Ed Wood Wednesdays: Ed Wood and the Hollywood Business of "Fake News(papers)" (Guest Author: James Pontolillo)

Did you ever wonder about those fake newspapers in Ed Wood's movies? James did!

Ed Wood's films are celebrated by fans and lambasted by critics alike for their makeshift props and low budget set dressing. But when it came to the use of reproduction newspapers for film inserts, Ed relied on the same industry-standard production house as the big Hollywood studios. Prop newspapers have been used in place of real ones from the earliest days of commercial film since they avoid copyright or legal restrictions while providing a budget-conscious resource for productions that cannot afford to license real products. And the supplier in Hollywood that most everyone has turned to for over a hundred years is the Earl Hays Press, the oldest prop house in existence.

Earl Spindler Hays was born (1892) in Pennsylvania [1]. In 1910 he made the great trek westward and immediately went to work as an apprentice printer in Los Angeles. The accepted history is that in 1915 Earl established a Hollywood print shop specializing in reproductions for the film industry. However, this is not supported by evidence to be gleaned from contemporaneous Los Angeles City Directories.

Instead, from 1910-1921, Earl worked for at least two different companies including J.F. Rowins in 1913 (430 South Broadway, building still exists) and the Western Printing Company in 1917 (631 South Spring Street, redeveloped). The First World War interrupted his career as Earl went off to serve in the U.S. Army Air Service (1917-18). He returned to Los Angeles after the war and resumed employment with the Hugo C. Jacobsmeyer Company (renamed Western Printing), which explicitly produced motion picture supplies. Earl worked as a printer and later as a salesman.

By 1922 Earl had struck out on his own with a small print shop at 5515 Santa Monica Blvd (redeveloped). He specialized in making props for the film industry and, as his business grew in leaps and bounds, repeatedly relocated his shop to larger quarters. In 1926, he moved down the block to 5533 Santa Monica Blvd (still exists). In 1932 he moved the company to 6510 Santa Monica Blvd, a one-story brick building in the heart of Hollywood that would be its home for the next decade [2]. (Current-day location of Dragonfly Hollywood – a hip-hop club which preserved the building's original brickwork and features bottle service reasonably priced at $500 - $1,400 before fees, tips and taxes [3]). 

In 1942 the Earl Hays Press relocated again – this time a few blocks down Santa Monica Blvd and around the corner to 1121 North Las Palmas (redeveloped). By 1944 Earl was employing a press writer and four printers solely dedicated to manufacturing newspapers, magazines and other printed materials for movie studios.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Promo Odyssey, Part Six by Greg Dziawer

Ed Wood's 1971 film Necromania saw a lot of bookings in Hawaii.

Of the sex films helmed by Ed Wood in the last dire decade of his life, it is perhaps 1971's Necromania that is best-remembered. That wasn't always so. In fact, it was not until 1987 when the film was first attributed to Ed. A partial version of the film finally re-emerged on home video in 1994 from Something Weird. Though the movie itself was incomplete, that tape featured an introduction from Basket Case director Frank Henenlotter, who discussed the film with Wood biographer Rudolph Grey. A DVD containing the complete hardcore and softcore versions was released by Fleshbot Films a decade later.

But Necromania had a surprisingly long life in theaters, too. Newspaper ads for theatrical showings of the film indicate it was still making the rounds as late as 1982. In the previous decade, in both hardcore and softcore variants, Necromania regularly played in fleapits across the country, then no doubt just another bit of anonymous sex to satisfy the punters. And at least through Ed's passing in December 1978, he never saw a dime of the profits.

This week, we're sharing a clutch of advertisements promoting theatrical showings of Necromania in Honolulu. Yes, while Necromania played in all of the places you might expect—from Hollywood to Cleveland to Rochester—it cropped up in Honolulu at multiple theaters in late October of both 1972 and 1974, just in time for Halloween. There, it was screened at venues alongside Hong Kong kung-fu flicks and Japanese sword epics. 

Let's have fun with the funnies! Part Two: Into the Worth-iverse!

Mary Worth: Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?

There are comic strips I parody, and then there is Mary Worth. I am continually captivated by the saga of Ms. Worth, a sixty-something retiree who counsels the various misbegotten residents in her SoCal condo community of Charterstone. I do more Worth-related takeoffs than nearly all other comic strips combined, so I thought I'd gather some more recent ones into a post of their own.

Let's light this lavender-scented candle, huh?

Pharus literally can't even right now

A few panels of Pharus in "action."

#winning

Pharus does not have time for your bullshit, okay? In addition to being a major star of the funny pages, he's also dying. Yes, because of us selfish surface dwellers and our rampant pollution, this poor little fish-boy is terminally ill, beyond all medical hope, a goner for sure. He should have an expiration date stamped on his clammy little forehead. And, to make matters worse, Spider-Man's half-crazy, half-stupid wife, Mary Jane, has recklessly decided to pick him up as if he were a big yellow football and just tote him around New York until she finds someplace to put him. That can't be good for him. What's she looking for? A night deposit box, maybe?

Okay, some backstory is necessary here. The current plot in the inaccurately-named newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man has Spidey duking it out with Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. It's tough to know whom to root against here, since they're both dicks. As readers of the strip know, Peter Parker is lazy, selfish, incompetent, and prone to terrible wisecracks. But Namor's no prize pig himself. He has the snooty, imperious manner and flowery diction of a would-be alien conqueror from a 1950s sci-fi movie. It doesn't help that he habitually wears some kind of shiny, quilted vest-thing over his bare, hairless chest, nor that he has the most jagged eyebrows and the sharpest widow's peak in the comics business.

But it is Pharus, the sick little Atlantean boy, who has truly captured the nation's heart since he was introduced by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber on October 26, 2015. Namor dragged him up to the surface, where he can sort of breathe with the aid of special pills for a short while, as tangible evidence of the terrible effect we are having on those who call the ocean their home. And America has been in the grip of Pharus-mania ever since then. His design seems somewhat inspired by Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins from The All New Super Friends Hour, except that Pharus is much less prone to tomfoolery, doesn't seem to have any super powers, and noticeably lacks a monkey sidekick. With those qualities, it's no wonder he's been such an immediate sensation.The character is a non-stop delight, whether he's begging to be let go:

Wasn't "Let Me Go (Surface Woman)" a Billy Ocean song from 1986?

Whining like a bitch:

Manhandled by Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man.

Or just lying unconscious on his pitiful little stretcher:

Truthfully, this is 90% of what Pharus does.

And if you're still not convinced of the character's innate lovability, just feast your eyes on this little collage, which I humbly call Big Ol' Wall O' Pharus Faces, No. 1.

So. Much. Pharus. (And, yeah, he turns blue on the weekends. I know.)

A star, clearly, is born. Hollywood execs, get out your checkbooks now. This kid's going places.

Today's 'B.C.' comic, corrected by me

You're welcome, B.C. Your gratitude is thanks enough. No need for compensation.

Today's installment of the long-running, caveman-themed comic strip B.C., a newspaper perennial whose creator Johnny Hart has been dead since 2007, was unacceptable to me, so I had to change the punchline. And just for good measure, here's an older B.C. remix I did years ago. I can't remember if I'd ever used this on the blog. I have now, though.

This one's on the house as well.