Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 229: Ed/Woody

Is there a connection between these two very different directors?

Not long ago, on this very blog, I declared that Ed Wood and Woody Allen were opposites. Eddie held onto seemingly every bit of footage he ever developed in the hopes of using it someday, while Woody scrapped and reshot an entire feature film at a cost of millions of dollars just because he felt like it. Obviously, these men had very different approaches to the filmmaking process. Besides, Woody is an Oscar winner who for decades (until his late-in-life downfall and disgrace) was one of America's most-respected and praised directors. And Eddie? Well... you know. MST3K. Golden Turkey Awards. "Worst Director Ever." That stuff.

But maybe these two have more in common than I'd thought. For one thing, they were born in the same state (New York) just eleven years apart. They witnessed decades of the same history and experienced a lot of the same popular culture, too. So they were drawing on the same source material when they became filmmakers and writers. Maybe their views even aligned to some degree. I know, for example, that both men were stubborn haters of rock music and never warmed to it, sort of like how people of my parents' generation remained deeply resentful of rap music even after it had been around for decades. And when you read Allen's short story "Count Dracula," as collected in the book Getting Even (1971), you get the sense that he's inspired by Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the title character.

An early Woody Allen film.

Recently, while doing research for my podcast, These Days Are Ours, I had to revisit one of Woody Allen's early comedies, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972). I hadn't thought much about that movie in years, but it was directly referenced in a Garry Marshall comedy I was reviewing called Nothing in Common (1986) so I had to refresh my memory. Specifically, in Nothing in Common, Tom Hanks quotes a joke from Everything You Always... in the hopes of impressing Sela Ward. It doesn't work. (Or maybe it does, because she sleeps with him just a few scenes later.)

When I started looking into Everything You Always..., one of the first sources I consulted was the movie's Wikipedia entry. And there, I discovered this very intriguing passage in the film's synopsis:

Victor, a sex researcher, and Helen Lacey, a journalist, visit Dr. Bernardo, a researcher who formerly worked with Masters and Johnson but now has his own laboratory complete with a lab assistant named Igor. After they see a series of bizarre sexual experiments underway at the lab and realize that Bernardo is insane, they escape before Helen becomes the subject of another of his experiments. The segment culminates with a scene in which the countryside is terrorized by a giant runaway breast created by the researcher. The first part of this segment is a parody of Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955), and especially, The Unearthly (1957), which also stars John Carradine. 

There it was: a direct reference to Ed Wood himself in an article about a Woody Allen movie! Even when I'm not looking for Eddie, I find him! Obviously, I had to investigate further.

Today's 'B.C.' needed to go on for a couple more panels

That's, uh, that's some overbite you've got there.

And now it does. You're welcome.

See, a caveman would have no paradigm for "greeter," "candelabra," or "bed and breakfast." He'd feel like Alvy Singer visiting Annie Hall's family here. "They're talking swap meets and boat basins." I would like to point out that the background for this strip, particularly those mountains behind the blond-haired caveman, might fit in on a Yes album cover... if they were drawn with more detail.

(perfunctory blog post) PLAY IT AGAIN, BOB!

Woody Allen (Rick Moranis) and Bob Hope (Dave Thomas) talk comedy in Play it Again, Bob.

While I am wallowing in NaNoWriMo hell, I thought I'd put a little something new on the blog today. And by new, I mean three decades old. It's a sketch from SCTV entitled "Play It Again, Bob," and I think it's an all-time comedy masterpiece. It's a parody of Play It Again, Sam the play (and later film) in which Woody Allen's nebbishy character receives romantic advice from the ghost of Humphrey Bogart, his idol. In this skit, the real-life Allen (played by Rick Moranis) wants to collaborate on a film with one of his comedic idols, Bob Hope (played by Dave Thomas). It quickly develops that Woody and Bob are not compatible, and the skit documents their clash of wills. I can't say enough good things about "Play It Again, Bob." The performances by Thomas and Moranis are eerily good, and the writing is spot-on. It's weird to think that these two jokers are also the McKenzie Brothers of Strange Brew fame. Be on the lookout for a nice supporting turn by Joe Flaherty as Bing Crosby.




Current NaNoWriMo word count: 863. Not good.

Criswell, Woody Allen & The Muppets: Damn, "The Tonight Show" used to be awesome!

