Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 271: How accurate is 'Ed Wood' (1994) [PART 4]

Young Eddie (Johnny Depp) carries a palm tree across the Universal backlot.

"He worked at Universal, and he never recovered."

That was the verdict of actor, raconteur, and noted fabulist John Andrews (1941-1991) on his friend and occasional employer, Edward D. Wood, Jr. The story is almost too perfect to be believed: Eddie grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY watching classic Universal productions like Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) and then actually got to work for the studio when he moved to Hollywood as a young man. While there, he saw how Universal would provide whatever resources a director might need—like, say, piles of sand for an Abbott & Costello picture set in the desert. As a no-budget, no-frills independent filmmaker, Eddie often struggled to provide such niceties as sets and props for his own movies and would think back wistfully to his days at Universal.

I have never seen much evidence to document Ed Wood's time at Universal Studios. No time cards, paycheck stubs, contracts, employee IDs, or even photos of him on the backlot. In the documentary The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1996), actor Lyle Talbot recalls working with Eddie at Universal, but the film he mentions is Chinatown Squad (1935), which was made well before Eddie's time there. Lyle might be thinking of a completely different kid named Eddie. The only other remnants of Ed Wood's tenure at the studio are some vague anecdotes from Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy:The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). I've compiled all the relevant quotes from that book I could find:

Finally, a mock trailer for 'Jaws 19' as prophesied in 'Back To The Future II'

Remember when Jaws seemed to be Hollywood's most-unkillable franchise?

There is one sequel of which the Internet truly cannot get enough. And, no, it's not anything from the Jaws franchise. The sequel I mean is less sharky and more time-travel-y. And I'm part of the problem, since I've written about it online myself, with Craig J. Clark aiding and abetting.

Originally released in November 1989, Robert Zemeckis’ Back To The Future Part II was set in the then-far-distant year of 2015. Well, actually, only a third of it was. The other two-thirds took place in 1985 (or, for the purists, “1985-A”) and 1955, respectively. Still in all, the Internet has been obsessed lately with which of the sequel’s prophecies about 2015 have and have not come to pass, despite the fact that Zemeckis and his writing partner, Bob Gale, have freely admitted that movies about the future always get the details wrong, even Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Did Back To The Future Part II avoid the curse? Much of this discussion has revolved around hoverboards, which stubbornly remain impractical. The Chicago Cubs are at least in playoff contention, however, and Pepsi is doing its darnedest to make Pepsi Perfect a reality, too. The film itself is even returning to theaters this month.

But what of Jaws 19, the Spielberg sequel which was supposed to be playing in 2015, according to Back To The Future Part II? Regrettably, that fishy franchise conked out with its fourth installment, the infamous Michael Caine vehicle Jaws: The Revenge in 1987, and was never revived. Gladly, however, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has provided its own mock trailer for the never-to-be Jaws 19, which also updates viewers on what went down in Jaws 5 through Jaws 18. It turns out that the franchise went through some weird, weird phases after the fourth film. Along with the expected prequels and reboots, the intermediate Jaws films also did some some genre-hopping, including multiple attempts at both erotica and science fiction. Of these wished-for sequels, perhaps none is more intriguing than Jaws 17: Fifty Scales Of Grey, in which the titular shark “learned about love from a mysterious stranger,” presumably before devouring said stranger. Jaws 19 has more of an ecological bent. “The oceans are disappearing,” says the announcer, “and to save their home, the sharks must attack! Jaws 19. This time it’s really, really personal.” So that’s what Marty McFly could have seen if he and Doc Brown had gone to the movies in 2015 Hill Valley.