How did you spend the last day of 2022? I spent it remixing the theme music from Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Let me explain.
For a while now, I've been wanting to do an article about Trevor Duncan's "Grip of the Law," the dramatic, instantly recognizable composition we hear during the title sequence of Plan 9. Presumably it was music supervisor Gordon Zahler, not Ed Wood personally, who chose this bit of stock music. Nevertheless, this recording has become practically synonymous with Ed. When that iconic title card reading "Written-Produced-Directed by EDWARD D. WOOD, JR." appears on the screen—arguably the high point of Ed Wood's career—it's Duncan's music on the soundtrack.
English composer Trevor Duncan.
Like many examples of so-called "library" or "production" music, "Grip of the Law" has been used in numerous movies, radio shows, and TV series since the '50s—mainly British ones, I should point out, since Duncan was an Englishman who worked directly for the BBC. Outside of Plan 9, the most prominent use of "Grip of the Law" in America was probably Anatomy of a Psycho (1961), though I fondly remember hearing it on one of Bob & Ray's radio shows, too.
Anyway, I was listening to "Grip of the Law" on repeat recently while trying to figure out what I wanted to say about the darned thing. As an amateur musician, my instinct was to tap my toe to the beat. That's when I noticed something odd: "Grip of the Law" does not have a standard 4/4 rhythm like most popular music. I might be embarrassing myself here (and I'm sure more knowledgeable musicians will be quick to correct me), but it sounds like it's in 5/8, a la John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) theme. The song is off-kilter. It keeps the listener feeling unbalanced.
Just as an experiment, I decided to build a standard 4/4 loop around some string parts from "Grip of the Law." This took some trial and error, but eventually I pieced together a convincing 4/4 loop that was still recognizable as the Plan 9 theme. Then, apparently having nothing better to do, I kept adding parts to it, mainly horn hits, until I had a piece of music that ran a little over a minute. To that, I added an 80 BPM (beats per minute) drum loop.
The track still didn't feel "complete" to me, so I added some second-hand vocals to it. The monologue at the beginning ("Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time..") comes from "Maggot Brain," a classic 1971 track by Funkadelic. The rest of the vocals come from "Dead Wrong" by The Notorious B.I.G. I chose this track for a couple of reasons—the ghoulish title, most obviously, and the fact that it was released posthumously on the Born Again (1999) album. I suppose I saw a parallel between Ed Wood patching together a Bela Lugosi movie and Bad Boy Records patching together a Biggie Smalls album.
Was I done yet? Nope. I still needed to make a video for the track. My video-editing skills are limited at best, but I did what I could with some borrowed clips from Plan 9. And thus was born "Plan 9 from Bed-Stuy (Featuring the Notorious T.O.R.)." That title, by the way, is a reference to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, aka the home of The Notorious B.I.G.
I realize this is a lot of explanation for a silly, minute-long video, but sometimes I feel like overexplaining myself. Here's the video, if you haven't seen it. Enjoy or don't. Either way, it's free. (Remember, you get what you pay for.)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jerry Seinfeld, Norman Brenner (in back), and Jason Alexander on Seinfeld.
Something rather remarkable happened on May 23, 1991. One of Ed Wood's movies was integral to the plot of a prime time American network sitcom watched by millions of people. That was the fateful night when Seinfeld aired its famous episode, "The Chinese Restaurant," on NBC. Can that episode really be 31 years old already? How time flies.
James Hong on Seinfeld.
The plot has Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) stopping at Hunan 5th Avenue to get a quick dinner before going to see Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) at a "one night only" screening. Their plans are derailed when the restaurant's ever-smiling host, Bruce (screen legend James Hong), fails to give them a table, and they are forced to mill around in the lobby for what seems a small eternity. Bruce repeatedly assures Jerry and the gang that the wait will only be "five, ten minutes," but they eventually grow weary and leave, giving up on their now-ruined evening plans.
Apart from two brief wraparound segments showing Jerry Seinfeld performing stand-up comedy in a nightclub, "The Chinese Restaurant" unfolds in real time in one location. The script includes lots of dialogue and very little action, making it more like a stage play than a typical TV sitcom. NBC was baffled by it and was even reluctant to air it. Seinfeld was still a fledgling show back then—not yet the ratings powerhouse it would become—and network executive Warren Littlefield admits he "didn't get it" when Jerry and his writing partner, Larry David, submitted the script for approval. And yet, "The Chinese Restaurant" proved pivotal in Seinfeld's history. The unusual episode garnered a lot of audience attention and helped distinguish Seinfeld from the dozens of other live-action comedies on TV at the time. This was the kind of offbeat story other shows would never even think of doing.
For Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space, this attention was almost unprecedented. Not since It Came from Hollywood (1982) had Eddie received such mainstream exposure. And, since that movie had flopped pretty hard, it's likely that "The Chinese Restaurant" was the first time most viewers had even heard of Plan 9. Rudolph Grey's biography Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) wasn't even out yet, and Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) was years away. It's possible that some viewers even sought out Plan 9 because of "The Chinese Restaurant," though I'm not sure what the movie's VHS availability would have been at the time. Jerry doesn't mention any specific plot points but does say that Plan 9 is the worst movie of all time and that he's going to the screening specifically to make snide comments. That's why he needs George and Elaine to come with him and serve as an audience.
The idea to include Plan 9 in "The Chinese Restaurant" came from Seinfeld executive story editor and proud Ed Wood fan Larry Charles. If Jerry were trying to make a movie on time, that would give the story a "ticking clock" and a sense of urgency. He has to get that table! He even dodged a dinner with his uncle (apparently not Uncle Leo) for this opportunity. As Jerry himself explains to Elaine: "I couldn't have dinner with him. Plan 9 from Outer Space! One night only! The big screen! My hands are tied!" I'm not sure if either Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David had ever heard of Plan 9, but the bearded, long-haired Larry Charles—imagine a hippie Gandalf—definitely looks like the kind of cult film freak I've seen at Ed Wood marathons over the years.
Revisiting Seinfeld's "Chinese Restaurant" episode for this article was a total delight. It still made me laugh out loud 31 years after I first saw it, mainly because I could relate to the characters' impatience and rising frustration throughout the running time. Jason Alexander, in particular, is a master of peevishness. The lobby of the restaurant becomes a gaily-decorated purgatory for the Seinfeld characters, the bright red color scheme offering an ironic counterpoint to the misery of Jerry, George, and Elaine.
The long-running series notoriously ended with the characters in an actual jail cell, but this early episode (only the 16th to air!) shows how these jaded New Yorkers are already boxed in by the world around them. I was reminded of that Twilight Zone episode, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," or the works of Franz Kafka. In particular, "The Chinese Restaurant" strongly resembles "Before the Law," a parable included in Kafka's novel The Trial (1925). In the parable, a man from the country tries to access "the law" but is kept from it by a sinister, aloof doorkeeper. The man from the country even tries to bribe the doorkeeper to no avail. The doorkeeper accepts the bribe but does not allow the man entry to the law. ("I'm only taking this so you won't feel you've left something untried," the doorkeeper tells him.) A very similar thing happens in this episode when Elaine clumsily bribes Bruce for a table but gets nothing in return.
Incidentally, at the height of Seinfeld mania in the early '90s, Entertainment Weekly put out an entire book called The Entertainment Weekly Seinfeld Companion (1993) by Bruce Fretts. You can read it here if you like. It's an A-to-Z glossary of the pop culture references and running jokes of Seinfeld. And, yes, Plan 9 from Outer Space makes the cut, right between "Ping" and "Polar Bear Club." It's even accompanied by a stock (uncredited) photo of Tor Johnson and Vampira.
Tor Johnson and Vampira in a Seinfeld companion book.
And here's a closer look at the relevant passage:
Let's give you a better look at Tor Johnson's pretty face.
P.S. Jerry finally gets to see Plan 9 from Outer Space in a later Seinfeld episode called "The Postponement." And, yes, I may have to revisit that one as well eventually.
This quaint and curious volume was published in 1990, two years before Nightmare of Ecstasy.
When I reviewed Joe Robertson's hodgepodge sex documentaryLove Making U.S.A. (1971) last year, I described it as "an itch begging to be scratched." In other words, I'd known about this rather obscure movie for years, and I ignored it until I just couldn't ignore it any longer. My curiosity as an Ed Wood fan got the better of me. I had to know what this thing was like, so I finally downloaded it (legally) and watched it. Ultimately, I was glad I did. Lovemaking is far from a masterpiece, and its Wood content is minimal (just a few fleeting seconds of borrowed footage), but the film is an intriguing souvenir of its era.
Supposedly, though, this volume merely contains a transcript of the film, prepared well after the movie's original release. I've never bothered with it, since there's a fairly decent Plan 9 transcript available online. For free, I might add.
