Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Private Girl' (1975)

Ed Wood returns to the theme of prostitution in his late-career story, "Private Girl."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Contents page from Vue, January '75.

The story: "Private Girl," originally published in Vue magazine, Vol. 29, No. 1, January 1975. Allary Enterprises, Inc.

Synopsis: Prostitute Rita is one year into her special arrangement with pimp Danny, whom she met at a cocktail lounge. He keeps her as his "private girl" in a plush apartment and doesn't make her turn tricks like all of his other girls. She's enraged, though, that he has taken on a new girl and has just come from making love to her. Rita claws Danny's face, and he hits her in the lip. Once things calm down, the two begin to talk. Rita worries that Danny will get rid of her once she begins to age, but Danny reassures Rita that she's still his special girl and that she has a lot of good years ahead of her. Then, Danny asks if Rita will entertain Tom Weaver, a friend of his from Detroit -- just talking, he assures her, no sex. Unbeknownst to the prostitute, Danny is going to use this opportunity to move Rita out of the apartment and move his new "private girl" into it. From now on, Rita's freeloading days are over. Danny will put her to "good use."

Wood trademarks: Prostitution and streetwalkers (cf. Orgy of the Dead); alcohol (vodka plus Ed's personal favorite, Imperial whiskey); "love nest" as euphemism for vagina (cf. this collection's "Scream Your Bloody Head Off"); man beating up hooker (cf. The Snow Bunnies); character named Danny referred to as "Danny boy" (cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space - "I can't resist your charm, Danny boy."); breast fetish; expression "You'll shit if you eat regular" (cf. this collection's "Flowers for Flame LeMarr"); repeated use of word "bastard"; pink nightgown; pink satin miniskirt; temperamental, violent woman (cf. "Flame LeMarr"); liquor store; cocktail lounge (cf. The Cocktail Hostesses); reference to oral sex in public alley (cf. this collection's "Hellfire"); long-term effects of alcoholism (Danny tells Rita she drinks too much); expression "old bat" (cf. "Flame LeMarr").

Excerpt: "You were something special. The way you moved your legs. The way your hips swayed, not like some little tramp pick up. You had class. I mean your body had class. You could stand some English lessons, but all the rest of you spells class. And class I like. Class I got to have. And that's what you have, A-1 class."

This Vue is yours for $50.

Reflections: The most damning, damaging passages of Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. appear in its penultimate chapter, "It's a Kind of Glow," which deals with Eddie's ever-worsening alcoholism in the mid-to-late-1970s and his tumultuous, occasionally violent life with Kathy Wood in their last few years as a married couple. After you make your way through those 13 pages of hell on earth, it is difficult to recapture your image of Ed as the misunderstood, goofy 1950s dreamer who made Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda,

If there is a single sentence from Nightmare that haunts me, it's this simple pronouncement from Kathy: "Eddie wasn't nice when he was drunk." Actor John Andrews, who once donned an ill-fitting werewolf mask and howled amid the machine-generated fog in Orgy of the Dead, fills in the details. "Eddie," he says, "was a violent drunk" who nearly killed Kathy when she wouldn't stop nagging him. Various associates and friends, including a few of the actors who appeared in Ed's movies, tell war stories about Ed and Kathy's booze-fueled battles during those dark years. Particularly disturbing are some racial slurs attributed to Kathy, allegedly directed at her neighbors.

"Private Girl" is a product of that bleak time in Ed Wood's life. On the surface, it is a thin rewrite of "Flowers for Flame LeMarr" and again tells the story of a woman in the sex trade who is usurped by a younger replacement. But this story is so ugly and violent, it makes "Flowers" look optimistic in comparison. It's depressing but not surprising to read in Nightmare of Ecstasy that two prostitutes were murdered around the corner from where Eddie was living at the time on Yucca and Cahuenga in Hollywood.

Chronologically the most recent of the stories included in Blood Splatters Quickly, it is also the first I've encountered in this collection that does not seem to originate from Bernie Bloom's multifaceted, multimedia publishing enterprise. Business-minded Bernie had to cut unreliable Eddie loose eventually, all loyalty aside, and it seems like the split between them occurred in 1974 or 1975. (Although, as Greg Dziawer will tell you, Eddie was still getting occasional assignments from the Bloom family through 1978.)

Instead, "Private Girl" ran in Allen Stearn's Vue, a photo magazine that launched circa 1948 and got progressively sleazier over the decades, lapsing from celebrity gossip to outright pornography during its sordid final years. Despite the long history of this publication, very little has been written about Vue. (Here's a nice exception.) The magazine seems to have given up even the last vestiges of respectability when it ran "Private Girl," which is more sexually graphic than Ed's other stories. By then, the magazine's slogan had changed from "America's Photo Digest" to "The Magazine for the Modern Man." I can find no references to Stearn or to Vue past 1975.

Despite the grimness that permeates "Private Girl," there is the occasional flash of Wood-ian charm here, as when Rita says to Danny, "What will you do with me when I do get older, Danny? Throw me out to pasture like a glob of horse turds?"

