Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 265: How accurate is 'Ed Wood' (1994) [PART 2]

Ed Wood (1994) references this production of The Casual Company.

When Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (1924-1978) relocated to Hollywood from his native Poughkeepsie in the late 1940s after his stint in the Marines, his goal was to break into the movie business. The silver screen had fascinated him as a boy, so once he became a man, he took Horace Greeley's famous advice: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Once settled in California, instead of relying on job offers from the major studios (Universal, Fox, Paramount), Ed Wood attempted to produce and/or direct his own low-budget movies. This was a youngster with initiative. A dreamer, you might say.

A young Ed Wood.

Unfortunately, Eddie's earliest Hollywood projects, like the crude Westerns Range Revenge and Crossroads of Laredo (both 1948), were never truly completed during the filmmaker's lifetime and were only released posthumously. I've pinpointed the made-for-TV melodrama The Sun Was Setting (1951) as the first production Eddie actually saw all the way through to completion, though I can find no record of it airing anywhere. Ed's attempts at making television commercials "on spec" and then selling them to clients likewise proved futile. You can still watch some of Eddie's self-made TV commercials today, but I don't think any companies ever used them.

What's most remarkable about Ed Wood's earliest years in Hollywood is how many short-lived production companies he managed to start and how many backers he managed to sweettalk into giving him money, despite having no proven track record of success. Eddie's graveyard of failed ventures includes: Wood-Thomas Productions, Story Ad Films, W.D.C.B. Films, Atomic Productions, and more.

Meanwhile, to earn a little money and (potentially) get his name out there, Eddie did a little theater work during those early years in Hollywood. The great James Pontolillo covers this topic extensively in his book, The Muddled Years of Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1946-1948 (2025). Besides acting in The Blackguard Returns, Eddie managed to stage a farce he'd written himself called The Casual Company: The Laugh of the Marines. This lighthearted office comedy, based on Ed's own military experience, had a brief run at the Village Playhouse in late 1948. In the October 26, 1948 edition of The Valley Times, critic Henry Arntsen described it as a "three-acter" revolving around "a group of pencil-pushing Marines at a Naval hospital." 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 263: Victor Crowley himself

"Screw you, Miss Crowley."

Early in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), Ed (Johnny Depp) and his loyal repertory players gather at a cozy L.A. cocktail bar called Boardner's after staging a performance of Eddie's achingly earnest World War II play, The Casual Company, at a small theater in Hollywood. Even though it's raining and the press didn't actually show up for "press night," their spirits are nonetheless high. Ed even tells eager beaver actor Paul Marco (Max Casella): "Paul, your second act monologue actually gave me the chills."

A review from Miss Crowley.

Then, actor Conrad Brooks (Brent Hinkley) bounds in with a copy of The Los Angeles Register and says he has "the early edition, hot off the presses." He hands the paper to Ed Wood. As the smiling actors crowd around him, Eddie eagerly flips to a newly-published review of The Casual Company by theatrical critic Victor Crowley. But the mood soon sours as they read the article, which Burton shows us in a closeup. Here is what Mr. Crowley has to say about their efforts:

World War II, a time for brave men with "guts," forms the backdrop for "The Casual Company," which opened last night in Hollywood. Let me tell you this is definitely a play about "guts." It certainly took "guts" to stage this disappointment. Penned by one Edward D. Wood, Jr., who also has the "guts" to take credit for directing this foxhole piece, "The Casual Company" takes place on a bare stage with only rudimentary lighting. Fortunately, the soldiers' costumes are very realistic.

The actors, once boisterous, now fall silent. Bunny Breckinridge (Bill Murray) is the first to speak: "Oh, what does that old queen know? She didn't even show. Sent her copy boy to do the dirty work." Meanwhile, poor Paul is trying to figure out what "ostentatious" means, while Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker) wonders aloud: "Do I really have a face like a horse?" 

But Eddie, the eternal optimist, zeroes in on the one compliment: "The soldiers' costumes are very realistic." Later in the movie, he'll bring this up when he interviews for a directing job with producer George Weiss (Mike Starr): "I just did a play in Hollywood, and Victor Crowley himself praised its realism!" Eddie also says that good reviews are not necessary for showbiz success and points to "the latest Francis the mule picture" as an example.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Poughkeepsie Odyssey, Part Two by Greg Dziawer

Ed Wood lived here at 35 Delano St. in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Miracle on Delano St.