On New Years Eve 1965, Johnny Carson's guests on The Tonight Show included Woody Allen (back when he was a standup comedian), the Muppets (long before they had their own show), and best of all, CRISWELL! Yes, the psychic from several of Ed Wood's movies made one of his many Tonight Show appearances that night. And bless my soul, he even says some of his lines from Plan 9 From Outer Space. Fortunately, some wonderful person has put a clip of this up on YouTube. Gaze in astonishment, dear reader, at the awesomeness that once was The Tonight Show. (Oh, how the mighty have fallen!)

Woody Allen's "Mere Anarchy": a book review

Woody Allen's Mere Anarchy is his first new literary work in many years.

In addition to churning out roughly a movie a year for 40 years, director Woody Allen has also worked as a stand-up comedian, actor for hire, playwright, and author. In fact, he has written three bestselling collections of humor, Getting Even, Without Feathers and Side Effects, collecting his various short stories, essays, and plays, along with absurd lists and guides.

One of the great thrift-store finds of my life was a Book of the Month Club paperback containing all three of these books (unabridged!) in one easily-portable volume. This is a book I've taken with me on long trips many, many times. You can dip into it just about anywhere and find something entertaining, ranging from exercises in pure silliness, like Allen's highly unlikely "Slang Origins," to truly well-written fiction. In fact, I'd count "The Shallowest Man" and "The Kugelmass Episode" among the better short stories I've ever seen by anyone, anywhere.

Mere Anarchy (2007) is Allen's first collection of prose in decades, and reading it is like attending a concert by a '70s hitmaker who wants to try out some new material after a long absence from touring. Allen has given up on the plays, essays, and guides this time, so Mere Anarchy only contains short (often very short) stories -- 18 altogether, ten of which originally appeared in The New Yorker and eight of which are new to this edition.

For the most part, the eight new stories are fairly weak -- contrived, unfunny, and somehow both overwritten and undercooked -- and Allen's editor has done him no favors by running all of them in a row at the beginning of the book. For that reason, Mere Anarchy gets off to a very slow and bumpy start, and I would not blame readers for abandoning it and moving on to something else.

Allen's writing style tends to include a lot of eccentric vocabulary choices, semi-obscure cultural references, and Yiddishims, and in these early tales he tends to let his "quirks" overwhelm the weak plots. For readers unfamiliar with Allen's prose, Mere Anarchy sometimes verges on unreadable. His decision to give seemingly every character a wacky name might also grate on readers' nerves.

About the only new story that rates with Allen's best is "Glory Hallelujah, Sold!" about a prayers-for-cash scam. The nadir of this part of the book, for me at least, was "Sam, You Made the Pants Too Fragrant," an extended riff on the idea of "enhanced" clothing that stretches a lame premise far beyond its breaking point.

The good news is that the ten New Yorker stories are, on average, much stronger and funnier, so the back half of the book is a much smoother ride. Here, you'll find "Thus Ate Zarathustra," a rumination on food and philosophy that could easily have found a place in one of Allen's three classics, as well as highly amusing takes on physics ("Strung Out"), home repair ("On a Bad Day You Can See Forever"), and overly chatty dentists ("Pinchuk's Law").

The New Yorker selections aren't perfect, though. Some critics fawned over "Surprise Rocks Disney Trial," a story in which Mickey Mouse gives very un-Disney-like testimony at the trial of Michael Eisner, but for me this was a missed opportunity. Allen thinks it's funny simply that a cartoon character is talking in a very businesslike way about sex and money and is casually referring to other cartoon characters as he does so, but to really make a piece like this work you have to truly understand the characters and their careers. Specificity is what makes or breaks a pop culture spoof.

For an example of how to do this kind of thing correctly, try to find "Some Famous Couples Discuss Their Divorces" by Delia Ephron in her 1986 book, Funny Sauce. That contains brief monologues by several cartoon characters, including Mickey & Minnie (along with Popeye & Olive Oyl and Archie & Veronica), and it's funny, daring, and insightful in ways that Allen's story just isn't.

Misogyny is also a problem for Allen. I'd be curious to hear a woman's perspective on Mere Anarchy. Females do not come off terribly well in Allen's stories. In fact, they generally fall into one of two categories: curvaceous young sex kittens and nagging old harpies who spend their husbands' money too freely. If you don't have a Y chromosome, you're pretty much either a bimbo or a crone in this book, with very little middle ground.

Given Allen's advancing age and infamous sexual history, his numerous leering descriptions of attractive young women, at least two of whom are complimented on their "protoplasm," might make some readers uncomfortable. He kind of comes off as an old lech now and again.

Amazingly, you can read a lengthy excerpt of this book for free on Google Books!