Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "Closet Queen" (1971)

Looks like this queen is sitting on the throne.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

A Male Lovers annual.

The story: "Closet Queen," originally published in Male Lovers, vol. 3, no. 2, June/July 1971. No author is credited.

Synopsis: Carter Winston is a closeted homosexual who prefers to have secretive gay trysts in men's restrooms. But since these places are usually disgusting and smelly, he prefers the bathroom at a fancy movie palace called the Le Grande, where the perfumed restroom stalls have glory holes. One afternoon, he is angered when the blonde girl at the ticket booth recognizes him from his frequent visits. Later, he realizes that his anger at her is actually turning him on. This is the first time he's even noticed that the theater is showing a gay porn movie. Desperate for sex, he rushes to the restroom, hoping that the person in the second stall is a towheaded young man he spotted earlier in the auditorium. He enters the adjoining stall and places his penis in the glory hole, but the person on the other end is rather unexpected!

Wood trademarks: Furtive sex between gay men (cf. "Island Divorce"); unzipping of garments (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "Florence of Arabia," "So Soon to be an Angel," "Once Upon a Gargoyle," "Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor"); "manhood" (cf. Necromania, "Captain Fellatio Hornblower," "The Responsibility Game," "Try, Try Again,"); "fruit" (cf. "Superfruit"); sweater (cf. "Hitchhike to Hell"); miniskirt (cf. "Hitchhike to Hell"); blonde (cf. "Hitchhike to Hell"); slashing tongues (cf. "Howl of the Werewolf," "Exotic Loves of the Vampire," "Insatiable").

Excerpt: "The owners of the Le Grande had not only redecorated the theatre, but had changed their policy of entertainment. They had switched to adult films. He was watching one of the roughest homosexual affairs he'd ever watched. He’d never seen such on the screen before. But there had been many live scores which had presented themselves to him."

Reflections: "Closet queen" is one of those quaint terms I knew mostly from John Waters' movies. It turns up in both Mondo Trasho (1969) and Pink Flamingos (1972). Appropriately, as reported in John's book Shock Value (1981), Pink Flamingos had one of its disastrous early runs in a porno house in Boston where, according to actor David Lochary, "there was more action in the bathrooms than in the theater." The term "closet queen" also figures prominently in this famous blooper from a 1979 episode of The Newlywed Game. 

But while the term has faded from use since the 1970s, the phenomenon of gay men having secretive sex in public restrooms never quite disappeared from American society. Remember the Larry Craig scandal of 2007? Had Ed Wood been around in '07, he no doubt would have penned a story called "Wide Stance." That's no mere joke on my part; Eddie would have done it. As a writer, he could not have resisted the twist ending of a conservative Idaho politician caught in a gay tryst in an airport.

Whether Eddie himself was a "closet queen," I cannot say. However, I do find it interesting that, by 1971, Ed Wood was fully familiar with the concept of glory holes -- where to find them, how they were used, etc. I would say that mainstream film and TV shows only started making jokes about these within the last 5-10 years. So Ed was, at least, ahead of the curve.

Next: "The Price of Jealousy" (1972)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "Filth is the Name for a Tramp" (1972)

Attack of the 50 Foot Hooker?

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

Violent is the Word for Curly.

The story: "Filth is the Name for a Tramp," originally published in Body & Soul, vol. 6, no.1, February/March 1972. Credited to "Ann Gora."

Synopsis: Mala, a prostitute, reluctantly enters the bad part of town, the district dominated by strip clubs and porno theaters. As she travels through a dark alley, she remembers a painful incident from her past. A client had abandoned her on the street when she was nude from the waist down, and she was then attacked by a malodorous wino. Now, in the alley, she's approached by a creep who offers her $5 for her services (Her going rate is $30.) When the threatening creep takes out his penis, Mala cuts it off with a four-inch blade she keeps strapped to her leg. She then finishes the job by slashing the man's throat. That task accomplished, Mala coolly walks away in search of her next paying customer.