Was I content to leave it there? Obviously not. "Supposedly" just isn't good enough for a true Ed Wood acolyte. I had to buy a copy of this thing and see it for myself, just so I could be completely confident what it contained.
The book that finally arrived from an Amazon seller was a surprise to me in many ways. For one thing, it was much smaller and skinnier than I had expected. I thought this would be one of those chunky, clunky 8.5 x 11 paperbacks that was mostly stills or screengrabs from the movie. Wrong. Instead, it's a slim, modest 6.5 x 10 volume—much closer in size and heft to a comic book. In fact, Malibu Graphics was a relatively-short lived (1986-1994) comics publisher best known for Men in Black. Around the time of this Plan 9 screenplay book, Malibu also published a Plan 9 graphic novel by John Wooley.
The screenplay book is about 100 pages long, and nearly all of that is text. Oh, there are a few pictures along the way—the same Plan 9 publicity stills that Ed Wood fans have seen many times before—but this is not by any means a scene-by-scene graphic representation of the movie. Content-wise, this book is what it claims to be on the front cover: Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s circa 1957 screenplay for Plan 9 from Outer Space. It is not a transcript of the finished film. Not even close. In fact, it is extremely similar to that typewritten script I reviewed back in 2020, though with a few significant differences along the way.
When I reviewed the typewritten Plan 9 script two years ago, I wrote these prophetic words in the final paragraph:
Look, there's no way to detail every single minute change between the screenplay and the released version of the movie without this article being crushingly long and boring.
Well, you know what? Let's be crushingly long and boring today! I'm going to make a point-by-point comparison between the Malibu Graphics screenplay book and the finished film of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Occasionally, when necessary, I will reference the typewritten script as well. For our purposes, the Malibu Graphics screenplay book will simply be called "the book" or "the script." When I specifically want to mention the typed script, I will say so.
Grainy images from the 8mm version of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Dracula figurines on Ed Wood's TV.
What is essential to you? Irreplaceable? If you're at home right now, look around you. In the event of an emergency, what (besides the people and pets) would you save?
When Ed Wood and his wife Kathy were evicted from their downtrodden apartment on Yucca St. in Los Angeles in December 1978, they had to abandon most of Eddie's meager possessions, including the book he'd been writing about actor Bela Lugosi. "They allowed us one suitcase," Kathy sadly told Rudolph Grey in an interview from his 1992 book Nightmare of Ecstasy. "It broke Eddie's heart to leave [Lugosi: Post Mortem] behind. Eddie's files, papers, scrapbooks, it was all lost." Among the few items that survived the eviction were Eddie's screenplay for I Woke Up Early the Day I Died and his manuscript for Hollywood Rat Race.
Florence Dolder, a neighbor of the Woods, agreed that Lugosi: Post Mortem was crucial to Eddie during his final years. She told Grey: "Eddie used to say that if there was a fire that was what he was going to grab—the Lugosi book and his typewriter. And we used to kid him, what are you going to do with Kathy? 'She can follow me.'"
Clearly, Ed Wood did not need Marie Kondo to help him declutter. Life did that for him, again and again. He and Kathy never could hold onto a place for too long. I believe Eddie would have been the pack rat type, had it not been for his peripatetic lifestyle. He was a devoted fan of Westerns and classic horror films, and people like that tend to be collectors, too. They want to be surrounded by trinkets of their devotion. We know that Eddie read Famous Monsters of Filmland and sent away for an album he saw advertised there. A 1959 photo of Ed's living room reprinted in Filmfax #9 (February/March 1988) shows little ceramic statues of Lugosi as Dracula perched on the TV set.
Bob Blackburn, a close friend of Kathy Wood in her later years, had this to say via Facebook:
I do think that Ed and Kathy were kind of pack rats, but as you said with their constant moving, and them having to place items in storage, they really couldn't save anything. Kathy showed me the suitcase a couple years after I befriended her, and it did have a few things, most importantly the manuscript for Hollywood Rat Race, and I was the first person outside of anyone I know of who read it, I don't think she loaned it to Rudy [Grey] nor the script for I Woke Up Early, which she also allowed me to read. And much of what was in the "trunk" which [Paul Marco's nephew] Jason Insalaco won at auction, was originally from their Bekins storage unit on Lankershim up in North Hollywood, and had/has Eddie's scrapbooks, which he showed to Kathy on the first night they met, as well as some cowboy memorabilia as you surmised.
This "collector/hoarder" instinct extended to Ed's own career, too. In the bibliography section of Nightmare of Ecstasy, Grey notes: "While nearly all of [Ed Wood's] possessions were lost or sold through the years, Wood carefully saved his novels, including the date of issue and [the handwritten inscription] 'from the personal collection of Edw. D. Wood, Jr.' in each book." His obsessively updated resumés are, in a sense, another form of collecting. Ed was proud of his films and his writing, and he wanted to make sure his career was properly documented.
The 8mm "home movie" edition of Plan 9.
All of this is my roundabout way of introducing the 8mm version of Ed's magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). That legendary film, previewed in 1957 but not released for two more years, recently marked its 60th anniversary, an occasion that merited a smattering of press coverage and even a tribute from James Rolfe's Cinemassacre channel on YouTube.
After decades as an offering on late night television and sporadic showings at drive-ins and grindhouses, Plan 9 was finally released on VHS in the 1980s. Many other releases followed, including DVD, laserdisc, Betamax, and Blu-ray editions. Today, the film is readily available for streaming online. Nearly four decades after The Golden Turkey Awards made Plan 9 famous to the general public, the movie has never been easier to track down for home viewing.
This was not true in the 1950s and 1960s. VHS and VCRs were still far in the future, and "home video" wasn't a market yet, let alone a revolution. Generally, if fans wanted to revisit a film they loved after it left theaters, their options were limited to tie-in items like soundtrack albums and paperback books. Or they could wait for it to be shown on television.
During those primitive pre-VHS years, however, there was a niche collector market for 8mm reels containing footage from feature films. People could show these reels in their own homes if they owned projectors and screens, which many did because that's how you watched your own home movies back in the day. Due to the bulkiness of these 8mm reels and their prohibitive cost, however, these early "home" releases had to be brief. Short subjects and cartoons could be kept intact, but full-length feature films were heavily condensed.
Such was the fate of Plan 9 from Outer Space. The complete feature is roughly 80 minutes long, but the single-reel 8mm edition from a UK company called Heritage Films clocks in at only about eight minutes. That means 90% of the movie is missing from this version. So if you had to condense Plan 9, a notoriously convoluted and dense story, down to just eight minutes of silent, unsubtitled screen time, what do you keep? Just like deciding what items to rescue in an emergency, it's a matter of determining what is essential. Let's watch the Heritage 8mm reel together and see how they handled it. Along the way, we'll try to answer this question: What would a newcomer, someone totally unfamiliar with Ed Wood, glean from watching this iteration of Plan 9 from Outer Space?
NOTE BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN: The plot description I'm about to give is entirely inaccurate, as are the character names. I know that. I'm merely trying to illustrate what information can be gleaned solely from watching this 8mm film reel without any additional context.
Well, the opening credits only tell us one bit of information: the movie's name. That's it. No actors, no crew members, and no mention whatsoever of Ed Wood. From there, we get a few seconds of a flying saucer dangling in front of a cloudy sky backdrop. It zips off the screen and is followed by two more identical saucers. Cut to footage of cars driving down the highway. Nearby, the three saucers are seeing hovering over some urban area. The occupants of one car point at the saucers in utter amazement. The Heritage 8mm reel is so grainy and blown out, by the way, that the UFOs are barely visible, if at all.
Okay, so this is a story about aliens coming to Earth in flying saucers and being spotted by humans. The film then cuts to stock footage of newspapers coming off a printing press. A man (reputedly Ed Wood himself) opens a folded newspaper to reveal the headline: "FLYING SAUCERS OVER HOLLYWOOD." Actually, due to the picture quality, it's more like "[something] [something] —ER HOLLYWOOD." But at least we know where the story is taking place. Our alien visitors must have showbiz aspirations.
Another wobbly flying saucer zooms past a building. A sign outside, scarcely readable, says CBS. A woman in a telephone booth watches all this, then makes a call. Cut to another newspaper, this one resting on the table at a diner. The banner headline declares: "SAUCERS SEEN OVER HOLLYWOOD." This alien invasion has been widely reported, and the saucers have been spotted by multiple witnesses. To illustrate this point, another saucer straggles across the screen.
A blurry Vampira makes her entrance.
The film now drastically changes course. We are in some unknown woman's bedroom, and she is being menaced by Dracula, who wears a black cape that he holds in front of his face. The woman, a brunette in a long, frilly nightgown, runs out of the room and out of sight of the camera. Dracula follows, but he goes at his own pace. From a lifetime of movie-watching, we know that Drac must have some connection to the saucers we saw earlier, but we don't as yet know what that could be.
