Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 273: 'Plan 69 from Outer Space' (1993)

This was director Frank Marino's other Ed Wood parody from the 1990s.

It is surprisingly easy to romanticize the adult film industry of the 1970s. This was the decade of "porno chic" when it briefly became fashionable, even respectable, for couples to attend X-rated movies. The stars of these productions, like Linda Lovelace, Harry Reems, and Marilyn Chambers, became household names. The movies themselves were shot on actual film, and directors like Gerard Damiano and Radley Metzger actually attempted to tell stories. This is the era eulogized in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997), which ends just as the industry is pivoting to home video.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 270: The Ed Wood/Chuck Berry double feature of 1959! [PART 2]

Two 1950s icons: Chuck Berry and Vampira!

Last week, we talked about how Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) was teamed up with Paul Landres' Go, Johnny, Go! (1959) for a popular, widely-seen double feature that played at dozens of theaters and drive-ins, including numerous bookings in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Delaware, and Connecticut, among many other places. This was how thousands of American teenagers (and a few Canadian ones) saw Eddie's most famous film for the first time, and it must have made a major impression on at least some of them. Who knows? Maybe some future filmmaker attended one of these screenings and thought, "I could do that."

Hal Roach.

As I said, it was likely Plan 9 investor Ed Reynolds who sold the film to a New York company called Distributors Corporation of America circa 1958. That company retitled the film (it had originally been Grave Robbers from Outer Space) and created a vigorous marketing campaign for it, including an iconic if somewhat misleading poster designed by artist Tom Jung. To this day, most prints of the movie still begin with the DCA logo. While none of this was financially advantageous to Ed Wood, at least the movie he considered his pride and joy was getting in front of audiences.

While it was a natural to pair a sci-fi movie with a rock & roll movie, since both genres had such strong teenage appeal in the 1950s, the real connection between Plan 9 and Johnny might have been legendary producer Hal Roach (1892-1992), best known for his work with Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd, and the Our Gang series. Roach's name turns up periodically in the Ed Wood story as well. Eddie, for instance, remembered meeting comic actor Franklin Pangborn at Hal Roach's studio. And Heather Tanchuck, daughter of screenwriter Nathaniel Tanchuck, had a vague memory of Eddie himself working for Roach. (Considering the Pangborn story, she might've been right!)

Hal Roach bought DCA in 1958, right around the time the company purchased Grave Robbers from Outer Space from Ed Reynolds. In Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), actor Gregory Walcott suggests that it was Roach who brokered the sale. And Hal's son, Hal Roach, Jr. (1918-1972), was one of the producers of Go, Johnny, Go! In his self-titled 1987 autobiography, Chuck Berry recalled spending "five days in Culver City, California, working at the Hal Roach Studio" making Go, Johnny, Go! and being impressed by "all the big movie cameras and technical equipment." The two films also shared a marketing firm, Ben Adler Advertising Services. Adler employee Tom Jung designed the poster for Johnny as well.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 269: The Ed Wood/Chuck Berry double feature of 1959! [PART 1]

Two movies, one poster artist! Yes, Tom Jung painted both of these.

Ed Wood's most famous film, the sci-fi/horror hybrid Grave Robbers from Outer Space, premiered at the Carlton Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday, March 15, 1957. Lord only knows what the audience thought of it. Eddie certainly must have been curious, because he handed out comment cards to his viewers, asking for their favorite scenes and whatever miscellaneous thoughts they might have about the movie. (I wonder if any filled-out cards have survived from that fateful night?)

To say the least, Grave Robbers is an oddity, combining wonky special effects, stilted dialogue, a surreal plot about an alien invasion of Earth, grainy footage of the late Bela Lugosi, and even the pseudo-apocalyptic rantings of TV personality Criswell. The end result is less like a coherent narrative and more like a strange, half-remembered dream somehow preserved on celluloid. For these reasons and more, writer-director Wood had very little luck getting Grave Robbers distributed after the premiere. As actor Gregory Walcott told Rudolph Grey in the book Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992): "Nobody would touch the darn thing." Even with such well-known figures as Lugosi, Criswell, Tor Johnson, and Vampira in the cast, the movie was going to be a tough sell. 