Those looking for insight into Eddie's racial views, meanwhile, may find some clues in this passage, which I will merely excerpt without further comment. It is an exchange of dialogue between Danny and Rita:

     "What in the hell could you have that's unpleasant to remember?"
     "Things. Black things."
     "You been fuckin' the blacks?" He drew back violently. As a first thought he might have clubbed her again. He didn't.
     "You weren't the first. I got around before I came with you."
     "That's not what I asked you."
     "No!"
     He calmed. "Course there isn't anything wrong with fucking with blacks. Some of my best clients are blacks. But my girl has to be straight all the way. Of course I know you wasn't a virgin when I picked you up." 

Draw your own conclusions.

Next: "Breasts of the Chicken" (1972)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Flowers for Flame LeMarr' (1973)

"Flowers for Flame LeMarr" is not to be confused with "Flowers for Algernon."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

The magazine where "Flowers" debuted.

The story: "Flowers for Flame LeMarr," originally published in Spice 'n' Nice magazine, February/March 1973, Pendulum Publishing, Inc.

Synopsis: Aging stripper Flame LeMarr is outraged that she is to share her private dressing room with Donna, a new dancer who is due to arrive soon from San Francisco. In her anger, she throws a hand mirror at stage manager Jimmy and hits him on the chin, drawing blood. She also demands to speak to her agent. Jimmy then meets with the theater's owner, Oliver Pertnell, who somewhat reluctantly agrees with Jimmy that Flame has to go immediately. They call Art, Flame's agent, in for a meeting. Far from being protective of his client, Art easily agrees to terminate Flame's contract and says he'll probably get her some work in pornographic films ("skin-flicks"). The conversation of the three men is interrupted by the sound of scenery crashing down. Knowing her days were numbered, Flame has cut the ropes and injured herself. This way, she will be able to retire and make it look like it was by her own choice. Oliver orders flowers to be sent to the hospital.

Wood trademarks: Our old pal alcohol (it's scotch this time from the "full bar" in Oliver's office); temperamental woman causing misery for men (cf. Bride of the Monster, Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Orgy of the Dead, this collection's "Just One Question" and "Scream Your Bloody Head Off"); women's lingerie (Flame wears a "pink marabou, floor length negligee"); repeated use of the epithets "bastard" and "shit-head"; feathers (cf. Orgy's "feathers, furs, and fluff"); marabou (next to angora, Ed's favorite material, cf. Bride and the Beast); the color pink (Flame's face powder and nightgown); behind the scenes at a theater (cf. Jail Bait, Final Curtain); reference to snakes (Flame compared to rattlesnake); pornographic film industry; use of the term "final curtain" (cf. Final Curtain).

Excerpt: "Flame's flame is burning mighty low these days. Any of the other girls wouldn't have to burn so bright as to light up a guy's body heats. Look, face facts. Flame has burned out, or at least gotten so low that she couldn't give a hard on to a guy if she went right out in the audience and gave him head. Face it... she's over the hill... call up the old ladies home and make her reservations."

Reflections: It's a fictional scenario that reappears time and again throughout our culture, from fairy tales like "Snow White" to movies like All About Eve and Black Swan. A woman, once prized for her beauty, is threatened by the arrival of a younger, more vibrant (read: sexier) female rival. We have a lot of unflattering archetypes for older women in our society -- the witch, the hag, the old crone, the wicked stepmother, etc. This story's heroine, Flame LeMarr, whose very name suggests the fires of hell, is unkindly referred to as an "old bat" and an "old dog" by the insensitive men who want to get rid of her.

On some level, their feelings are justified. Flame's violent behavior, after all, makes her seem like a cross between Medusa and the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. But maybe, this woman is just doing what she has to do to survive in a world controlled by men. If that makes her a "bitch," so be it.

Women are prized above all for their physical beauty, and once that starts to fade, men carelessly discard them like empty bottles of scotch. This is especially true for women in the sex trade, from prostitutes to porn actresses. Pulp Fiction reminded us that "boxers don't have an old timers day." Neither, one would imagine, do strippers. One can hardly blame this woman for raging against the dying of the light. How horrifying that, in order to retire on her own terms, Flame LeMarr has to literally mutilate herself. Today, one supposes, she'd probably overindulge in Botox injections and plastic surgery.

It's within the realm of possibility that Ed Wood saw something of himself in Flame LeMarr. It's telling that he associates her with some of his own favorite things: feathers, marabou, the color pink. Moreover, Ed was pushing 50 by the time he wrote "Flowers for Flame LeMarr," and it's obvious from much of his writing that he was more than feeling the devastating effects of time, the aging process hastened by years of drinking and dozens of career setbacks. Filmmaking, too, is often a young man's game, and Ed wasn't so young anymore by 1973. It's interesting that a lifelong transvestite would choose a female character to reflect the theme of lost youth.

It's also fascinating to see that Ed Wood gives a glimpse of the pornographic film industry in this story and how its standards had changed over the years. Art, Flame's agent, tells Jimmy and Oliver that Flame "did some flicks in the old days... Had to wear pasties and pussy patches then. She might like it in the total like they do these days." That's progress for you -- from "pasties and pussy patches" to complete nudity. Let's hear it for the Supreme Court, huh?

Next: "Private Girl" (1975)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Superfruit' (1971)

An artist who dubbed himself "El Warpo" illustrated Ed Wood's story "Superfruit" in 1971.