Our damsel in distress runs through a cemetery in a total panic. Dracula follows, calmly walking out of the woman's house into the night. He no longer covers his face, so we can clearly see that it is Bela Lugosi himself. Meanwhile, in the graveyard, the brunette trips and falls. She is observed by a second vampire, this one a Morticia Addams type with long black hair and a low-cut black dress. The brunette in the nightgown manages to stand up again and then runs offscreen.
Dracula emerges from the woods into a cemetery. It seems to be daytime. Is it the next morning perhaps? No, it is still night, as seen in the next shot. We see an absurdly small grave marker that's sort of shaped like a PEZ candy. The dirt next to it pulses, as if whoever's in that grave wants out. Elsewhere, the Morticia type walks past the camera into the fog and glances coyly over her shoulder. And who's back there? Why, it's Dracula, now covering his face again. They must be in cahoots.
Another shot of the brunette in the nightgown running. Another shot of the ground pulsing by the grave marker. More running. More pulsing, though this time the ground also starts crumbling. Our Morticia Addams lookalike wanders slowly through the graveyard as if in a trance, her arms held out in front of her. Back at the tiny grave marker, the ground now completely caves in, leaving a smallish ditch. Our nightgown lady, no longer running, seems a little lost as she makes her way through the tombstones and gnarled branches.
Tor Johnson adds some drama.
We now arrive at the most dramatic shot so far, enhanced with theatrical lighting and fog. An enormous bald man in an ill-fitting suit emerges from a hole in the ground. There's a tombstone in the background. This must be the same grave marker we saw earlier, though the two monuments look nothing alike. The bald man reaches up to the surface and struggles to pull his hefty frame out of the ground. One edit later, and he is upright, fully emerged from the tomb. From his slackjawed expression and pale skin, we take him to be a zombie. That means we have flying saucers, vampires, and at least one zombie, all in the same film. How could these be connected?
Our poor brunette, the one in the froufrou nightgown, runs through yet another stretch of the cemetery. The large, bald man surveys his surroundings. Dracula approaches. Big Baldy looks around some more, then walks very slowly out of sight. The PEZ-shaped marker falls into the hole in the dirt. The Morticia lookalike observes from afar with an expression of studied indifference. Nightgown Nancy runs through the cemetery again. The poor dear must be getting tired. Baldo the Great staggers around some more. Then Dracula slinks into frame, treading the same bit of ground we just saw a few seconds ago when the brunette ran past. He's hot on her heels.
We seem to have four characters in play here, but they're never shown in the same frame at the same time, so it's difficult to judge their spatial relationships. And now, even more characters are thrown into the mix: two uniformed patrolmen and a detective in a trench coat and fedora. They're wandering around the graveyard, looking for clues. Has a crime been committed here? It's possible the nightgown lady reported Dracula to the cops.
For the first time, two of the monsters are seen together. The bald zombie and the lady vampire are walking side by side in the darkness. It's another memorable shot, though it fades out too quickly.
The film drastically shifts gears yet again. Now we are in what looks like a science lab or a radio station. There's certainly a lot of technical-looking equipment arranged on various tables. The room is occupied by two adults, a Caucasian man and woman. Their outfits are sort of queer—loose-fitting blouses made of shiny fabric, worn with oversized belts and black leggings. These must be our aliens, though there's nothing to indicate they are inside a ship or vehicle of any kind.
As the scene begins, these two are looking through little square-shaped windows on one side of the room. We don't know what they see. The man says something to the woman, so she walks across the room and turns a dial on the wall, which opens the door. And guess who walks in? It's Chromedome and Morticia, still walking forward as if in a trance. The lady alien seems upset, so she turns to her male coworker. He gives her some instruction, and she walks over to a table and turns a dial on a machine. That stops the two monsters. They just stand stock-still in the middle of the room now, expressionless and inert.
Now it's Dracula's turn. He walks up to a square-shaped shed or workshop in the woods. The foliage looks similar to what we saw at the cemetery, so we assume it's nearby. It's hard to tell what this place is. There's a ladder stuck to the wall outside, maybe so you can climb to the roof if you need to. The door has rounded corners, just like the door we saw in the science lab, so it must be the same place. We're just seeing it from the outside now. The door slides open, and Dracula walks inside. The door closes, and the two uniformed cops now walk into the frame and examine the shed. Their guns are drawn. So the monsters and aliens were all in cahoots, and now the cops are closing in on their headquarters. Okay.
But the situation inside has changed considerably. Somehow, there are now two additional human characters in the ship. One is the trench coat-wearing detective from earlier. His trenchcoat is gone, but he still has the fedora. Another is a tall man in a sport jacket. We've never seen him before. Who is he? How'd he get here? Anyway, the detective seems to be arresting the male alien as the female alien and Mr. Sport Jacket look on. One of the uniformed cops outside knocks on the door. No dice.
Inside, all hell is breaking loose. Johnny Sportcoat takes a swing at Mr. Alien while Ms. Alien tackles Fedora Guy. And there's yet another human character in the room, some kind of high-ranking military official. He's not doing anything. Ms. Alien manages to push Detective Fedora across the room, and she starts frantically tinkering with some machine on a desk. Our military friend, let's call him General Halftrack, throws himself across the desk to stop her from whatever she's doing.
A barroom brawl on a UFO.
Meanwhile, there's a barroom-style brawl going on between Sportcoat Guy and Mr. Alien. A table gets knocked over, and the male alien does manage to land one good punch, sending his opponent to the ground. But the tall man gets up pretty quickly, and he and the alien start grappling. On the other side of the room, General Halftrack has apparently subdued Ms. Alien, so now he walks to the other side of the room and turns some big dial on the wall. Detective Fedora is still in the mix, too, standing back with his gun drawn.
The barroom brawl continues, with both combatants getting in their licks. Ms. Alien, apparently not as subdued as we thought, is still tinkering with the machines. She's talking a lot, but to whom? The fight now seems to be going Mr. Sport Jacket's way, though Mr. Alien counters by picking up a piece of equipment and trying to use it as a blunt instrument. At this same time, another piece of equipment on that same table explodes and starts belching smoke all over the place.
General Halftrack is still fiddling with the big dial on the wall as the room starts to cloud up. The alien and the tall man are still grappling. Ms. Alien is still tinkering. Fedora Guy is still just standing there with his gun drawn. The room is really getting smoky now, so General Halftrack gives up on one dial and tries his luck with another one. That does the trick. The door slides open. Detective Fedora immediately exits, seemingly abandoning General Halftrack and Sportcoat Guy, the latter of whom is still in the thick of it with Mr. Alien. General Halftrack then also decides to skedaddle, yelling something to his tall companion before dashing out into the night.
After quite a struggle, Johnny Sportcoat finally manages to defeat Mr. Alien, socking him in the gut and then punching him in the back while the alien is doubled over in pain. This coincides with another major explosion in the room. Outside the shed, Fedora Man and General Halftrack are just now emerging. It looked before like the door led immediately outside, but apparently it doesn't. Sportcoat Guy looks around the room. It's a mess. Everything's either exploding or on fire, and Mr. Alien is passed out cold. The tall man bravely dashes out the door. Ms. Alien has finally, finally finished whatever she was doing at that table, and she goes to help Mr Alien. He is not to be revived, so she looks out the window.
Outside the shed, Mr. Sport Jacket emerges into the open air. Inside, Ms. Alien makes another attempt at rousing her companion, then fiddles with the few machines that aren't currently on fire. Things are getting even more smoky in there, and Ms. Alien is clearly starting to panic.
The film now cuts to a group shot. General Halftrack, Fedora Guy, the brunette, Johnny Sportcoat, and one of the uniformed cops are all standing around, looking at something in the sky. A flying saucer, completely engulfed in flames, emerges from the cemetery. This is the first clue that the square-shaped shed was actually the interior of one of the flying saucers we'd seen at the beginning of the movie, before the Dracula part started. As the five humans continue to gawk, the burning UFO flies over Hollywood at night. Inside the craft, Ms. Alien is still trying to wake up Mr. Alien, but the room is getting so smoky, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face.
The five humans are still gathered around, watching this spectacle unfold, but the patrolman is distracted by something on the ground. It's a skeleton, hidden inside some crumpled-up clothes. The humans talk among themselves about this, and General Halftrack points at something or other. There's another shot of the skeleton.
The UFO is still on fire from the outside, and it's oppressively smoky on the inside, so much so that we can't see Mr. or Ms. Alien anymore. In the final seconds of action, we get to see the flying saucer explode spectacularly. But now, the smoke dissipates almost instantly, leaving only the sight of Los Angeles at night. We cut to a title card reading "THE END. Filmed in Hollywood U.S.A." We can barely discern the silhouette of a man in the background, but there's no indication of who this might be.