Was there Hope for Plan 9?

Producer Ed Reynolds was understandably nervous about all this, since he'd sunk plenty of his own money into the production and had convinced others at the First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills to do the same. How was he going to get any of his (or their) money back? According to both Gregory Walcott and Ed Wood's widow, Kathy, it was Reynolds who wrangled control of Graverobbers away from Ed Wood and sold the film to a New York company called Distributors Corporation of America. 

This sale proved a turning point in the movie's history. In 1958, DCA changed the title to Plan 9 from Outer Space and released it to theaters and drive-ins across America—on a limited basis at first, then more widely starting in July 1959. By 1960, Plan 9 was already popping up on television, where it would remain a late-night staple for decades. I've seen no evidence that Eddie profited from this, and I doubt the original investors were reimbursed either, but at least somebody was making money from the movie. And, more crucially, it was being seen by thousands of impressionable youngsters.

Back in those days, double and triple features were much more common than they are today. Theatergoers of the 1950s were accustomed to getting multiple films for the price of admission, plus some added cartoons and shorts. Sometimes, theaters would offer a big budget main feature and a cheaply-made second feature on the same bill. That's what B-movies originally were, essentially cinematic appetizers for more prestigious films. But, as can be seen in vintage newspaper ads from the 1950s and '60s, it was also fairly common for two or three low-budget films of roughly equal stature to be packaged together and shown on the same bill. Which was the "main" feature? Flip a coin.

With its brisk 80-minute runtime and rock bottom price point, Plan 9 from Outer Space was an ideal "programmer," i.e. a movie that could fill out a double or triple bill as either the main or supporting feature. And that was its fate for years. In various American cities, it was paired up with such titles as Outlaw Women (1952), Alias Jesse James (1959), The Crawling Eye (1958), Devil Girl from Mars (1954), Time Lock (1957), and The Trap (1959). Most of these are sci-fi and horror films, as you'd expect, but some are comedies and Westerns. So exhibitors must have felt that the genre-hopping Plan 9 made a suitable companion to just about anything they had to offer. (I've even argued that the finale of Plan 9 is Western-like, since Tom Keene, Greg Walcott, and Duke Moore form a posse and settle their differences with the aliens with a barroom-style brawl.)

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 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.)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 259: Okay, fine, I'll talk about 'Vampire Zombies... From Space!' (2024)

Some moments from the genre-hopping comedy Vampire Zombies... From Space.

I try never to dismiss a whole genre or subgenre of movies. In fact, it irritates me when I hear people say things like, "I hate all musicals," "I don't like science-fiction," or "I never watch Westerns." Because it means that they've dismissed a huge number of movies they've (mostly) never seen in one fell swoop. To me, statements like that suggest a depressing lack of intellectual curiosity. You're telling me you won't watch a movie because it's in a broad category you don't like? As John Waters would say, that's "contempt without investigation." 

I've been down this road before.

Having said all that—and here I reveal myself as a total hypocrite—there is one subgenre of movies that I approach with extreme skepticism: the fake B-movie. You know, those self-conscious comedies that satirize the low-budget movies of the past while also paying tribute to them. I'm talking about stuff like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001), Buddy BeBop vs. the Living Dead (2009), and Frankenstein vs. The Creature from Blood Cove (2005). You'd be surprised how many of these movies there are, and I feel like I've sat through more than my fair share of them over the years.

More often than not, these movies make me feel vaguely guilty. They're labors of love, but I rarely love them back. The people who make movies like this grew up watching cheap sci-fi and horror flicks, and now they just want to honor their earliest influences in a fun, playful way. What's wrong with that? Well, nothing... in theory. 

But these movies are constantly elbowing you in the ribs, desperate for you to know that they're "in on the joke." They always make a point of emphasizing how shoddy the special effects are, how clunky the dialogue is, and how improbable the story is. They never trust you, the viewer, to figure out any of that on your own. Everyone in the cast seemingly has a license to overact with total abandon, too, as if their lines are somehow funnier if they YELL EVERY WORD! You can always count on plenty of in-jokes and pop culture references in these movies, and there's a good chance you'll be seeing some winking celebrity cameos along the way. It's all much of a muchness. 