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

5585 W. Pico Boulevard today - a strip mall.

The story: "Superfruit," originally published in the premiere issue of Meatrack magazine, 1971, from Libra Press. Curiously, the magazine's editorial page indicates that the title of the publication is Luscious. 

Although Libra may seem to be a new or different company, it shares an address (5585* W. Pico Boulevard) with all the other Calga/Pendulum/Gallery magazines put out by Bernie Bloom.

*some magazines say 5583.

Synposis: Freelance writer Rance Hillborn is confined to his Los Angeles penthouse during an uncharacteristically lengthy rainy spell. But he has enough food, cigarettes, and booze to tide him over for days. He receives a call from a distraught friend, Lawrence, and invites him over. 

Once at Rance's place, Lawrence begins to ruminate about his problems. He's distraught over the very recent death of his lover, William, and his half-million-dollar fruit business is in the doldrums. Lawrence thinks that Rance, being a professional writer, might give him some guidance. Rance tells him that the truly successful professionals are those with specialties. Lawrence should gear his advertising to homosexuals: selling fruit to the fruits. "The whole population," says Rance, "will know you as the SUPER FRUIT."

Wood trademarks: 

• alcohol (whiskey sodas mainly, but also gin and vodka)

• homosexuality

• character named Rance (cf. this collection's "Epitaph for the Village Drunk")

• expression "for love nor money" (cf. For Love and Money)

• reference to freeway accident rates (cf. Night of the Ghouls)

• looking down on vehicles and speculating about the lives of the drivers (cf. Glen or Glenda:"All those cars, all going someplace" speech)

• the life of a successful writer (cf. Orgy of the Dead)

• disparaging reference to marijuana (it's "no fun" and brings on "law problems")

• completely gratuitous reference to women's boots and how they complement the female form

• fur fetish (in this case, a white nylon fur-covered chair)

• fixation on death ("How many winters and summers do we have?")

• dialogue "I've got a problem." "Haven't we all?" (taken verbatim from Glen or Glenda)

• speculation about the word "conventional" (cf. Necromania)

• going to a friend for help with a personal problem (cf. Glen or Glenda, Drop Out Wife)

Excerpt:"The whole point is that you haven't tried everything. You've stayed conventional. Conventional ads. Conventional business practices. Conventional this and conventional that. To hell with conventions. That's why my books are not conventional. They have a lot of startling happenings which drag my readers in by the score and the publishers are begging for the next sheet as it comes out of my typewriter."

Editorial page from Luscious.

Reflections: It was certainly not my intention when I started analyzing Blood Splatters Quickly, but this project has developed into an exploration of Ed Wood's views on homosexuality. 

Because of his work for Bernie Bloom's Pendulum Press and its many, many subsidiaries, Eddie had to write a lot of stories about homosexual characters. Sometimes, these were for straight publications (Gold Diggers); other times, they were for gay titles (Male Lovers). 

Luscious seems to be a straight magazine, since its inaugural cover featured a "young lady" who "could cause an unwary male a lot of heartache." Its focus seems to be on the erotic possibilities of food, with particular emphasis on fruits and vegetables. Its contents page describes it as being "dedicated to all that is especially delicious, particularly edible." 

I can imagine Bernie telling Eddie, "Give me something about sex and food, maybe fruits." Ed Wood's response was to write a story which essentially hinges on a pun: the double meaning of the word "fruit." This makes it a first cousin to "Missionary (Position) Impossible," whose entire reason for being was a play on the double meaning of the word "queen." At least here, Wood does not make the two main characters into swishy stereotypes, the way he did with the "white queen" from "Missionary." I wonder, though, why Eddie felt it necessary to give Rance a "Princess phone" rather than some other kind.

But even though this story could be interpreted as another extremely convoluted setup to a silly punchline, there is something personal and humane about Eddie's writing in "Superfruit." Once again, as in "The Autograph," he has written a story about gay people coming out of hiding and being honest and open about their sexuality. "What do you have to hide from?" Rance tells Lawrence. 

Beyond that, it seems obvious to me that Ed Wood envies the cozy life of gay writer Rance Hillborn, whose very surname seems to suggest privilege and superiority. "His freezer," Ed writes, "was well stocked, his cigarette box was full and the wet bar was housed by a goodly collection of gins, whiskies, vodka and the other drinks his guests preferred." 

And if that's not enough, Rance seems to be all set, career-wise: "Work, however, was no problem for Rance Hillborn. He was a freelance writer and he worked out of his apartment and when finished there was the apartment mail drop and the postman could brave all kinds of weather from there on in." I'm sure there were many times when Ed would have gladly switched places with Rance, "fruit" or not.

Next: "Flowers for Flame LeMarr" (1973)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'The Autograph' (1974)

Well, that's one way of getting an autograph: one of Ed Wood's later short stories.

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Congrats, Ed. You made it into Boy Play.

The story: "The Autograph," originally published in Boy Play magazine, January/February 1974, from Gallery Press.