Wood trademarks: Prostitution (cf. "The Hooker," "Hooker by Choice," many other stories in Angora Fever); sentences italicized for dramatic emphasis (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "That Damned Faceless Fog"); angora (cf. Ed Wood in which Ed talks about angora so much that Kathy Wood accuses him of being "an angora wholesaler"); cardigan (cf. "The Hooker," "Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor"); severed penis (cf. "Blood Drains Easily"); maggots (cf. "Hitchhike to Hell").

Excerpt: "You'd look so good in a bed. But I like the dirt. I like alley floors. I like you under me. I take you on top of me. I like you on the alley floor. That's where I like you best. That's where I've liked all of them… On the alley floor… all that white skin and those fancy clothes getting all torn and dirty and shitty from the crap and the crud on the alley floor. It’s all best when everything is so dirty."

The competition, only $1.

Reflections: Ed Wood's short stories from the early 1970s were supposed to be (to use a nice word) ephemeral and (to use a not-so-nice word) disposable. They were originally intended as, to be blunt, mere filler in porno magazines. Horny customers were buying these issues solely for the lurid pictures they contained; if anyone happened to glance at the text, that was just a bonus. Pendulum magazines, it should be pointed out, were not cheap for their era. Publisher Bernie Bloom was charging $3 and $4 a pop for his stroke books, while Hugh Hefner's Playboy was going for a mere dollar an issue back then. So there probably weren't too many Pendulum collectors and connoisseurs in the world who bought every one of the company's offerings.

But then a funny thing happened. Ed Wood's movies gained him a strange, unexpected posthumous fame, and there was a subsequent surge of interest in the man's prolific writing career as well, including the work he did at Pendulum. Decades after Eddie's ignominious death in 1978, the short stories he wrote for Bernie Bloom were collected into anthologies to be read and puzzled over by a new generation of fans. And that brings us to 2019, when Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. contains two entries -- "Gore in the Alley" and "Filth is the Word for a Tramp" -- that follow nearly identical plot outlines, beat for beat.

Why would Eddie write the same basic story twice? Maybe he was desperate to meet his deadline. Maybe he thought no one would ever know. Or just maybe, this idea popped into his head twice, and he didn't even realize he was repeating himself. I know I've caught myself repeating jokes or anecdotes without immediately realizing it, and in reviewing Ed Wood's works, I've made some of the same observations many times over. So let's cut Eddie some slack.

Besides, "Filth" isn't a straight-up retread of "Gore." In "Gore," the prostitute Sandra is more of a vigilante, actively looking for guys to kill so she can avenge her own rape. In contrast, Mala carries her four-inch blade simply to protect herself in a dangerous neighborhood, and she was obviously wise to do so. Moreover, the would-be rapist in "Gore" remains silent, while his counterpart in "Filth" is a regular chatterbox. You can read one of his monologues up there in the "Excerpt" section of this review. So Eddie gave us two distinct, if similar, takes on the same material.

P.S. This story's title reminds me of Violent is the Word for Curly, a 1938 Three Stooges short spoofing Valiant is the Word for Carrie (1936).

Next: "Closet Queen" (1971)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "Hooker by Choice" (1972)

Sampling the merchandise.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

The full artwork for this story.

The story: "Hooker by Choice," originally published in Goddess, vol. 1, no. 2, November/December 1972. Credited to "Ann Gora."

Synopsis: Stella, 32, is one of four prostitutes in a small factory town and considers herself the best of the lot. She charges $10 per half hour and $50 for a whole night. Business is steady, especially since there's very little else to do in town, but she dreads to think of what would happen if the factory ever closed down. She's been saving her money in case of such a disaster. Stella knows very well when the men get paid and when new workers are hired. Her customers range from teenagers having their first sexual experiences to old men looking for a last thrill. Commiserating with another hooker, Stella, Doris considers moving on to bigger and better things but decides that she still has a lot of "servicing" she can do in this town.

Wood trademarks: Prostitution (cf. "Tank Town Chippie," "The Hooker"); woman aging (cf. "Flowers for Flame LeMarr"); "broads" (cf. "The Saga of Rance Ball," "Wanted: Belle Starr"); referring to children as "house apes" (cf. "Taking Off"); "excellent" (a favorite Wood adjective, cf. "The Loser," "The Fright Wigs," "Like a Hole in the Head"); contempt for old age (cf. "Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor"); cemetery (cf. "Invasion of the Sleeping Flesh"); character named Doris (cf. "The Loser"); color pink (cf. "2 X Double"); "beer bar" (cf. "Starve Hell," "The Fright Wigs").