Some of these fake B-movies are tributes to Edward D. Wood, Jr., which, I guess, makes them my problem. Or my jurisdiction. And so, I've dutifully sat through John Johnson's Plan 9 (2015) and Andre Perkowski's Devil Girls (1999) and The Vampire's Tomb (2013). Generally, these movies are not a lot of fun for me. I appreciate what the directors are trying to do, but the forced wackiness becomes oppressive after a while. It's like being stuck in an elevator with a college improv troupe.

And that brings us to the movie I'm covering this week. I've known about Michael Stasko's Vampire Zombies... From Space! (2024) for a while now. I get Google alerts about Ed Wood on a daily basis, and there have been plenty of articles over the last year or so about Vampire Zombies and how it compares to Ed's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). I've been studiously avoiding Stasko's film for months, namely because of my previously-stated aversion to fake B-movies. I'd only gotten as far as the (admittedly kind of fun) trailer and didn't feel like exploring this matter any further. Yes, I was guilty of "contempt without investigation."

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 258: Have we been watching Ed's movies all wrong for decades?

This week, we focus on a certain, uh, aspect of Ed Wood's movies.

I'm sorry, you guys, but we have to talk about aspect ratios this week. I know, I know. I'll try to make this as painless as possible. But I'm going somewhere with this, and it relates to Ed Wood. Be patient. Keep in mind that I am not a filmmaker and not even a photographer, so you will have to forgive me if I am technically imprecise. If you can do better, please do.

Kylie does not approve.

As a kid, I honestly never gave much thought to the geometrical dimensions of TV screens or movie screens. (What kid notices stuff like this?) I knew that TVs were squares and movies were rectangles, but I didn't perceive that as a problem. Starting sometime in the mid-1980s, however, a few films—usually artsier titles like Amarcord (1973) and Manhattan (1979)—were released in what was called a "letterboxed format" on VHS and laserdisc. This trend continued into the 1990s, becoming well-known, if not well-loved, among consumers. Letterboxing meant that there would be black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, allowing the entire film frame (usually 1.85:1) to fit within the TV screen (usually 1.37:1 or 4:3) and not have the sides of the picture lopped off.

Letterboxing quickly became controversial, even hated. Film critics insisted it maintained the integrity of the original films and saved them from the indignity of the pan-and-scan process. Viewers, however, felt that letterboxing took movies that had already been shrunk down for television and then made them even smaller until they were difficult to see. And, besides, it meant that about half your screen was taken up by empty black space. How was that an improvement? You can see people's frustrations made manifest in the 1987 music video "The Loco-Motion" by Kylie Minogue. At one point, the familiar black bars appear at the top and bottom of the screen. Kylie scowls at them a little and flicks them away with her finger. The video then returns to its usual 1.37:1 or "fullscreen" aspect ratio.

It should be pointed out that this widescreen vs fullscreen issue generally only affects movies made from the 1950s onward. Before that, it was standard practice for movies to be filmed and projected in what was called Academy ratio, roughly 1.37:1. Classics like The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Casablanca (1942) were shot in this ratio, which meant that they did not have to be cropped when shown on television. We may think of Gone with the Wind (1939) as a widescreen epic, but it isn't. It's Academy ratio, too.

Eventually, TV sets became widescreen, and the letterboxing controversy all but evaporated. (Though we now have the exact opposite controversy, with old 4:3 episodes of shows like The Simpsons being cropped or distorted to fit newfangled TV sets.) Today, YouTube is able to accommodate videos of various aspect ratios. There are even numerous movies with multiple aspect ratios. This became semi-trendy in the 2000s and 2010s, thanks to directors like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Nowadays, most people watch things on their phones, so "cinematic integrity" is not exactly a top priority anymore. If you want to see a film the way the director intended (or whatever), you go to a movie theater or get it on Blu-ray or 4K. Otherwise, who cares?