Synopsis: Reporter Harry has been sent to interview cowboy star Tex Warren and is embarrassed when he farts loudly in front of the actor, but the genial celebrity laughs it off. The reason for Harry's visit is that Tex has recently announced his homosexuality. After confirming that Harry, too, is homosexual, Tex explains his reason for coming out of the closet. For years, he's been forced to date women and even marry a few of them to maintain his "butch" screen image. It's been great for his career, but it has played havoc with his love life. He's had to hire the services of "call boys" and even kept a long-term lover on as his personal secretary so people wouldn't be suspicious. But the women's lib movement has given him the incentive to be honest about his sexual identity... at least in real life. He'll continue playing straight characters onscreen. That said, Tex takes his "monster" penis out and shows it to Harry, whose first impression is to go into a bathroom and masturbate. But with a little encouragement from Tex, the nervous reporter agrees to perform oral sex on the movie star.

Wood trademarks: Alcohol (martinis mostly, but beer and whiskey soda are both mentioned); cowboy actor (not only did Ed idolize cowboy stars, he hired a few to be in his 1950s movies); reporter sent to investigate a manly screen star's homosexuality (exact plot of The Beach Bunnies); phrase "behind the locked doors" (cf. Glen or Glenda? whose working title was Behind Locked Doors); "not my bag" used as an excuse (cf. Fugitive Girls); extensive use of ellipses (cf. virtually every story in this book); prostitution (male this time); character named Tex (cf. Crossroads of Laredo, the Story Ad films).

Excerpt: "There are no longer any long-term contracts. Only picture by picture. I doubt if anybody in all of Hollywood any longer has a long-term contract. So to HELL with the morals clauses. Besides I'm already signed for three more pictures due to the announcement I made about myself...being homosexual I mean. I suppose they figure the audiences will pile into the theater just to see what kind of freak I am..."

Reflections: "What a curious vanity it is of the present," wrote novelist Julian Barnes in Flaubert's Parrot, "to expect the past to suck up to it. The present looks back on some great figure of an earlier century and wonders, Was he on our side? Was he a goodie? What a lack of self-confidence this implies." 

Insecurities aside, this is what I am forced to do when I write about Edward Davis Wood, Jr., who to many was "a great figure of an earlier century." Especially when dealing with Wood's treatment of sensitive issues like LGBT rights, I feel obligated to examine Wood's writing from a modern perspective and indulge in what Barnes calls "adjudicating on its political acceptability." 

On the one hand, a story like "The Autograph" may attract scorn from modern readers since its characters use now-frowned-upon terms like "homos," "fairies," and "faggots," while furthering the stereotype that the women's liberation movement consists largely of "butch" lesbians who want to be "truck drivers and high steel workers." These same critics may point out that "The Autograph" presents its gay characters as absurdly indiscreet and promiscuous, transitioning too quickly and casually from a professional interview into sexual intimacy. One might even take umbrage at the fact that Ed Wood undercuts the eroticism of this story by beginning it with a lengthy anecdote about farting and by using such silly-sounding phrases as "He unzipped his fly and took out his giant dork." 

But throughout Eddie's gay-themed stories, there is the motif of homosexuals being normal members of society and wanting to be treated as the equals of heterosexuals. In "Island Divorce," one character claiming to be gay says, "We come in all walks of life my friend. The wife and the kids came along before I even knew my own mind." In "The Autograph," meanwhile, Tex Warren gives several long speeches about the acceptance of homosexuality. The actor is tired of pretending to be straight, and he's not going to do it anymore. Tex actually seems to anticipate the modern LGBT movement when he says:

Those lesbians are standing up to be counted... that's the only way to get changes. You know this sexual revolution is a young thing... it's got a long way to go, but because it has started and there are those, like myself, who are standing up to be counted, it is going to remain with us. It's not going to be put down behind the locked doors again.

Ed Wood wrote those words, my friends. How much of his own opinion is in them, I do not know. I do find it significant that he uses the phrase "behind the locked doors" here, because that's the very same way he described the plight of transvestites in Glen or Glenda? back in 1953.

It is impossible to forget that "The Autograph" is a product of another time. It was written 40 years ago, and there are aspects of the story which must have seemed quaint even then. Tex, for instance, is written as a traditional cowboy star from the 1940s or 1950s. I pictured him looking and talking like John Wayne. (Like Wayne, whose real name was Marion Morrison, "Tex Warren" also works under a pseudonym. We never learn his real name.) By 1974, however, new-style stars like Robert Redford, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman were on the rise. 

"Improved with DDT": A Flit ad with art by Dr. Seuss.

Tex Warren's man-out-of-time quality is highlighted when he makes this joke after Harry's loud fart: "Get the Flit, I do think there's a bug in the place." I'll admit this was something I had to look up. Flit turns out to be an incredibly-unsafe insecticide which was on the market from the late 1920s to the 1950s. It was already quite obsolete (and rightly so, given its tragic history) by the time this issue of Boy Play hit newsstands. If Flit is remembered for anything today, it's a long-running ad campaign with whimsical artwork by Dr. Seuss and the catchphrase, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" This, it would seem, is what Ed Wood was trying to reference here. I don't know what exactly I expected when I decided to read some of Eddie's attempts at gay porn, but I surely wasn't anticipating a crash course in the history of pesticides.

Next: "Superfruit" (1971)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Epitaph for the Village Drunk' (1973)

Lovely illustration for Ed Wood's short story, "Epitaph for the Village Drunk."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Charming contents page for Savage.