And that, my friends, is the 8mm version of Plan 9 from Outer Space. What could you get from watching this version of the film? Well, you'd know that the story involves UFOs, aliens, a graveyard, some monsters (possibly vampires, possibly zombies), and a group of humans including police and military officials.
Some flying saucers hover over Hollywood, attracting ample press attention along the way, and then one of them lands in a cemetery somewhere in the L.A. area. There are two aliens on board, one female and one male. They never leave their ship. Instead, they seem to remotely control three monsters: Dracula, a sexy vampire lady, and a large bald zombie. Dracula harasses but does not catch or harm a brunette lady who lives near the graveyard. This attracts the attention of the cops, who close in on the alien ship. While two uniformed cops stay outside, a detective enters the ship, along with two other men. A fight breaks out between the humans and the aliens, and the equipment on the ship catches fire in the process. The three human men rapidly leave the ship, which tries to take off but only explodes in midair. The alien threat has been quelled, and one of the monsters has been reduced to a harmless skeleton.
What gets sacrificed here? Criswell, for one. There's no sound on the version I watched, so his narration is absent. His opening and closing monologues have also been removed. The only hint of his participation in the film is his silhouette at the end. Lyle Talbot and Bunny Breckinridge are entirely absent as well, as are Norma McCarty and David De Mering. Most of the other main characters do appear in this shortened version, though there is no apparent connection between Gregory Walcott and Mona McKinnon here. She's just some woman being harassed by a monster, and he's just some guy who punches an alien in the stomach.
We get no indication of the aliens' motivation or strategy, so we just assume they're here to conquer humanity and use their power over the monsters to terrorize us. The monsters, disappointingly, just vanish from the 8mm film without explanation. The closest thing we get to a wrap-up on them is the shot of the skeleton near the end, though you'd have to be quite the detective to figure out that these are the remains of the bald zombie. And even though the film's cover art seems to promise planes firing on the spaceships, the military aspect of Plan 9 has been almost entirely removed from this version of the film, save for the appearance of Tom Keene as Col. Edwards.
Despite these narrative shortcomings, the Heritage 8mm Plan 9 from Outer Space does have a mysterious mojo to it. Without the dialogue, we can concentrate on the visuals, and there's a lot to appreciate here. The shots of Vampira and Tor Johnson are genuinely eerie and compelling, and the fact that the footage is grainy and blurry actually covers up the shoddiness of the graveyard set. And we even get a few fleeting glimpses of Bela Lugosi along the way, even though his character's tragic backstory is jettisoned.
Some versions of the Heritage Plan 9 cover feature a sticker that says "SOUND,"and Ed Wood archivist Philip R. Frey says, "I have received reports that some versions have subtitles." But, really, all this 8mm film needs is some appropriate mood music. That can be easily located. Have fun!
A UFO hovers ominously over the Mocambo on Sunset Blvd.
The VHS release of Look Back in Angora.
There are several fine, lovingly made documentaries about Ed Wood. The three best known examples—Look Back in Angora, Flying Saucers Over Hollywood, and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr.—were all released in the early-to-mid 1990s. That tracks. Rudolph Grey's book about Eddie came out in '92, Tim Burton's biopic followed two years later, and several of Ed's movies were either being issued or reissued on VHS back then. It was a good time to be an Ed Wood fan.
Perhaps the best documentaries about Edward D. Wood, Jr. are the man's own films. From his crude cowboy drama Crossroads of Laredo (1948) to the formulaic porn loops he worked on in the 1970s, these motion pictures truly capture Eddie's life and times. Jean-Luc Godard famously said that "film is truth 24 times a second," and Ed Wood's movies show how true that (slightly pretentious) maxim is.
Take Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) as an example. You want to see what Vampira, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, and the rest of the Wood gang looked like back in the 1950s? They're all in Plan 9, alongside many other members of Eddie's oddball entourage. And you can't tour Quality Studios as it was during those years, but you can see the scenes Eddie filmed there, including that infamous cockpit aboard American Flight #812. You know, the one with the shower curtain and the circular slide rule.
Plan 9 is a treasure trove of detail about life in Eisenhower-era America. Here, you'll see examples of 1950s fashion, technology, social attitudes, architecture, and consumer products. Just look at the huge Fords, Dodges, and Buicks that zip across the screen. People didn't know what "fuel economy" even was back then. And check out the Coca-Cola bottles and the L&M cigarette package on the table outside Jeff and Paula's home during the scene in which the Trents are interviewed by Col. Edwards (Tom Keene) and Lt. Harper (Duke Moore). Nostalgic movies set in the 1950s, including Ed Wood (1994), scramble to get these kinds of period details correct. Plan 9 doesn't have to scramble. Eddie just used what was available in Los Angeles at the time.
Coke and cigarettes in Plan 9 from Outer Space.
One of the most remarkable passages of Plan 9 arrives at about the 17-minute mark. Much has already happened by this point in the movie. Vampira and Bela's characters have died, had their respective funerals, and risen from the dead. Pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) has spotted a flying saucer and confessed this remarkable event to his supportive wife Paula (Mona McKinnon). Two bumbling gravediggers (J. Edward Reynolds and Hugh Thomas, Jr.) and lumbering Inspector Clay (Tor Johnson) have been killed by zombies. After all this, Reverend Lynn Lemon presides over Clay's funeral ("The bell has rung upon his great career.") with Vampira watching from the bushes and UFOs hovering overhead.
What follows is a remarkable, newsreel-esque montage lasting about a minute and a half, comprised of both stock footage and newly filmed pick-up shots, augmented with hyperbolic narration by Criswell and dramatic library music. The point of this montage is to show that the three saucers are brazenly flying over major American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, ultimately attracting the attention of the military. What had been a series of intimate, interconnected stories about a few characters (a grieving old man, a married couple, some police officers) is now a national phenomenon.
Unsurprisingly, most of the montage focuses on Eddie's adopted hometown of Hollywood. Criswell tells us that the three saucers were spotted "high over Hollywood Blvd." as we see amazed motorists pointing at the sky. A fictional newspaper called the Hollywood Chronicle is first seen coming off the printing press, then being read by a suit-wearing man (supposedly Ed Wood himself). Its banner headline reads: SAUCERS SEEN OVER HOLLYWOOD. A slightly crumpled copy of the Chronicle is laid out on a table at a diner, surrounded by various cups and silverware. Finally, a tubby drunk staggers through an alley and picks the paper up off the sidewalk before waddling out of frame.
Meanwhile, the saucers fly over the headquarters of CBS, NBC, and ABC. But then, for reasons known only to himself, Eddie has the aliens visit Sunset Boulevard, and we get a glimpse of what the glitzy Sunset Strip—a 1.5-mile stretch of road through West Hollywood cluttered with clubs, stores, and billboards—looked like 60 years ago. There's a shot in which a saucer soars over the Crescendo, a nitery that lasted from 1954 to 1964 and played host to top jazz, folk, and comedy acts of the day. Everyone from Louis Armstrong to Bob Newhart gigged there. The joint was named after the GNP Crescendo record label and was owned by GNP honcho Gene Norman. (The club is long, long gone, but the label is carried on today by Gene's son, Neil.)
On the night this footage was shot, "cool jazz" singer June Christy was performing there. An appreciative write-up in the June 10, 1957 edition of Billboard said that the chanteuse "seems to have reached full showbiz maturity." Soon-to-be-controversial comedian Lenny Bruce was also on the bill. A banner advertising cabaret singer Frances Faye is seen in the background. Faye's 1959 album Caught in the Act was recorded at the Crescendo.
Flying saucer over the Crescendo club. Inset: a Billboard review of June Christy's act.
Eddie cuts to another drunk (production assistant and future For Love and Money director Don Davis) staggering out of a cocktail lounge, a bottle of wine still in his hand. He shields his eyes, apparently from the brightness of the UFO, then looks down skeptically at the bottle. "There comes a time in each man's life," says Criswell, "when he can't even believe his own eyes." This bar, incidentally, seems to be a real location. The address over the door is clearly visible as 4092. If this is meant to be Sunset Blvd. as well, that address now corresponds to a parking lot.
Don Davis shields his eyes from the harsh light of truth.
The Mocrumbo in Slick Hare (1947).
When the film cuts back to the UFO, it's no longer dangling over the Crescendo but over the Mocambo, a plush night club that stood at 8588 Sunset Boulevard from 1941 to 1958. The place was demolished decades ago, barely outliving its co-founder Charlie Morrison; an H&M now stands in its approximate spot. Throughout most of the 1940s and 1950s, however, it was one of West Hollywood's true hot spots, attracting movie star customers and top-flight musical and comedy talent.
