elsewhere (1974). The song is a tribute to low-budget monster movies of the 1950s, and the strangely-spelled title refers to a special quality that these films have. Frank begins the song with a spoken-word monologue in which he explains the concept in more detail:

I love monster movies. I simply adore monster movies. And the cheaper they are, the better they are. And cheepnis in the case of a monster movie has nothing to do with the budget of the film, although it helps. But true cheepnis is exemplified by visible nylon strings attached to the jaw of a giant spider. 

I'll tell you a good one that I saw one time. I think the name of the film was It Conquered the World. Did you ever see that one? The monster looks sort of like an inverted ice-cream cone with teeth around the bottom. It looks like a teepee or a rounded-off pup tent affair. And it's got fangs on the base of it. I don't know why, but it's a very threatening sight. And then he's got a frown and an ugly mouth and everything .

There's this one scene where the monster is coming out of a cave. See? There's always a scene where they come out of a cave, at least once. And the rest of the cast... It must have been made around the 1950s. The lapels are about like that wide. The ties are about that wide, and they're about this short, and they always have a little revolver that they're gonna shoot the monster with. And there's always a girl who falls down and twists her ankle. Of course there is. You know how they are, the weaker sex and everything! Twisting their ankle on behalf of the little ice cream cone.  

Well, in this particular scene, folks, they didn't want to retake it because it must have been so good they wanted to keep it. But when the monster came out of the cave, just over on the left hand side of the screen, you see about this much two-by-four attached to the bottom of the thing as the guy is pushing it out, and then obviously off-camera somebody's going, "No! Get it back!" And they drag it just a little bit as the guy is going, "Kkkkhhhh! Kkkkhhhh!"  Now that's cheepnis!

While Roger Corman's It Conquered the World (1956) has no direct connection to Ed Wood, it came out around the same time as Wood's own Bride of the Monster (1955) and the aforementioned Plan 9 and is cut from the same cloth as them. Zappa's comment about Beverly Garland, the heroine of It Conquered the World, twisting her ankle reminded me of the scene in Plan 9 in which Mona McKinnon falls in the graveyard while running from the Ghoul Man (Bela Lugosi and Tom Mason). I can vouch for the part about monsters emerging from caves, too. While Eddie never actually filmed at Bronson Caves, many of his contemporaries did, most notably Phil Tucker of Robot Monster (1953) infamy.

(Side note: Fred Adams, Jr. speculates that, if Ed Wood had a bigger budget, he could have hired Elmer Bernstein. Well, Phil Tucker had no budget, and he did hire Elmer Bernstein!)

This was a very particular era in sci-fi and horror when the films were aimed largely at teenage audiences and employed wildly improbable stories, dubious acting, and extremely wonky special effects. For the most part, sci-fi and horror basically melded into one big genre during this time. The titles of such films were meant to grab you by the neck and force you to pay attention. I notice that some of the same words turn up in a lot of them: invasion, creature, attack, space, monster, robot, etc. The golden age seems to have started in the early 1950s and lasted until the mid-1960s or so.

Sure, there were classier films like Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) being made by the big studios, but many or most of these flicks were down at the Roger Corman level, especially the independently-produced ones. I don't know if anyone has given a name to this particular chapter of film history—apart from Frank Zappa, who called it "Cheepnis"—but this era is absolutely crucial to an entire nerdy subculture built around the ironic appreciation of so-called "bad movies." The cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, whose very title evokes the era, could not have existed without such movies. I think the key to the popularity of these films is that they're preposterous and easily risible, but they're also generally fast-paced, action-packed, and fun.

Much of the Ed Wood phenomenon is rooted in this "Cheepnis" era of film history. The Wood cult centers around the handful of films he made during this period. Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) is largely about this. The stories in Warm Angora Wishes focus on this era almost exclusively. It's certainly where I started my journey into Woodology in the 1990s. Now, after more than three decades of studying the life and work of Edward D. Wood, Jr., I have come to think of "Cheepnis" as being just one aspect of the man's career. In fact, Ed's peak of productivity (roughly 1968-1973) occurred after this era was over. But I realize that some fans are just here for the 1950s stuff, so I try to give them some of that while acknowledging that there are other avenues to explore.

You might think that, since I'm reviewing a piece called "Afterword," I am done with Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams. No. No, indeed. There is one more piece to go, and it might just be one of the most interesting things in this entire anthology. Stay tuned.