The story: "Epitaph for the Village Drunk," also known as "Epitaph for the Town Drunk," originally published in Savage magazine, March/April 1973, from Gallery Press.

Synopsis: On a cold winter night in a small village, a few men -- including Jake Cornfield, Lucas Heindorf, and Pete Whistle -- gather at Barnaby's Bar and reminisce with the owner about the late Rance Tensite, a raging alcoholic who died in a fire. Because the ground nearby is so frozen, he won't be buried until the next thaw. There isn't much left of Rance to bury, though. 

The men's feelings about Rance are a mixture of pity, disgust, begrudging admiration, and puzzlement. The incident that brought about Rance's death began when, intoxicated as usual, he dove into an icy creek to rescue the son of the Vigrans, a poor local family. The sheriff hauled Rance off to jail that night and put him in a freezing cold cell. To keep warm, the unfortunate man lit his mattress on fire, burning down the wooden, barn-like structure. Now, the village has two upcoming expenses: rebuilding the jailhouse and burying what's left of Rance.

Wood trademarks: 

• alcohol (beer, hot buttered rum, and straight whiskey are consumed by the men, while cocktails and gin are dismissed as too feminine)

• the effects of chronic, long-term alcoholism (which Ed was experiencing)

• the conversation of drunken men (cf. this collection's "To Kill a Saturday Night")

• the phrase "You got to face it, we're just getting old" (compare to gravedigger scene from Plan 9, i.e. "Maybe we're gettin' old.")

• consumption by fire (cf. Orgy of the Dead)

• typical morbid references to death rituals (undertakers, funerals, burials)

Excerpt: "Guys like Rance Tensite didn't need no liver. Guess they didn't need any of the guts like other people have. All they need is a mouth and a stomach to take the stuff in for a spell, then a pecker to drain it out through."

Reflections: There are times during Blood Splatters Quickly when Ed Wood seems like Skid Row's answer to O. Henry. Certainly, Wood shares O. Henry's penchant for irony-drenched twist endings, and "Epitaph for the Village Drunk" is among the sharpest and most thought-provoking examples, with a man's finest hour leading directly to, and being canceled out by, his ultimate downfall. 

Of all the bizarre tales anthologized in this collection, none have felt more personal than this one. Ed was only five years away from his own demise when this story appeared, and it's likely that he was looking back on his life, ruminating on the effects that years of hard drinking had taken on his body and feeling considerably older than his 49 years. Ed's days as a battle-decorated Marine were twenty years in the rear view mirror by then, and his days as a director of sci-fi films and crime thrillers were also long gone. "Epitaph" seems like Ed Wood's attempt to write his own obituary in advance. He must've known that his legacy would be complicated, judging by this dialogue from the story as the townsmen discuss Rance's burning of the jailhouse and well-known dislike of the police:

"Yep," reasoned Barnaby. "Hero one minute and bastard the next." 

"That's what makes the world go around, I guess. Too bad but that's the way it was." 

"He never did like them. They're all going to say he did it on purpose." 

"Yep, hero one minute and bastard the next. How quick our good deeds are forgotten." 

"Nobody really likes a drunk. Even though he might have been a hero for a fleeting moment." 

"He didn't want to be no hero." 

"Sure not. He just couldn't see no kid drown under the ice. Bet he didn't even think. He just threw his boozed hide down that hole and brought him up."

"To Bill Brasky!"

In reality, Ed Wood didn't get his last-moment shot at redemption the way Rance Tensite does in the story. There are very few iced-over creeks in Hollywood for wayward children to fall into. Perhaps this story was, in its own depressing way, a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy for Eddie. Shambling village drunk Rance gets to prove his bravery, then literally goes down in flames while simultaneously inconveniencing the local authorities. Even though it has no sexual content whatsoever, "Epitaph" wound up in the pages of a pornographic magazine "dedicated to those admirers of the S-M theories." Its author had other goals for it. According to Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy, this story was supposed to be adapted for the screen and would have comprised one-third of an untitled anthology film in 1973. Here is Grey's summary of the screenplay:

In Epitaph for the Village Drunk, town drunk Harry Poole surprises the townspeople by saving the life of a young boy who falls under the ice in a creek. Having no other place to stay, Harry spends the night in jail where old timers bring him a couple bottles. Unable to keep warm, Harry burns his mattress and dies when the jail catches fire.

I suppose we could have a "chicken or the egg" discussion about whether the story was based on the screenplay or vice-versa. Either way, the film version would have told essentially the same story in a slightly more pragmatic way. Notice that the drunk has been given a more commonplace name (the rather drab "Harry Poole" instead of "Rance Tensite"). The screenplay, at least as described by Grey, also ditches one of the more interesting aspects of "Epitaph": its second-hand structure, with the protagonist never actually appearing but merely serving as a topic of conversation for others. 

Perhaps because it's set in a bar and focuses on the booze-addled conversations therein, this story reminded me somewhat of the "Bill Brasky" sketches from Saturday Night Live, in which a group of red-nosed, bucktoothed businessmen, all sloshed, share wild and impossible anecdotes about "the best damned salesman in the office!"

To Rance Tensite!