(Our poor Plan 9 drunk, incidentally, is so disoriented by this that he sets the bottle of wine down. It's a classic example of the "no more for me"trope.)
Abbott & Costello, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf, Bob Hope, and too many more to mention played the Mocambo. And the clientele? Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Judy Garland went there. Practically every major movie star you can name from that era. Liz Taylor, Clark Gable, John Wayne. The list goes on and on. They came for the exotic, Latin-inspired decor (including many live birds!), the big band music, and the opportunity to dance the night away. This was a place to see and be seen.
Ed Wood himself visited the Mocambo at least once, according to Kathy Wood. "We went to clubs like the Brown Derby, Ciro's, Mocambo," she told Rudolph Grey in Nightmare of Ecstasy, "but not much. We sort of stayed home and got drunk."
For a club that lasted less than two decades, the Mocambo had a seismic impact on popular culture. Remember the Tropicana, where Ricky worked on I Love Lucy? Yeah, that was based on the Mocambo. Lucy and Desi were fans of the place. Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny spent a whole cartoon, Slick Hare (1947), at a parody of the Mocambo called "the Mocrumbo," where a flashing neon sign advises patrons that they'll have to make a "small down payment" on the $600 dinners offered within. In the cartoon, the restaurant is depicted as a star-studded but chaotic and disorganized place, where crates of vegetables are left to rot on the floor and the refrigerators are dripping with grease. This was supposedly based on writer Michael Maltese's real-life observations! But who cares when Bogey and Bacall are regulars?
Eartha Kitt is the purrrrrfect headliner for the Mocambo.
In the stock footage from Plan 9, seductive singer-actress Eartha Kitt is headlining at the Mocambo. This film might have been taken during Kitt's much-publicized 1953 stint at the club. How wonderful, then, that Ms. Kitt made a cameo in the Ed Wood-scripted I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998). Below is a blurb from the December 10, 1953 issue of Jet about Kitt's three-week stand at the Mocambo, plus a vintage photograph showing an alternate angle of the famous marquee. Apparently, Greece's King Paul and Queen Frederika had attended a Mocambo floor show, and Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson was shocked by the lyrics of Miss Kitt's flirty songs like "C'est Si Bon" and "I Wanna Be Evil." The scandalous publicity only made her performances at the Mocambo more popular.
A press clipping about Eartha Kitt's appearance at the Mocambo in West Hollywood.
Broadcast pioneer Larry Finley.
You sharp-eyed viewers will have noted by now that there is another venue visible next door to the Mocambo. That's Larry Finley's Restaurant, located on the same premises and named after the New York-born radio and TV broadcaster. Larry was then appearing on radio station KFWB (980 on your AM dial). These days, KFWB plays all Mexican music, but from the 1920s to the 1950s, the station aired a variety of programming during radio's so-called "golden age." Stars like Bing Crosby and Ronald Reagan got their start on KFWB, in fact.
By the 1950s, the beefy, balding, gregarious Finley—said to have possessed "the voice with a smile"—was hosting his nightly, six-hour talk show, Larry Finley Time, from the Sunset Blvd. restaurant. That fact was advertised quite prominently on the sign outside. I guess the idea was that you could stop by for a meal or a drink and see a genuine radio show, complete with celebrity guests, being produced right in front of you. Good old Larry kept the party going until 4am every night. By the end of the 1950s, however, KFWB had switched over to playing rock & roll music and would become quite a powerhouse in that field.
Largely forgotten today, Larry Finley (1913-2000) was an interesting character in his own right. Over the course of his 86 years, he pursued a number of careers, including nightclub manager, with various degrees of success. His after-hours broadcasts made him one of the first late-night talk show hosts. He tried to start his own radio network but could never get it off the ground. On the plus side, though, he was one of the first to see the potential of video and audiotape and became a leader in that industry. When he died in April 2000, the Los Angeles Times eulogized him as such but also mentioned the radio shows and the Sunset Blvd. restaurant.
Had it not been for Plan 9 from Outer Space, I might never have heard of Finley, the Crescendo, or even the Mocambo. That's why I say that Ed Wood's movie, as outlandish as it is, serves as an incredible documentary of the 1950s.
Lyle Talbot as captured by the legendary Drew Friedman.
Lyle Talbot in Plan 9.
One of the most persistent myths surrounding Edward D. Wood, Jr. concerns his untimely death on December 10, 1978. The standard story goes that Eddie passed away while watching a football game on TV, despite the oft-repeated fact that he had no interest in the sport whatsoever.
Well, I recently learned a little more about that fateful game while researching one of Wood's most frequent collaborators: Lyle Talbot (1902-1996), the sturdy, incredibly prolific character actor who appeared in Crossroad Avenger, Glen or Glenda, Jail Bait, and Plan 9 from Outer Space, amid dozens of other assignments in a film and TV career spanning six decades. In interviews, Talbot staunchly avoided mention of working with Ed Wood. But that changed with Tim Burton's 1994 biopic elevating popular interest in Eddie to its then-and-still pinnacle.
With Glenda and Plan 9 back in the spotlight, Lyle Talbot ultimately acquiesced and started talking to the press about his days working with Ed Wood in the 1950s. Take, for instance, an article I found in the October 2, 1994 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Here, although Talbot's work with Wood is described as being from a "fallow" period in his career, the actor is finally empathetic toward his former boss. And that's despite the fact that he reveals his possible—and very personal—reason for his decades-long separation from the world of Wood.
Here I am with my new Ed Wood poster, bathed in the greenish fluorescent glow of my small kitchen.
This poster caused me so much grief.
Chalk up one more thing Ed Wood and I have in common. Eddie suffered for his art. And I, too, have suffered for Ed Wood's art, though not for the reasons you might be imagining.
While making my way through, let's say, the '70s softcore romps Eddie wrote for Steve Apostolof involved a certain amount of tedium, I cannot say that Wood's work has inspired in me the same kind of theatrical agony it seems to have caused other observers. No, my suffering has been of a different stripe.
Since Ed Wood Wednesdays began back in July 2013, I have essentially been an indentured servant to a man who died nearly 40 years ago. In my quest to catalog the life and career of Edward Davis Wood, Jr., I have frequently forsaken such niceties as fresh air, exercise, and sleep. The sun may shine and the birds may chirp, after all, but this DVD of The Undergraduate isn't going to review itself! Like Mark Borchardt said in American Movie: "I have to adhere to this keyboard."
Conservatively, I'd estimate I've put on 15 to 20 pounds in the time I've been writing Ed Wood Wednesdays. I chalk it up to all those hours I've spent hunched over my laptop computer, keeping my energy up with a steady intake of frozen dinners and prepackaged snacks. Hey, Eddie got a little doughy near the end, too. That's yet another thing we have in common, except his weight gain came from booze while mine came from gummi worms and microwaved pizza.
And sometimes, this project has inconvenienced me in such silly ways that all I can do is laugh. Take today, for instance. You'll remember, a few weeks ago, that there was a massive auction of Ed Wood memorabilia. I chickened out on the big ticket items, including a suitcase and two trunks owned by Eddie himself, but I wanted to get something out of the auction so I bid on a few of the smaller items. I wound up winning two of these: a vintage one-sheet poster for Glen or Glenda? under the alternate title I Led 2 Lives (Lot #3028) and a set of eight Mexican lobby cards for Plan 9 from Outer Space (Lot #3043).
Today, they are in my possession at last, and getting them into my apartment was a Sisyphean ordeal. It should have been easy. FedEx was scheduled to deliver them yesterday, but I knew I'd be at work when they arrived so I arranged to have Patricia, the lovely lady who manages the office of the apartment complex where I live, sign for them in my absence. My apartment, I should say, is literally next door to this office. We share a wall.
But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men. My landlady happened to be dropping by the office when the FedEx guy arrived, and she prevented Patricia from signing for the package, reasoning that if they performed this simple kindness for me, a loyal rent-payer for 12 years, they'd have to do the same for everyone. My landlady, I can say from experience, is not someone with whom you can bargain... or reason.
One of my nifty new lobby cards.
Meanwhile, of course, my package could not be delivered as instructed. So back to the FedEx pickup center it went. Luckily, this is less than a quarter-mile from my home, since I live in a busy commercial district dominated by strip malls, chain stores, and gas stations. The clerk there was only too happy to turn over my Ed Wood poster and lobby cards to me.
But here is where the story turns into a Buster Keaton comedy. RR Auction sent these items in one large, flat cardboard box, and there was no way of fitting this into my cramped 2002 Chevy Cavalier. I tried every configuration I could imagine. Seats all the way forward. Seats all the way back. Passenger seat tilted as flat as it would go. Windows open. Trunk open. Nothing, and I mean nothing, worked.