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 257: Carl Anthony (1932-2021) [PART 2 OF 2]

Is there more to say about Carl Anthony? I'd better hope so.

Last week, as you'll recall, we were talking about actor Carl Anthony (birth name: Carl Anthony Wuco), who played prominent roles in two of Ed Wood's best-known movies, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and The Sinister Urge (1960). We discussed how Carl grew up the youngest of three brothers in a Croatian-American family in the suburbs of Cleveland before pursuing a career in show business, first as a daredevil pilot in Florida and then as a film and television actor in Hollywood. 

Quite an intiguing character, this Carl Anthony. But I neglected to talk about the thing Carl's actually remembered for: his film career.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 256: Carl Anthony (1932-2021) [PART 1 OF 2]

It's time to shine a spotlight on a key player in the Ed Wood canon.

I have not been especially kind in my descriptions of actor Carl Anthony (1932-2021), a friend of Ed Wood who played prominent roles in both Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and The Sinister Urge (1960) and who later appeared as an interview subject in the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood (1992). Here are some of the adjectives I've applied to Carl's work over the years: "colorless," "pedestrian," "stiff," "dull," and "uncomfortable." Not exactly the rave of the century. Hey, at least Carl got his own trading card in Drew Friedman's Ed Wood Players set. 

Carl's trading card.

Look, if you're studying the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr., you're going to spend some time (vicariously) with Carl Anthony. Hearing his voice. Looking at his face. And Carl is maybe, just maybe, not the most fun actor to watch. Though they're on opposite sides of the law, his characters in both Plan 9 and Sinister are kind of the same: surly, impatient, and unimaginative. This actor has the demeanor of a man waiting for a bus that will never arrive. And he has a pebble in his shoe the entire time.

But Christmas is a time for forgiveness and reconciliation, and I thought I'd give Carl's work a more charitable evaluation this year. Perhaps it will help to learn more about the man himself. He was born Carl Anthony Wuco in Garfield Heights, OH, a suburb of Cleveland, on November 4, 1932. That makes him one of the younger members of the Ed Wood repertory company. Of his Plan 9 costars, the closest in age would have been Conrad Brooks, born in 1931.

Carl's parents, Anthony and Gloria, stayed in Garfield Heights while their son moved first to Florida and finally to California to pursue his show business aspirations. According to back-to-back obituaries that ran in the August 22, 1965 edition of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, both Anthony and Gloria died "suddenly" on Monday, August 16, 1965. Details about their deaths will be included in next week's article.

Carl Anthony Wuco had two older brothers: Walter (who died in 2004) and Raymond (who died on December 30, 2014 at the age of 86). Raymond's elaborate obituary in the January 7, 2015 edition of The Cleveland Plain Dealer is quite an entertaining read by itself. Raymond was a distinguished mathematics teacher who spent 25 years as a religious Brother in the Marianist Catholic order but left the order in the early 1970s and married a woman named Lynn Valin in 1975. The two met when Raymond was teaching at a college in California. His academic career lasted 50 years and spanned both the monk and non-monk eras of his life. The obituary also reveals that the family name Wuco was originally Vuco, which is Croatian in origin. If you're wondering where Carl Anthony got his dark wavy hair and strong jawline, it's his Croatian roots.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 252: Additional thoughts on Bela Lugosi's appearance in Plan 9

We know Bela Lugosi appears in Plan 9. But how did that footage get there?

As Americans prepare to travel and reunite with loved ones for the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I'd share some feedback I received about last week's article. If you'll recall, I prepared an alternate cut of Ed Wood's notorious sci-fi/horror hybrid Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) that only includes the silent footage of actor Bela Lugosi (1882-1956). The legendary Hungarian actor famously died before the movie was ever completed, and Plan 9 was somewhat deceptively marketed as his farewell performance. I challenged my readers to consider what they might have done with this footage if they'd been in Ed Wood's high-heeled shoes.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 251: The last footage of Bela Lugosi

A scowling Bela Lugosi made his last onscreen appearance in Plan 9.