Next: "The Autograph" (1974)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Sex Star' (1973)

A married woman finds new fulfillment in the pornographic film industry in "Sex Star."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Editorial page from Party Time.
Note Ed Wood's trademark ellipses.

The story: "Sex Star," originally published in Party Time, August/September 1973, Gallery Press.

Synopsis: While her unsuspecting husband, Henry, goes off to work in the morning, serene housewife Linda Wadsworth stays busy with what she calls her "club activities." In reality, she is going off to make pornographic films at a small studio. She has made hundreds of X-rated movies over the course of a few months, mostly for a gregarious producer named Louie, and has proved willing to do whatever her employers have asked, including lesbianism and interracial scenes. She is certain that Henry, who only has the strength to make love to her three times a week (and then only in the missionary position), will never see any of her adult movies. One day, however, Louie shows her some amateur footage of fetishists at a party, and she recognizes one transvestite as being her husband. Far from being upset, Linda now knows that her sex life with Henry is about to get a lot more interesting.

Wood trademarks: Angora sweaters (both white and blue); transvestism (complete with makeup and a blonde wig); nightgowns (Linda wears a "frilly pink nightie"); pornographic film industry (where Ed himself worked in the 1970s); sexually voracious woman burdened with a sexually incompetent man (cf. Necromania); fixation on breasts; women's undergarments (panties, brassieres, and stockings); use of statues and dildos as instruments of erotic gratification (cf. Love Feast, Necromania); reference to divorce courts and how to avoid them (cf. Glen or Glenda?, The Cocktail Hostesses); kinky side of seemingly average people (cf. most of Ed's movies with Stephen C. Apostolof); desire to avoid having children (cf. this collection's "Taking Off"); love of soft things (including a "fluffy pink towel").

Excerpt: "The slacks came next and then the boots, then the angora sweater slipped smoothly over her head... the matching angora cardigan felt luxurious traveling up the lengths of her arms. She looked in the mirror and felt like a cute little bunny rabbit, all white and fuzzy... she let both of her hands lightly caress her breasts through the fuzz of the angora sweater and again there was that electrical shock... she could easily understand how some people could have a fetish desire for furs..."

Reflections: One of the biggest Top 40 hits of the late 1970s was Rupert Holmes' notorious 1979 soft rock smash "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)," which tells the story of an unsatisfied man whose personal ad is unwittingly answered by a woman with whom he's already in a long-term relationship. Through this strange coincidence, these two people realize how much they truly have in common, and their love is renewed. "Sex Star" is a lot like that song, except instead of "piña coladas and getting caught in the rain," the couple in Ed Wood's story is into cross-dressing and gang bangs. It could still make a decent song: "If you like angora sweaters and dressing up like a dame..." Actually, like "The Piña Colada Song," "Sex Star" invites quick dismissal as silly camp because of Ed Wood's strange sexual phraseology and inexact grasp of early 1970s slang. Some of Eddie's howlers here include "meat whistle," "get your cookies," "the lovely girl love-partner," and "I got a hard on deep in my guts." The fact that the last of those is uttered by a female character suggests Ed Wood had a strange perception of anatomy.

All kidding aside, there is some poignancy beneath the surface of "Sex Star" for those who care to look. When I was making my way through the films Ed Wood made with Stephen C. Apostolof in the 1970s, I couldn't help but notice that the characters generally aren't young, nubile folks in their late teens and early twenties. More often, like the characters in The Class Reunion, they're full-fledged adults with stressful jobs and flagging marriages. These people have lots of (softcore) sex, but it seems like they're using that to compensate for something that's lacking in their lives, i.e. "Maybe if I have a stranger literally filling one of my body cavities, it will help to fix the yawning chasm in my soul." "Sex Star" is a lot cheerier and more optimistic than that, but it still contains the following exchange of dialogue when Louie asks Linda to do an interracial scene:

"We photograph all races together."
"I'm not proud... only lonely."
"You won't be lonely no more... that is if sex is your bag and it keeps the lonely away."
"I'm insatiable."
"Good... good... good..."

The word "insatiable" is, of course, a long-time favorite of pornographers. Marilyn Chambers had a whole movie called Insatiable in 1980. Eddie himself uses it in Necromania. It suggests someone, usually a horny woman, who can never get enough sex and must therefore keep screwing multiple partners. That's potentially exciting, but there's also something kind of sad and desperate about it. By definition, an insatiable person cannot and will never receive satisfaction. That's a grim prospect and reduces an individual to the level of a drug addict who must continually search for a fix but can never get high. That doesn't sound like fun to me. Fortunately, as I said, "Sex Star" is a lot more upbeat than that. Take away the fetishism -- including one guy who's disturbingly into "mud" -- and this is ultimately a story about the rekindling of a marriage.

Next: "Epitaph for the Village Drunk" (1973)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'Taking Off' (1971)

Tell me about it, girlfriend: a woman experiences sexual regret in Ed Wood's "Taking Off."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Swap, a magazine for swingers.

The story: "Taking Off," originally published in Swap, October/November 1971, Pendulum.

Synopsis: Pretty but restless 17-year-old Emily Porterhouse feels like she is going to waste in her sleepy little hometown of Gartersville, a village whose only claim to fame is a nearby auto plant. It's Saturday night, and she has nothing to do. She can't even hang around the house, since her parents are hosting their weekly bridge party and have invited many neighbors to their home. She thinks about her early sexual explorations with her boyfriend, Tommy Rich, a car owner who is kind to her despite acting tough around his friends.