Here I was, stranded in the FedEx parking lot just a few minutes away from my apartment. I thought of temporarily ditching the car and just walking the damned thing back home. But, again, this is a busy commercial district, and my story was happening during rush hour traffic. How was I ever going to get across those busy, dangerous streets with this ridiculous cardboard box? If I held it in front of me, I couldn't even see the traffic coming.
In desperation, I dragged the package back into the FedEx place and asked if I could just open it there and take the contents out. The lady behind the desk said this was fine, so I borrowed her scissors and cut into the package. And what tumbled out? More styrofoam packing peanuts than I have ever seen in my life. Dozens and dozens of the goddamned things accumulated at my feet. Mortified, I spent a good (read: bad) 10 to 15 minutes crawling around the floor of the FedEx pickup center in a frantic effort to retrieve every last one of those peanuts. The place looked nicer than my apartment, after all, and I didn't want to muck it up.
Eventually, though, I did manage to extract my purchases and get them into my battered, grungy old car. The Glen or Glenda? poster was swaddled in about eight miles of bubble wrap, so it was still quite a large item even outside of its cardboard cocoon. But at least it was now flexible enough to be (barely) wedged into the nearly-nonexistent back seat of my vehicle. I couldn't see a damned thing out the rear window, but then again, I didn't have far to drive. It wasn't 100% safe, but it was safe enough.
Once I got back home, I had a devil of a time chasing after all the additional styrofoam peanuts that were falling everywhere. I'm kind of a zealot about littering, especially in my own neighborhood, so I didn't want to just leave a trail of those tell-tale peanuts outside the apartment complex where I live. It was a windy day, though, so this was tricky to say the least. I'm sure I lost a few soldiers today.
And now? Well, now the poster and the lobby cards are safely ensconced in my apartment. And you know what else? They're really lovely. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, but they're lovely nonetheless.
The Glenda poster is larger than I was imagining, the size of a small (admittedly very wide and flat) child, and still a satisfying shade of fire-engine red. Right now, still wrapped in plastic, it's leaning against the wall of my kitchen. I'll probably have it framed soon, but I think the kitchen is a good place for it. Much of Glen or Glenda? takes place in kitchens. Even Lugosi's lab where he creates life is a kind of kitchen. Every morning when I have my bowl of cereal, I can look up at Eddie smooching with Dolores Fuller, forever preserved in their 1953 glory. That's a nice thought.
The lobby cards came in a thick, heavy binder of their own. I might just leave them that way. To be honest, I haven't given much thought to the items themselves. I've barely even looked at 'em. For now, I'm just happy they're home.
POSTSCRIPT: In my Clouseau-esque struggles to get the uncooperative poster and lobby cards into my vehicle on Wednesday, I somehow managed to injure my left leg rather badly. By Thursday, that leg was noticeably bruised and achy, making it difficult to walk. For the last two days, then, I have been limping to and from work. Now that I am at last in repose, attempting to recuperate over the weekend, the medicinal smell of a cheap, over-the-counter topical ointment is stinging my nostrils. So when I say I have suffered for Ed Wood's art, I mean it quite literally.
Ed Wood and Dolores Fuller in a still which will not be making its way into my collection.
Homer: Is this a happy ending or a sad ending?
Marge: It's an ending. That's enough.
-from The Simpsons, "Rosebud" (1993)
This bad boy? All mine, baby.
Well, that was certainly something other than else, wasn't it? RR Auction's sale of items related to Edward Davis Wood, Jr. has ended, after having garnered media coverage from, among others, ABC News, Rolling Stone, and The A.V. Club. Internet bidding concluded on Wednesday (how appropriate), and there was a surprisingly informal and chatty live auction today, which I followed remotely from my cubicle at work.
I was not, alas, the winner of Lot #3026, a monogrammed leather briefcase and two suitcase-like trunks belonging to Ed Wood himself. This lot was especially enticing, as it also included a treasure trove of Eddie's personal papers, including production stills, publicity photos, and theatrical programs. I was in the running for this item until Tuesday, when the price jumped from about $4,000 to $10,000. I had been told the final price could go as high as $30,000, so I bowed out. When all the bids were in, this collection of priceless Wood-iana went for a remarkably cheap $11,000. I won't lie, citizens. This one stung a bit. The memory of Lot #3026 will probably take up residence in the back of my brain for quite some time. The one that got away. The white whale. Damn.
I was also not the winner of Lot #3027, which contained a script for Night of the Ghouls, a program for The Blackguard Returns, and actor Don Nagel's scrapbook. This, too, got out of hand on Tuesday. Way out of hand. I was prepared to pay a few hundred bucks, but this jumped up into the $4,000 range, and I backed off quickly.
I wanted to get something out of the auction, however, and I managed to do that. I bid on two smaller items for which I had some personal affection. One was a vintage one-sheet poster for Glen or Glenda? (1953) under the alternate title I Led 2 Lives: Based on the Lives of Christine Jorgensen. Another was a set of Mexican lobby cards for Plan 9 from Outer Space. I chose these two items for special reasons. Glenda, as I have stated many times on this blog, is my favorite of Eddie's films, so I wanted to have some memorabilia affiliated with it. And Plan 9, of course, is the movie which initially attracted me to Ed Wood's body of work. I chose the Mexican lobby cards because Spanish was my minor in college. Plus, the cards look pretty cool, as seen below:
Six of the eight lobby cards of which I am now the proud (?) owner.
So is this a happy ending to the Ed Wood auction or a sad one? Like Marge Simpson once said, it's an ending. That's enough.
American Airlines pilot Jeff Trent: "I can't say a word. I'm muzzled by Army brass!"
Prefatory note:For the fortieth entry in this series, I have decided to do an article that is entirely self-indulgent. Rather than a review of a movie or book related to Ed Wood, it is a piece of original fiction inspired by his work. This idea goes back to November 2011 when I made a pitiful, abortive attempt to turn it into a full-length novel for NaNoWriMo, only to run smack dab into a nasty case of writer's block. But the idea never quite left me, so I thought I could turn it into a short story. Here, then, is that short story. It's written in sort of an exaggerated pulp style. This is more for myself than it is for you, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway.
"We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files.
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself.
Look around you. All you see are sympathetic eyes.
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home."
-Simon and Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson" (1968)
"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
-John 20:29 KJV
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
Jeff knew that sound too well. That heavy, horsey stride was etched in his memory. Pretty soon, Old Nursey, with her bulletproof hair and battleship body, would enter his room, brandishing a metal serving tray with the usual contents: a pleated paper cup with three pills, two pink and one blue; a squat little glass of orange juice; one tangerine; a small plate with exactly three limp, triangular pieces of toast; and a copy of that day's San Fernando Gazette, folded neatly along its equator and then into thirds.
Jeff sat up in bed, awaiting her imminent arrival. Never a show of weakness, Jeff. Not for a second. She was just doing her job, he supposed, but Jeff disliked her anyway. As he saw it, she was another obstacle standing between him and everything he wanted: Paula, his home, his job, his life.
A moment before Old Nursey even showed her face, Jeff could already detect that cloying, fruity perfume of hers, which intermingled uneasily with the sour, nostril-stinging smells of the hospital. And now here she was herself in the overgenerous flesh.
"Good morning, Mister Trent!" she said in that damnable sing-song voice of hers.
"That's Captain Trent," Jeff replied, testily.
"My apologies, Captain." She smiled broadly but without warmth. Her eyes looked glassy and dead.
"Hmm," said Jeff by way of reply. It was important to be noncommittal with these people.
If Old Nursey took umbrage at this, she didn't show it. With the precision of a true professional, she rested the tray on a dresser and went about her morning ministrations, checking this and that—first adjusting items around the room, then performing little tests on Jeff himself. She measured his pulse, took his blood pressure, and put the back of her hand to his forehead to see if he felt feverish. This little ritual had become automatic for both of them, so much so that they could carry on a conversation all the while.
"We missed you at breakfast this morning, Captain. We were very much hoping you would join the other pa... er, guests in the Common Room."
She'd slipped up and almost said what she really meant instead of what she was supposed to say. The word "guest" implied someone who dropped by the place of his own free will and could leave whenever he chose. Jeff was no more a "guest" here than Hess was at Spandau.
"I'll continue to take my meals in my room, thanks." His voice was measured and firm.
"If that's what you prefer."
"It is."
"But you do realize that for the sake of your long-term treatment here, it would be best to..."
"I know! Play the game! Follow the rules! Go along to get along! Is that the idea? That I should run around on the big wheel like an obedient little hamster?"
This time, Jeff had slipped up. That attitude didn't cut it in a place like this. Old Nursey—he now remembered her name was Violet —looked stricken. The miniature tirade hadn't gained him an inch of ground.