It's one of the most famous anecdotes in the life of Edward D. Wood, Jr. It could even be the linchpin of the entire Wood saga, the source of much of Eddie's mystique. According to legend, the director took a few minutes of footage of a dead actor and built a whole movie around it—not just any movie, either, but an infamous movie! If you've seen the Tim Burton-directed biopic from 1994, it's a story you already know well. But how much of it is the truth? Let's talk about it.

"This is the acorn."

When legendary Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi died in August 1956 at the age of 73, director Ed Wood was devastated. Not only had he lost a good friend, he'd lost his leading man. Bela had starred in Glen or Glenda (1953) and Bride of the Monster (1955) for Eddie and was supposed to star in numerous upcoming Wood productions, like The Ghoul Goes West and The Vampire's Tomb. Now those plans were permanently canceled.

But Eddie had an ace up his sleeve: a reel of silent test footage he'd shot of Bela Lugosi shortly before the great man's death. Sure, it was only a few minutes of film and it didn't really tell much of a story, but Ed Wood still felt it could be the starting point for a feature-length motion picture. As Johnny Depp puts it in the Tim Burton film: "This is the acorn that will grow a great oak." Eddie's plan was to film a bunch of new scenes and extend Bela's role through the use of a carefully-disguised body double. 

The amazing thing is that Ed Wood actually carried out this seemingly insane plan. The result was a completely bonkers sci-fi/horror hybrid called Graverobbers from Outer Space, which premiered in Hollywood on March 15, 1957. It was later retitled Plan 9 from Outer Space and eventually gained a reputation as the worst movie ever made, thanks to coverage in various sci-fi/horror fan magazines and the book The Golden Turkey Awards (1980). It is, hands down, the most famous project Ed Wood was ever involved in.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 250: Bill Ash (1926-2011)

Bill Ash has a brief but memorable turn in Plan 9.

There are just 21 credited actors in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). The majority of these folks were members of Eddie's social circle and worked with him on multiple projects, often spanning years. If you're reading this article, you know their names by now: Criswell, Duke Moore, Connie Brooks, Dudley Manlove, Tor Johnson, Lyle Talbot, Carl Anthony, and so on. The troupers. The ride-or-die crowd. Even Vampira and John Breckinridge, neither of whom ever appeared in another Wood film, found their names forever linked to Eddie's because of Plan 9.

But some of the credited performers in Plan 9 must be considered ringers. Or, better yet, hired guns. Eddie cast them for this one project only, then never worked with them again. These were fledgling actors in mid-1950s Hollywood, and Plan 9 was likely just another job. How odd it must have been for them to realize that this cheap little sci-fi throwaway would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Gregory Walcott (who played Jeff Trent) eventually learned to have a sense of humor about it. Joanna Lee (who played Tanna) didn't. Guess who seemed to be having more fun.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 249: The Tragicall Historie of Plan the IX (2018)

Let's get Shakespearean all up in here.

This series is called Ed Wood Wednesdays, and it aims to cover the wonky oeuvre of Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (1924-1978) in its bewildering totality—from the primitive Westerns he made at the beginning of his career to the even-more-primitive porn loops he made at the end of it. But I could have limited myself to discussing Eddie's most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and still not run out of material for many years. This one movie, just an hour and twenty minutes in length, has inspired an absurd amount of spinoffs over the years: books, articles, essays, stage adaptations, merchandise, and countless parodies. There's even a video game. It never ends.

There's so much Plan 9 flotsam in the world, frankly, that I cannot keep up with it. Just two weeks ago, for example, I reviewed Killian H. Gore's Plan 9 from Outer Space Quiz Book (2018). As the title indicates, it's a collection of trivia questions about the movie, supplemented with an original sci-fi short story. You'd think, as a certified Woodologist, I would be smack dab in the middle of the target audience for such a product, and yet I only stumbled upon it (seven years after it was published!) by pure chance while searching for something else entirely.

So what was the "something else entirely" I was trying to find?

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 247: Killian H. Gore's Plan 9 from Outer Space Quiz Book (2018)

Tor wants you to answer a few questions.