An overhead view of Eddie's old neighborhood.

In our first Poughkeepsie Odyssey, we recently shared a few details about Ed's final residence in his home town of Poughkeepsie, NY before he left for World War II: a modest apartment at 1 Fountain Place. Previously, the historical record had only identified Ed's birthplace, another apartment house at 115 Franklin St., a structure that was torn down within the last few years. Could he have resided elsewhere in Poughkeepsie while growing up?

We'll find out in this week's Ed Wood Wednesdays!

Eddie's father and namesake, Edward Davis Wood, married Lillian C. Phillips on November 28, 1922 at the Hedding Methodist Church in Poughkeepsie, New York. Little more than a year later, Lillian was pregnant with the couple's first son, Edward Davis Wood, Jr. Flash forward a decade, and the 1940 US census record has the family living at 35 Delano St in Poughkeepsie. 

According to that same document, the Woods were already living at 35 Delano at least as early as 1935. This residence—and, yes, it's still standing—is located about six blocks north of Ed's first home on Franklin St, and roughly a quarter mile from the east end of the Mid-Hudson Bridge. 

Delano is a one-way street that bends like an elbow about halfway through. It extends east from Clover St. before abruptly changing its mind and plummeting south to Union. The Woods' former residence at 35 Delano is located right near that elbow. The entire block largely consists of apartment houses and buildings.

The apartment house itself is a sturdy colonial built in 1870 with three units—presumably a ground floor apartment and two upstairs apartments—and a fireplace. Totaling ten rooms occupying 3,000 square feet, 35 Delano contains four bathrooms for its inhabitants. In 1940, Ed's neighbors at 33 and 37 Delano respectively were: Edward L. Food, a machinist, and his wife, Anna; and Pete J. Yerganson, a laborer who lived with his mother, also named Anna, his wife, Elaine, and their nine-year-old son, Richard.

Edward Davis Wood, Sr. would have been his mid-forties by this time. He was a custodian at the local post office, a job for which he earned $1,100 in 1939. That was a high-end salary among his (entirely Caucasian) neighbors at the time. And he needed the money, since the Woods had a second child by then: Eddie's oft-overlooked younger brother Howard William Wood, who typically went by his middle name.

There's always a bit of a wrinkle in cases like this. Joseph Masterson, the census taker who recorded these details on April 22, 1940, listed Edward D. Wood, Jr. as 16 years old. If Eddie was born in October of 1924—and I believe he was—he would actually have been 15 in April of 1940.

The 1940 census lists Ed's age as 16.

Meanwhile, a wedding anniversary article for Ed's parents in the Poughkeepsie Eagle News from November 28, 1940 places the Woods at their subsequent residence, 1 Fountain Place. The family, therefore, must have moved from Delano to Fountain Place sometime between April and November of 1940.

Eddie's parents celebrate an anniversary.

Not starring: George Keseg.

Already residing at 1 Fountain Place was Ed's close high school friend, George Keseg. George worked at the Bardavon Theater, like Ed, and was in the same grade at Poughkeepsie High School. The pair enlisted into the military on the same day in 1941, with Ed dropping out of school in his junior year. George was badly injured in the war and returned to Poughkeepsie in 1944. By 1946, when Ed briefly returned home after the war before leaving Poughkeepsie for good, he attempted—apparently without success—to stage his play, The Casual Company, there, with Keseg part of the acting troupe. 

Close as they eventually became, Wood and Keseg did not grow up together. The 1940 census places George at 1 Fountain Place, but in 1935, Keseg lived in Yonkers, about 70 miles due south. By 1940, he resided with his older sister, Helene, and her family: brother-in-law Joseph Wermter (born in Germany) and George's adolescent nieces, Joanna and Janet. Incidentally, Joseph made $1,250 as a bearing grinder in 1939.

What happened in Poughkeepsie wouldn't stay in Poughkeepsie, at least not for long. Ed returned briefly to his home town after the war in 1946, but he left again and soon landed in Hollywood. He never went back. But we'll go back again, right here at Ed Wood Wednesdays!

Special thanks to my friend, expert Woodologist James Pontolillo, whose research into Ed's upbringing in Poughkeepsie infuses this article throughout. For more views of 35 Delano St., check out the Ed Wood Wednesdays Tumblr.