"Listen," he continued after pausing and noticeably softening his tone, "why don't you attend to the other... uh, guests, and I'll be along later for Remedial Finger Painting 101 or whatever it is they have planned for us later today. And I promise to play nice. Scout's honor." He made the Boy Scout salute he still remembered from his youth and gave Old Nursey the sly, flirtatious smile that had once won him Paula.
"We still have a little business to attend to," said the now-blushing Violet. Snapping back into her cheerfully professional default mode, the nurse brought the metal serving tray over from the dresser and set it upon the nightstand next to Jeff's bed. This task completed, she stood over her patient and watched him expectantly. Jeff knew the routine from here on out. He picked up the pleated paper cup and emptied its contents into his mouth. He then chased that with a slug of orange juice.
"Ahhhhhh!" exclaimed Jeff in the satisfied manner of a man who'd just quenched a nagging thirst after, say, mowing the lawn on a hot summer day. Old Nursey looked pleased. Wonder how pleased she'd be, thought Jeff, if she knew her precious patient had secreted the pills between his lower lip and gums?
After the orange juice had disappeared down his gullet, he deftly used his tongue to transfer the capsules to the hollow of his left cheek, where they would stay until Jeff, alone at last, found a toilet in which to dispose of them discreetly. This was a routine he had worked out over a number of weeks. It helped that Old Nursey, who wasn't really that old but just seemed that way because of her frumpy personality, was not terribly observant, anesthetized to her surroundings as she was. Flying on autopilot, Jeff thought, flashing back to his not-so-long-ago days working for American Airlines. Would he ever make it back there?
"I'll be back for your tray later," said Violet. "Don't forget, you have a consultation with Dr. Fineman scheduled for eleven o'clock. That's..." And here she checked the improbably dainty watch on her thick linebacker's wrist. "...Forty-five minutes. Let's try to be on time."
"Oh, I will be... Mother," Jeff retorted, punctuating the remark with a jovial chuckle to indicate that this was merely a conversational witticism and not a swipe. But it didn't matter either way. Old Nursey had already started clip-clopping her way out of the room and down the hall.
Jeff noticed, and not for the first time, that she hadn't so much glanced at the room's only other occupant. She never did.
This poor devil, who was likely in his sixties but looked at least 90, reminded Jeff of the old prospectors he'd seen in history books. A miner forty-niner, like in the song. He had a long, gaunt face accented by wildly bushy eyebrows and a scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard. His eyes, seemingly open all the time, were ringed with faint, purplish-grey circles. He looked liked he'd seen something awful and never gotten over it. Jeff had nicknamed him "Fred C. Dobbs," after the Bogart character. Fred didn't take his meals in the Common Room, nor did he participate in egg-decorating or basket-weaving alongside his fellow captives.
As near as the younger man could tell, Fred received nutrients through one tube and refunded the waste through another. Fred's preferred -- and, in fact, only -- activity in life was to lie on his side, his back facing his younger cohabitant, and stare at the room's featureless, sea-green plaster wall for hours at a stretch. The old man's standard expression was like that of a luckless pet owner who had once witnessed his poodle being run over by a moving truck and never recovered from the trauma. Once or twice, Jeff was sure that Fred had died, but the man would very occasionally moan or utter something that nearly sounded like an intelligible word. These vocalizations were both rare and doleful.
Old Nursey's duty roster did not include Fred. If there were maintenance to be performed on the forsaken man, Jeff noticed, it was carried out by several uniformed male orderlies, who were in and out of the room with the efficiency of a top-flight pit crew. Once or twice during Jeff's stay, he noticed that a couple of these fellows would wheel poor Fred away on a gurney, and he would be gone for a few hours. This was always, without fail, in the middle of the night, and Fred would be back in his rightful place -- if that nicety could be applied to this rotten situation -- by the time Jeff awoke a few hours later.
In all, the pilot was quite pleased with his elderly roommate. You could scarcely ask for someone quieter or better behaved. What's more, Fred was an ideal audience. When he was sure they were both quite alone, Jeff would tell him the whole, impossible-sounding story -- the flying saucers, the aliens, the ghouls. And never was there a hint of protest from Fred. No incredulity. No scoffing. No condescending remarks about how this was all in his head and that he should get over it and get on with his life. All in my head, my foot! thought Jeff, ruefully. He'd been there that night. He'd seen it all with his own two, perfectly-functional eyes. So had plenty of others. But where had they all gone? Why had they abandoned him?
Crimson? Crawdad?
Jeff picked up the newspaper and scanned it with his usual, methodical seriousness. This was a privilege for which he had fought and won, but now he wondered why he had even bothered. The Gazette was a sleepy, small-town rag that never contained anything the least bit useful, certainly nothing related to the events of that fateful evening in '57, the very things Jeff had witnessed first-hand.
Narrowing his eyes to slits, he inspected each column of text, looking for tell-tale phrases like "from outer space" or "risen from the grave." But they were absent from the paper today, just as they'd been absent every previous day and would be absent every succeeding day. If you wanted to read about how San Fernando's mayor had cut the ribbon at a newly-constructed bank or how local hurler "Sharpie" Kennicott had pitched a no-hitter for the local triple-A ball club, then the paper was just fine. Otherwise, it was a waste of printer's ink and a poor use of the typesetter's art.
The closest thing to an "expose" about the flying saucer affair that had appeared in the paper was some mumbo-jumbo from that gooney-bird psychic with the syndicated column. Jeff couldn't quite remember his name. It was Crimson or Crawdad or something like that. The fella had a platinum pompadour with a kiss curl in the middle of his forehead that looked like an upside-down question mark. Anyway, since his nonsense appeared in the same section of the newspaper where you could catch up on the latest adventures of Walt and Skeezix in Gasoline Alley, no one paid him much mind. Funnily, that old kook had gotten closer to the truth than anyone else in the mass media. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day, thought Jeff. Who else could have gotten away with saying that aliens had visited Earth and had even resurrected the dead, just to put a scare into us, and it was all a bid to prevent the human race from destroying the universe with our weapons technology? No reputable reporter could get that past an editor. Never in a million years. But this gooney-bird could say it.
How could such fantastic, history-changing events be covered up? Well, Uncle Sam could sure slather on the whitewash when he needed to. Jeff had been on the ship itself. Hell, he'd even punched one of those uninvited visitors right in the jaw. And he hadn't been alone that night either! That Army colonel and that police lieutenant had been right there with him. Both had since recanted their stories. Across the board, the military and law enforcement communities denied that any such alien invasion had ever taken place. The order had come from on high, and it applied to all, from the top brass to the rank-and-file.
So if you happened to interview Officer So-and-So or Private Such-and-Such, you'd always get the same answer... or the same set of non-answers, more accurately. Those strange floating objects spotted on both coasts? A mix of weather balloons and experimental military aircraft. Reports of bodies missing from graves? An unfortunate case of vandalism. And what about that small California border town, Loma Rosa, which had been all but wiped off the map in the course of just a few hours? A natural disaster, most likely the result of subterranean volcanic activity. Rest assured, citizens, that our best men were looking into the matter, and a full report would be forthcoming. In other words: Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. The whole thing turned Jeff's stomach.
The last year had been a tough one, he had to admit. It wasn't easy being the one domino who refused to topple over. But, then again, a formidable stubbornness was part of Jeff's character, informed both by his strict Southern Baptist upbringing and his experience in the military. For him to change his story now would be as contrary to nature as Newton getting that apple of his to fall upward. This was no longer a mere battle of wills. This was a test of a man's integrity. He had served four years in the Marine Corps during the "good war" and had seen some action in the Pacific Theater. The experience changed him permanently. When you shoot a Jap soldier right in his Jap guts and look him square in the eye as he bleeds to death right in front of you... well, that's the kind of thing that makes a man take inventory of his deeply-held beliefs. You take whichever ones you have left and put them in a strongbox where nobody can get at them. And when somebody tries to jimmy open that strongbox and monkey around with what's inside, you damned sure better give 'em hell.
The folks in charge of the military industrial complex said there were no such things as flying saucers or men from other worlds, and they were making Jeff sit in the corner with a dunce cap on his head like a misbehaving schoolboy until he was ready to say he was sorry in front of the whole class. But he hadn't done it yet. He held out for the sake of the 179,323,175 Americans who deserved to know the truth. Because of that, he was here in this strange and awful place. And it wasn't just the big things, like being away from Paula, which made it so bad. It was the little things, too. Like the food, for instance. Jeff thought back to the previous night's repast. He reckoned it was boiled fiberglass with a side order of sewer rat, with a glass of bilge water to wash it all down. Even hard-headed Jeff was starting to see that the immovable object that was his heart would eventually succumb to the irresistible force of the pressure being placed upon him by the Powers that Be.