As Conrad Brooks taught us all in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), "It's tough to find something when you don't know what you're looking for." Which is true. But sometimes, it's also tough to find something when you know exactly what you're looking for. I'll give you an example.

I found this by accident.

If you've ever read one of Shakespeare's plays, you know that his scripts are not formatted like those for modern day stage plays. For one thing, his stage directions are brief, sparse, and very vague. For another thing, his characters often speak in iambic pentameter, so their speeches are formatted like poems. 

I was under the impression—false, it now seems—that there was a version of the Plan 9 script formatted to look like a Shakespearean play. I had a strong memory of such a book existing, and I thought it might make interesting fodder for the blog. It's October, and I wanted to do something suitable for "spooky season." So I searched for it. And searched. And searched. I eventually came to the conclusion that no such book was ever written. I can't find anything remotely like it.

NOTE: After this article was published, reader Ed Goldstein informed me that such a book definitely does exist. It's The Tragicall Historie of Plan the IX (2018) by Ryan D. Smith, and it is indeed a rewrite of Plan 9 in iambic pentameter. There is apparently a filmed performance of the play, also from 2018. The cast includes Dana Gould, Tonjia Atomic, MST3K producer Greg Tally, Jackey Neyman Jones, and others. I do not have a copy of the play or the movie, but they are both candidates for future discussion.

But you know what I did find? Killian H. Gore's self-published Plan 9 from Outer Space Quiz Book (2018). The title tells you exactly what to expect: a collection of trivia questions about Ed Wood's best-known movie. But who is this Killian H. Gore and what caused him to compile such a volume? And could this humble little book actually teach me a thing or two about a movie I've seen dozens of times? I was able to snag a copy from Amazon for only about seven bucks, so I took the risk.

Like many of the hyper-specialized books about Ed Wood that I've read for this blog in recent years, the Plan 9 from Outer Space Quiz Book was print-on-demand, so it arrived extremely quickly. Personally, I love this new publishing model. It allows us to have physical copies of works that might have limited or niche appeal. But Gore's book is also available in a Kindle edition for just 99 cents, should that be a more attractive option to you.

The book runs just over a hundred pages and contains four quizzes in total. The first is a general quiz about Plan 9 consisting of 150 questions. The second is an "out of this world difficult" quiz about Plan 9 with ten additional questions. This is followed by a 25-question quiz about alien invasion movies and a 25-question quiz about zombie movies. Naturally, answer keys are provided for all four quizzes. Gore rounds out the book with an original short sci-fi story called "The Truth Will Astonish Us," which I will discuss later in this review. All in all, pretty decent value for money.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 241: Ed Wood's thoughts on science and technology

Isn't pretty much everything "God's domain" when you think about it?

You'd assume that the makers of science-fiction movies would generally be in favor of actual science. I mean, it's right there in the name of the genre. But, after a lifetime of watching these films, it's clear to me that Hollywood views science with extreme skepticism if not outright contempt. From exploring space to trying to eradicate disease or extend life, science almost always leads to disaster in the movies. Perhaps sci-fi helps us deal with our fears about so-called "progress," from the feeling that technology will ultimately rule and/or destroy the human race to the sneaking suspicion that, by learning too much about the world, we are in constant danger of upsetting God. 

As Ned Flanders (Harry Shearer) once remarked on The Simpsons: "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends!"

But do the movies of Edward D. Wood, Jr. reflect the general anti-science bias of popular culture? Well, it depends on the movie. 

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Plan 9 Cocktail Lounge Identified (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Yes, we're delving into this topic again. I think this is the last time.

NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: This is the second consecutive Ed Wood Wednesdays devoted to a mysterious cocktail lounge very briefly glimpsed in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). After musician Mike Hickey attempted to identify this elusive filming location last week, several other Wood fans quickly weighed in with various objections and doubts. One such fan, James Pontolillo, has offered his own alternative  conclusion as to the bar's location. That's the piece you're about to read. I very much hope that this settles the matter, once and for all. Thank you. J.B.