But Emily doesn't want to marry Tommy or any of the boys in Gartersville because none of them will be important in life. Instead, she dreams of moving to Hollywood, where her talent and beauty will finally be appreciated. Desiring to change clothes, Emily decides to enter her own home, regardless of the fact that her parents are hosting a party. Once inside, she sees that the grown ups are not playing bridge but, rather, participating in an orgy! For the first time, Emily understands how the adult world works. "She had simply entered life," the narrator tells us.

Wood trademarks:

• An angora sweater (baby blue in color this time)

• Having nothing to do on a Saturday night in a small town (cf. this collection's "To Kill a Saturday Night")

• Young girl planning to move to Hollywood to become a star (cf. Hollywood Rat Race)

• The local movie house as escape from suburban boredom (similar to Ed Wood's own childhood in Poughkeepsie, NY)

• Reference to prostitution (the expression "whore in church")

• Lingering attention to a woman's body and wardrobe, especially undergarments (this story focuses on Emily's breasts, panties, and brassiere)

• Reference to snakes (orgy compared to writhing snake pit)

• Seemingly average folks participating in an orgy (a staple of Ed's 1970s movies with Stephen Apostolof, cf. The Cocktail Hostesses, The Beach Bunnies, The Class Reunion)

• Female character as irresistible object of male lust

• A couple whose surname is Trent (cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space)

• Character named Barbara (common Wood character name since Glen or Glenda?)

• Speed typing (Ed's own talent).

Excerpt: "A man and a woman were supposed to have sex, that's the way babies were made. They get married and a boy and a girl mate and pretty soon they have a house full of kids... screaming brats running all around the place... screaming house apes with grubby asses and dirty faces. There would be no kids for her."

Ed offers new uses for 7 Up!

Reflections: As I make my way through this collection, I'm coming to realize that Ed Wood was pornography's answer to the Swiss Army knife. Any kind of story you want, whatever your sexual preference or predilection, he's your man. A real Johnny-on-the-spot of smut, you might say. The Pendulum/Gallery/Calga publishing empire released a whole slew of erotically-diverse titles in the early 1970s, and Ed Wood wrote for as many of them as he could, bouncing from one sexual orientation to another. Swap was Pendulum's magazine devoted to the "swinging" lifestyle.

The wonderful Bob Blackburn, the man responsible for getting Blood Splatters Quickly into print, has been kindly sending me artwork and contents pages from the original magazines, and I've noticed that Pendulum wanted to indulge its readers' fetishes and reassure them that whatever they were into was normal and acceptable. Besides running pictures and articles that catered to readers' specialized interests (even if that interest was sex with the Devil or whatever), Pendulum also tended to run supportive editorials on its magazines' contents pages, many of them written by Ed Wood himself. Here's what Swap has to say about swinging, for instance:

The swinging swappers have made a whole new thing out of the ancient and traditional institution of marriage. It has long been apparent that swappers -- married persons who switch off mates with one another -- have been eating away at the foundations of that traditional edifice called marriage, but some experts in the field are now beginning to wonder if they really are the termites they once seemed to be. Might it be that they are having the opposite effect, shoring up what's left of the old structure?

With that in mind, you might think that Ed Wood's story for a swingers magazine would be written from the perspective of the swingers themselves, in this case the grown-ups of Gartersville (and how about that name, huh?) who gather every Saturday night and pretend they're "playing bridge" when they're really swapping partners. All week, they toil in the automobile plant -- rather like the foundry workers in Glen or Glenda? -- then cut loose on the weekends because they've earned a little fun.

But the story isn't really about swinging or swingers at all. It's about a young woman who feels stifled in a small town and yearns for the excitement and glamour of Hollywood. If Eddie has a surrogate in "Taking Off," it's would-be starlet Emily Porterhouse, who possesses the perfect feminine beauty Ed always dreamed of achieving himself. He even makes Emily a super-fast typist, just like he was! Curiously, Ed's showbiz manual, Hollywood Rat Race (ca. 1965), contains numerous cautionary tales about girls just like Emily who move to Tinseltown only to find rejection, poverty, and humiliation there. You might be a big deal in your home town, Ed repeatedly suggests in that book, but you'll find that there are thousands just like you in Los Angeles.

The most common bit of advice in Hollywood Rat Race is "stay home," but you can tell from this story that Ed still sympathizes with the dreamers of the world, particularly young girls, who look West and think that the Hollywood dream factory still offers something better than they can find at the local gas station or malt shop. The ending of this story is presented as a birth or rebirth for Emily. If Alan/Ann from Glen or Glenda? is "a woman born at the age of 24," then Emily Porterhouse is a woman born at the age of 17.

By the way, in "Taking Off," Professor Ed offers one bit of helpful, little-heard sex advice for you ladies out there: a freshly shaken-up bottle of 7 Up makes a good post-coital douche for those times when you want to prevent pregnancy. Just make sure to have a handkerchief handy for afterwards!