He sure could have used some support, but none was available to him. Most of the witnesses who'd spotted the UFOs had been drunk, elderly, or hopelessly confused. Poor Paula—who had seen plenty —fainted on the terrible night that she had encountered the deceased-yet-somehow-ambulatory Inspector Daniel Clay in the cemetery. She had come to after the worst of it had ended, but she wasn't very communicative -- partly from shell-shock and partly because she had few, if any, pertinent memories of the events. She was living with her mother in Sausalito now, and Jeff honestly didn't know if she would ever again be the feisty little gal he'd met at a USO dance. He affectionately called her "kid," another verbal tic he'd picked up from Bogart.
That seemed so long ago now. It hadn't helped that her husband, the big strong airplane pilot, had been shipped off to the happy home to live among the fruits and nuts because he just couldn't or wouldn't stop babbling about little green men from Mars. But the visitors had not been little or green or from Mars; they had barbershop haircuts and Oxford accents and looked like anybody you might see on the street -- apart from those queer uniforms of theirs. Jeff strained to remember the details. Their shirts, he thought, were shiny and kind of billowy, almost blouse-like, with high collars and a strange little insignia over the heart -- a jagged lightning bolt inside a semi-circle. Strange how the mind files away little tidbits like that.
The strange insignia.
Jeff had replayed that momentous evening a thousand and one times in his head. The male spaceman -- there had been two of them, a man and a woman -- talked quite a bit. He had a name that sounded something like "Eros," and his snooty, fussbudget personality reminded Jeff of a particularly disagreeable English teacher who had given him a lot of grief back in his middle school days. But that wasn't the reason he had socked ol' Eros in the jaw. No, that was an act born of pure animal instinct. At that moment, a familiar feeling of savagery—Jeff called it "The Beast"—had risen up within him and taken possession of his entire body. "The Beast" had also been with him on that blood-spattered day when he'd shot the Jap on that flyspeck of an island in the Central Pacific.
In retrospect, punching Eros had been the turning point in the whole evening, but at the time there hadn't been any real strategy behind it. Had he not done it, he, the colonel, and the police lieutenant might never have gotten off that ship alive. But, in the long run, had he truly done the right thing? Since then, Jeff had had ample opportunity to consider the words that Eros had spoken, focusing on their meaning rather than the uppity way in which he'd said them. Maybe that unwelcome wayfarer had been on to something. Maybe the human race really was on a collision course with complete annihilation. It was a cinch that Earth hadn't heard the last of this. They'd be back, those aliens... eventually. And who knows? Maybe they wouldn't make their presence known the next time around. For all Jeff knew, those things might just press a button on a console and, just like that, we'd be wiped out -- erased from the cosmic map like writing on a chalkboard.
Oh, but what was the use of dwelling on things like this? Even if he could assemble any tangible evidence or persuade any witnesses to speak out on his behalf, this wasn't a story that America was ready to hear, let alone the world. And, besides, how much longer could he hold out? If he stayed here much longer, he would wind up like those miserable souls he saw in the Common Room, staring gape-jawed at Romper Room, with its chirpy little anthem about what we viewers should and shouldn't do: "Do be a plate cleaner! Don't be a food fussy! Do be a car sitter! Don't be a car stander!" Jeff was in no hurry to join the plate cleaners and the car sitters of the world. Those bastards in the Common Room looked like wax dummies that had melted a little, and their brains had long since turned to oatmeal. Thanks but no thanks, brother.
What Captain Jeff Trent really wanted was to rejoin the world. Hold Paula in his arms. Breathe the air outside the walls of this terrible place. Truly live again. Maybe he could even get his old job back. It sure would be nice seeing Dan and Eadie again. If the universe was going to come to an end, so be it. That wasn't his department. He just wanted to get the most out of whatever time he had left on this crazy blue marble called Earth.
So that was it. He'd just have to recant his story. Repent. Not all at once, though. That would seem suspicious. They'd never buy it. They'd figure it for a ploy... and they'd be right. No, he'd have to start building this thing slowly and carefully over the course of a few weeks. And he'd begin with his consultation with Dr. Fineman at eleven. He glanced at the clock. Jesus, that was only ten minutes away. He'd better start thinking up what to say. "Say, doc, I've thought a lot about what you've been telling me, and..."
"DON'T DO IT!"
Who had said that? Jeff looked around the room, his eyes darting wildly to every corner in search of the voice that had disrupted him so suddenly. Jeff was so disoriented that he accidentally swallowed the three pills he'd been hiding in his mouth, and he had to cough a little to catch his breath. Once he regained his composure, he looked up and stared across the room. To his surprise and utter disbelief, he saw Fred C. Dobbs sitting bolt upright in bed, looking right at him. The two men locked eyes, and there was a tense moment of silence between them. The pilot was unnerved. It was all he could do to keep "the Beast" at bay.
Nothing like this had ever occurred before. Jeff had never once heard Fred utter a coherent thought, nor move of his own volition. The old man hadn't ever acknowledged his roommate's existence in any demonstrable way. Jeff assumed that the duffer was completely oblivious to him. Obviously, that wasn't the case. This was like seeing Lazarus rise from the tomb or Pinocchio become a real live boy. All sorts of thoughts raced through Jeff's head. Had the old man heard everything he'd said? And if so, what did he think of Jeff? Was this a dream? What was going on here?
Fred spoke again, this time in a calmer, more soothing manner: "You are confused, I see. I will explain. My name is Erebus."
The old man pulled his hospital gown down a little on the left side so that his shoulder was exposed. On it was branded a symbol: a semi-circle with a lightning bolt in the middle.
"You have already met my late countrymen, Eros and Tana," Jeff's roommate continued. "They were part of an unsuccessful initiative designated Plan 9. I, however, am here as part of Plan 4, which involved infiltrating Earth society and finding out just how much your people know about our activities. As I have learned, the individuals your society has deemed 'mentally ill' are unusually receptive to our presence. Your government has known this for some time and has, therefore, made a concerted effort to round them up, institutionalize them, and drug them into a vegetative state. My job is to monitor them, and the best way to do that was to become one of them."
Jeff was thunderstruck. He grasped for words: "B-but... how do I fit into all of this?"
"You believe in us, Captain, because you have seen us with your own two eyes. You possess no special sensitivity to extraterrestrial life. You were just, as your people say, in the right place at the right time. But your government deems you a threat because you know of us and are unwilling to deny our existence. That is why you are here."'
"So... what do I do?"
"Simply put: stay the course, Captain. You have great courage and emotional strength. These will be vital weapons in our ongoing campaign to change the public's mind and avoid further unnecessary violence. Sometimes, though, you underestimate yourself. A moment ago, for instance, you were considering surrender."
"How could you possibly...?"
"We have mental capabilities far beyond those of your species. You are not particularly difficult to read. There's no need for envy. Eventually, the human race will evolve to have this ability. It may take a few eons."
"Great," Jeff snorted. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I can't very well make much of a difference if I'm cooped up in this place."
"Relax, Captain Trent. The Ruler is aware of your situation and is devising a stratagem to assist you, even as we speak. Plan 10, he calls it. It should be ready any..."
Suddenly, the old man went as limp as a rag doll and collapsed back on his bed. Jeff was puzzled. It was as if his battery had died. Then, he looked up and saw Old Nursey standing in the doorway. She was making a show of pointing to her undersized wristwatch. Erebus must have sensed her arrival. That was why he was playing possum now.
"Captain Trent," the nurse said in that contemptible, saccharine tone, "it's eleven oh-two. And we mustn't keep Dr. Fineman waiting."
"No," said Jeff glumly, "we certainly mustn't."
Jeff hauled himself out of bed and checked himself in the mirror to make sure he looked even halfway presentable. Naturally, his roommate's words were still spinning 'round and 'round in his head. The pilot knew he had a long and difficult path ahead of him. He understood that now. For whatever reason, Sweet Lady Destiny had chosen him to save the universe. When he thought about the situation in its totality, it was overwhelming. Best to take these things one day at a time. Break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Step one: develop a taste for boiled fiberglass and sewer rat. Maybe a little ketchup would help.
...
An excerpt from a hand-written draft of this story. Most of my articles are written on a computer.
In two weeks: There is a man named Rick Tell, my friends, and he has a dream. He wants to stage a full-length musical about the life of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Warts and all! The ups, the downs, the sweaters and skirts, the monsters, and the booze. Crazy, you say? Impossible, you say? Then you've never met Rick Tell. Actually, I've never met him either. But I have been communicating with him by e-mail, and he seems really enthusiastic and sincere about this eccentric, improbable project of his. In a lot of ways, that's emblematic of the spirit of Ed Wood. So, as you might imagine, it is my sworn duty to give my readers the lowdown about all of this, providing both the relevant facts and my thoughts thereupon, so that you can make an informed judgment of your own. Sound like a plan? Then be back here in 14 days as I exploreEd Wood: The Musical!