Slightly past the 17-minute mark into Ed Wood’s iconic 1957 film Plan 9 from Outer Space we see a montage of Angelenos reacting to flying saucers as they buzz Hollywood with seeming impunity (1). One of the startled citizens is a drunk man who has apparently just exited a cocktail lounge, whiskey bottle in hand. He can't believe what he's seeing and abandons his bottle, convinced that he must be hallucinating. It's a brief scene (~8 seconds split into two parts) that provides us with only a limited view of the lounge: a street number (4092), a portion of a neon "Cocktails" sign set into a framed opening in the building’s facade, a "No Minors Allowed" sign, and a windowless, light-colored facade that noticeably curves upward from the ground toward an angled awning overhead (2). I never thought about the identity of this cocktail lounge, but other Wood-fans have puzzled over it for some years now.

I have to thank Mike Hickey who resurrected the identity issue with his recent Facebook and YouTube posts suggesting that the Plan 9 cocktail lounge was a still-extant building at 4028 Santa Monica Boulevard (3). Since I love researching old buildings and properties, I immediately began digging into this location's history. Unfortunately, the results were not what I was expecting, and each new piece of information that I found undermined the idea that 4028 Santa Monica Boulevard was the Plan 9 filming location (see Blevins’ EWW #240 for details). 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 240: Has the cocktail lounge from Plan 9 finally been found?

Don Davis is blinded by the light.

Ladies and gentlemen, a controversy is currently brewing in the world of Ed Wood. Controversy? Ha! Too weak a word! I should say a tempest! I've not seen the equal of it. Even now, while we're chatting here so enjoyably, a fierce debate rages in Ed Wood fan forums across the internet, turning friends into enemies and vice-versa. (Well, actually, the topic is limited to one Facebook group and the discussion has been quite civil, but humor me.) 

At issue is one particular location—a humble yet intriguing cocktail bar—from Ed's most famous film, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Has the bar been found? Has it not been found? Is it unfindable? Is knowledge knowable? Does a Chinese chicken have a pigtail?

Way back in 2018, I wrote an article about a long-gone L.A. night spot called the Mocambo that appeared prominently in Plan 9 as part of a montage in which UFOs are spotted in various places across America. In that article, I mentioned that there was a scene in Plan 9 in which Wood associate Don Davis staggers out of a seedy-looking cocktail bar and sees flying saucers hovering over Hollywood, much to his bleary-eyed astonishment. The bar's street number, 4092, is clearly visible, but narrator Criswell doesn't bother telling us which street this is supposed to be. Knowing very little of Los Angeles geography, I incorrectly guessed it to be Sunset and left it at that.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 236: Plan 9: The Cemetery Screening (2025)

What's the weirdest place you've ever seen a movie?

Sometimes, the place where you see a movie can make all the difference. 

A very special screening.

I hope I will never forget seeing Citizen Kane (1941) at the magnificent Fox Theatre in Detroit or The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) at the crumbling Capitol Theatre in Flint. Then there's Chicago's historic Music Box, where I saw The Wizard of Oz (1939), Brand on the Brain (2006), and Inland Empire (2006). Magnificent experiences all. During Inland Empire, the theater was so cold I kept my winter coat on all three hours!

But I can also remember seeing Do the Right Thing (1989) at the long-gone Genesee Valley Cinema in Flint. This was a perfectly ordinary multiplex, but I happened to be there on a night when the air conditioning was on the fritz and the theater was sweltering, allowing us in the audience to experience some of what the characters onscreen were going through. My mother took me to see that film, and we had a long discussion afterwards about the characters and the choices they made.

Occasionally, the venue where you see a movie isn't even a theater at all. My first, transformative viewing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), for instance, took place on a long bus trip to Indiana when I was a teenager. And I vividly remember watching the Suspiria (2018) reboot on an Amtrak train and being absolutely enraptured by it. Somehow, in both of those examples, being in motion made the viewing experience more intense. 

