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| Bela Lugosi and the Hindenburg both had an impact on Ed Wood's childhood. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).
The story: "Plan One from Poughkeepsie" by Frank Dello Stritto
Synopsis: December 1936, Poughkeepsie, New York. Edward D. Wood, Jr., 12 years of age, skips school to attend a showing of The Invisible Ray starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The truant officer catches him and reports him to his parents. Apparently, Eddie does this kind of thing frequently, much to his father's chagrin. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day, Eddie's parents give him his own 8mm movie camera, a Kodak Cine Special. Junior stores this treasured gift in the same closet where he keeps the dress that his mother gave him.
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| A Bela Lugosi serial. |
During that same Christmas break, Eddie sees the final chapter of a Bela Lugosi serial called Shadow of Chinatown (1936). The ending is a dud, but this is how the budding filmmaker learns about stock footage. He dreams of making a combination horror film and Western starring his idol, Buck Jones. Has anyone done that before, he wonders?
May 1937. Junior has been struggling to learn how to use his new camera, and some of his precious, expensive footage has been overexposed. But he does manage to film the Hindenburg as it flies overhead. Later, over the radio, he hears that the famed German airship has burst into flames. He makes sure to take good care of the film he shot.
December 1937. Eddie, now 13, watches another Lugosi serial called SOS Coast Guard at the local movie theater with his friends. The only part he likes is how Lugosi's villainous character is killed alongside his giant sidekick, Thorg. He also sees a newsreel about the Hindenburg and remembers the footage he has stashed away in his closet. He shows the film at school, where it makes a big hit with his classmates. This is the moment when he decides he wants to be a filmmaker when he grows up. Again, he carefully stashes the film in the closet at home alongside his favorite dress.
December 1939. Two years have passed, and Eddie is still watching Bela Lugosi serials. This time, it's The Phantom Creeps, with Bela as a mad scientist with a killer robot. Eddie is shocked and thrilled when the film uses a clip of the Hindenburg flying over what might be Poughkeepsie. Eddie is again impressed by the clever use of stock footage and vows to make his own movies someday.
Excerpt:
Junior and his friends sat in the theatre. He told them about an Amazing Story that he had just read. A mad doctor was trying to create a race of supermen. Then the boys ran through the plot of the serial whose first 11 chapters they had seen. The last chapter would start in a few moments. The houselights dimmed.
Reflections: It had never occurred to me to compare Ed Wood to Jean Shepherd, but "Plan One from Poughkeepsie" reads like an alternate universe version of A Christmas Story (1983). Imagine Ed Wood as Ralphie, pining for a Kodak Cine Special instead of a Red Ryder BB gun, with cantankerous but lovable Ed Wood, Sr. as the Old Man, Lillian Wood as Mrs. Parker, and Eddie's little brother Bill as Randy Parker.
In this short story, much of which takes place at Christmas, young Eddie is inspired by the same things that inspire Ralphie: comic books, radio shows, and cowboy films. Since Ed Wood and Jean Shepherd were born just a few years apart (1924 and 1921, respectively), it stands to reason they had similar experiences growing up in America. I'd imagine, however, that if young Eddie got a fuzzy pink bunny suit for Christmas, he would secretly love it.
"Plan One from Poughkeepsie" is Frank Dello Stritto's imagining of what Ed Wood's childhood in 1930s Poughkeepsie was like. As the author admits in the story's prologue, he's really piecing this narrative together from the few scraps of information we have about Ed's adolescence. And since Eddie had such a tenuous relationship with reality, who knows how much of this actually happened? All we can do is guess. It's to Dello Stritto's credit that "Plan One" is plausible. It may or may not be accurate, but it seems like it could be. It has the ring of truth to it.