Next: "Sex Star" (1973)

Ed Wood's BLOOD SPLATTERS QUICKLY: 'I, Warlock' (1971)

The Devil returns as an Ed Wood character in "I, Warlock."

NOTE: This article is part of my ongoing coverage of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Contents page from Gay Studs.

The story: "I, Warlock," aka "The Warlock," originally published in Gay Studs, August/September 1971, from Pendulum Publishers.

Synopsis: This is not really a "story," per se, more like a monologue or soliloquy in which a warlock explains his strange, frightening lifestyle to us. There is, therefore, no plot to summarize here. Warlocks, our narrator explains, can travel by broomsticks but prefer to transport themselves via mind power, which allows them to be anywhere at any time. They scour the world for souls to claim, all in service of their master, Satan, the Prince of Darkness. Their motivation is sex, and their existence revolves around erotic pleasure. While "no mortal soul is safe" from warlocks, Satan prefers young boys. Certain conditions are especially attractive to warlocks, such as full moons and old houses. When a warlock dies, he progresses to a new level while his mortal soul goes in search of a new body. This is how Satan continually increases his number of followers. The warlock tells us not to be afraid of such an arrangement, as it affords people untold pleasures in the afterlife. But if you willingly decide to become a warlock, do not let your friends know about your choice. They will not understand or approve. The narrator sums up his presentation by letting us know that warlocks are everywhere and always looking for new recruits.

Wood trademarks: The Devil as a character (cf. Glen or Glenda?, this collection's "Hellfire"); powerful, supernatural, and lust-crazed ruler with an ever-increasing following (cf. Orgy of the Dead, "Hellfire"); snakes (reference to the "poison sac of the serpent"); emphasis on the infinite nature of time (cf. Glen or Glenda?, the opening scroll of Portraits in Terror, both of which mention "the endless reaches of time"); skeletons (cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space, Orgy of the Dead); homosexuality; all the usual Gothic trappings (story mentions full moons, cemeteries, ghosts, graveyards, and gravestones); phrase "Beware... take care..." (cf. Glenda, "Hellfire"); nature of the soul questioned (cf. "Hellfire"); reversal of words: "evil"/"live," "devil"/"lived" (cf. "Hellfire"); generous use of ellipses.

Excerpt: "Alarm is for the little informed! Terror is for the least informed! Horror is for the purely ignorant! Intrigue is for the open-minded! Those with an open mind will find revelations...little before conceived entities into the unknown... But pleasures beyond comprehension to mortals. The pleasure of lust! Boy-lust!"

Reflection: From all those cross-references to "Hellfire" in the list of Wood trademarks up there, you might have gleaned that "I, Warlock" is a companion piece or counterpart to that truly odd 1972 story. Indeed, "I, Warlock" reads like a gay-themed rewrite of "Hellfire." (Or, since "Hellfire" appeared later, perhaps it should be described as the straight version of "I, Warlock.") The major difference between these two stories is that, in "Hellfire," Satan does his own recruiting, even assuming a human form if necessary, while in "I, Warlock," he sends warlocks and witches out to do his job for him. Either way, the result is a supernatural sex cult. It's interesting to note that this story appeared the very same year that Eddie wrote and directed Necromania, a film which is not as overtly supernatural as this story but which still features cult-like rituals and prayers. In that movie, Madame Heles declares that Shirley (Rene Bond) will forevermore "live for sex and sex alone," which seems to also be the credo of the warlocks in this story. I noticed, too, the similarity between the gleefully ominous endings of "Hellfire" and "I, Warlock," which both suggest that evil is omnipresent and cannot be contained within any one story. Here's how "Hellfire" concludes:

The Devil will always survive.
LIVE is simply EVIL spelled backward.
LIVED then is also simple... Devil spelled backward.
Beware... take care... Lived searches everywhere!

And here's "I, Warlock":

The warlock is ever present...
The warlock is ever searching...
The warlock is nowhere...
Yet the warlock is everywhere...
And the warlock -- the boy-lust crazed warlock -- "I am eternally gathering up your soul!"

So the Devil and his warlocks are eternally on the prowl. We are never safe from them. The weird, fanciful formatting of these passages, with their frequent line-breaks, repetition, and ellipses, gives them the feeling of poetry rather than prose. Curiously, I can find no evidence of Ed Wood writing poems or songs, but there is a distinctly lyrical quality to some of his short stories.

To be honest, this was the first piece in Blood Splatters Quickly that rather flummoxed me. Apart from the narrator, who does not identify himself, and Satan, who is frequently referenced but never actually appears, there really aren't any characters in "I, Warlock." As I stated earlier, there is no plot to follow here either. It's just a mission statement. I suppose what the Wood-ologist might try to gather from "I, Warlock" is further insight into Ed Wood's view of homosexuality. This is the second story in this collection to come from a gay-themed publication. The first, "Island Divorce," ended with its homosexual protagonist both humiliated and unsatisfied. One wonders, then, if Pendulum's gay readers got any enjoyment from that particular story. The homosexual warlocks in "I, Warlock," on the other hand, certainly achieve sexual fulfillment. But is this an improvement? They're servants of the Devil, after all, and the story could thus be interpreted as a parable in which homosexuality is depicted as a satanic cult actively preying upon confused young men.

Next: "Taking Off" (1971)