Ed Wood fans in the Los Angeles area have an opportunity later this month to view the director's most famous film in a highly memorable and most appropriate setting. On Saturday, July 26, 2025 at 6:30pm, the San Fernando Valley Historical Society (SFVHS) is hosting a screening of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) at the Pioneer Memorial Cemetery in Sylmar, CA. This, in case you didn't know, is the very cemetery where Eddie actually shot some scenes for the film! Director Mark Carducci visited this cemetery for his documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood (1992), as did film critic Harry Medved for an episode of his PBS series Locationland (2025). The SFVHS is holding this screening to honor the 100th anniversary of Ed Wood's birth.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 218: What motivates Bela Lugosi's character in Plan 9?

Never is a long time, as Bela Lugosi proves in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).

When I think about the movies I've seen the most times, a few titles come immediately to mind, including The Wizard of Oz (1939), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), This is Spinal Tap (1984), and The Big Lebowski (1998). Among Ed Wood's movies, however, the clear winner is Plan 9 from Outer Space aka Graverobbers from Outer Space (1957). I first sat through this notorious sci-fi horror chiller in October 1992 as part of a four-film Ed Wood marathon in Flint, Michigan. Since then, I've probably seen Plan 9 theatrically about a half-dozen more times. At home—through VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming—I've screened it dozens of times in whole or in part, often while doing research for this series.

In short, I've spent many hours of my life with this odd little film. And yet, all these decades later, it may still have things to teach me. I'll give you an example.

Critic Harry Medved, who helped give both Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space some measure of immortality with his book The Golden Turkey Awards (1980), recently devoted an episode of his PBS documentary series Locationland to the making of Plan 9. Among the filming sites Medved visited was 15129 Lakewood St. in the Sylmar neighborhood of Los Angeles. Back in the 1950s, this charming domicile was the residence of actor-wrestler Tor Johnson, who played Inspector Daniel Clay in the film. Johnson allowed Ed Wood to use the site as the home of Bela Lugosi's unnamed character, generally referred to as Old Man or Ghoul Man. In Plan 9, we see a grief-stricken Lugosi—still reeling from the death of his young wife (Vampira)—smelling the roses outside the house before wandering into traffic and getting run over.

"Confused by his great loss," intones narrator Criswell, "the old man left that home, never to return again."

Except Lugosi totally returns again just 23 minutes later, as proven by that aforementioned episode of Locationland. When Harry Medved visited the house in Sylmar, the owner graciously let him film the outside. But Medved and his guest, comedian and writer Dana Gould, wanted to film the back porch of the house as well, because this is where Ed Wood shot the scene in which Bela's character, having been resurrected from the grave as a zombie, enters his former home, now owned by pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his wife Paula (Mona McKinnon). Jeff's away when Bela arrives, so Paula is all by herself and quite vulnerable when this strange figure suddenly appears in her bedroom.

Even though I've been watching Plan 9 for decades, it took Locationland to make me realize that the Trents are living in Lugosi's character's former home and must have moved into the place shortly after he died. Jeff's coworker, sassy stewardess Edie (Norma McCarty), comments that the house is too close to the local cemetery, "I tried to get you kids to not buy too near one of those things," she opines. "We get there soon enough as it is." She also says Jeff's house is "quiet alright, like a tomb." Jeff is rightfully concerned that the police keep showing up at the cemetery for unknown reasons. What exactly is going on there?

We soon find out what's happening at that cemetery, and it's more bizarre than we could have possibly guessed. Aliens from a faraway planet, represented by the arrogant Eros (Dudley Manlove) and the more pragmatic Tanna (Joanna Lee), are using their "electrode guns" to resurrect some recently deceased earthlings, including both Lugosi and Lugosi's wife. This is all part of a larger campaign to strike fear in the hearts of the human race and thus deter us from creating a weapon called "Solaronite" that will destroy the entire universe. Got all that? 

The aliens' plan is quite convoluted and doesn't come close to working. But they do manage to bring Lugosi back to "simulated life" for a short while. Once resurrected, he is more like a traditional obedient "voodoo zombie" rather than the cannibalistic, aggressive zombies we know from the George Romero films, starting with Night of the Living Dead (1968). Eros and Tanna can control the zombies to some extent, but Lugosi is apparently allowed to explore the world on his own for a while when he's revived. And where does he choose to go first? Right back to his old house.