Excerpt: "And then she was at the buckle of the belt or the strap of the overalls and before the kid knew it, he was standing there stark naked in front of a naked woman for the first time in his life and it would never be the same from that time forward. The female body would be his entire lure in life. He would work, he would slave, he might even go hungry just to please the woman or women of his choice… he would have a lust that would last to nearly the day he died… most of them."

Reflections: Every once in a great while, Ed Wood liked to write a short story that wasn't really a "story" in the traditional sense but was more of a character study. "Hooker by Choice" is a prime example, and it's one of the more positive portrayals of prostitution in all of the Wood canon. Sure, the factory town setting is pretty bleak. The place endures "hard winters," and the life expectancy is only 70, plus a lot of the workers are described as short-term "transients." But Stella seems to have carved out a comfortable life for herself here and doesn't seem inclined to leave any time soon. She's good at what she does, and she believes she is providing a valuable service. Why quit?

As always, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ed Wood wrote about hookers so frequently because, as a writer and filmmaker laboring in pornography, he identified with them. Through that lens, Stella becomes an aspirational figure. She's saving her money, after all, and seems to have her business nicely organized. And she's aging well, too. "She dressed the part," Eddie writes, "never too daring… but always in clothing designed for the girl in her early twenties, and she was an artist when it came to makeup." In contrast, largely due to his dependence on alcohol and other setbacks, Eddie had no money saved up and was not aging particularly well by 1972, generally looking older than his 47 years.

On the subject of booze, Stella has some sensible policies in place to protect herself. Noting that some of her customers "could be mighty mean" while intoxicated, "she never allowed more than three drinks in any one session." Stella is particularly keen to protect her "excellent" teeth from her customers' fists. "She wasn't about to let some pig of a drunk knock her around," Ed writes. It's darkly fascinating to see how Ed weaves elements of his own life into his fiction. In reality, Ed wore dentures and was known to become abusive toward his wife when he was drunk. So, in more ways than one, "Hooker by Choice" is a marked improvement over Ed Wood's own life.

Next: "Filth is the Name for a Tramp" (1972)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "The Loser" (1975)

Ed Wood's heroine, Terry, has a memorable encounter in a bathroom.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

Rene Bond in The Cocktail Hostesses

The story: "The Loser," originally published in Girl Mates, vol. 1, no. 1, September/October 1975. Credited to "Shirlee Lane."

Synopsis: Terry Abernathy is fired from her office job after a year when she is caught having a romantic liaison with a female coworker, Dena, in the bathroom. Terry and Dena were ratted out by Miss Riley, a frustrated 50-year-old lesbian who can't get any action from the young ladies in the office. Terry tells her troubles to a sympathetic bartender, Henry, then makes a date with her friend and lover, Doris. She tells Doris that she doesn't just want another job -- she's had too many of those -- but a line of work that she truly enjoys. Later, after Doris leaves, Terry is visited by Miss Riley, who has a very unusual business proposal!

Wood trademarks: Office affairs (cf. The Cocktail Hostesses, "The Responsibility Game"); panties (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "The Hooker," "Bums Rush Terror," "The Last Void"); cocktail bar (cf. "Out of the Fog," "Never a Stupid Reflection," "Never Fall Backwards"); paying the rent (cf. "Starve Hell"); negligee (cf. "The Witches of Amau Ra"); nipples and tongues (cf. "The Witches of Amau Ra"); character fired from a series of jobs (cf. "Never a Stupid Reflection"); predatory older lesbian (cf. "The Hooker"); prostitution (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "The Hooker"); adjective "lovely" (one of Eddie's favorites -- he uses it 60 times in Angora Fever).

Excerpt: "Ahh, yes… Miss Riley… the dear old soul… perhaps you'd better get her retirement check ready. I wouldn’t bet on how long it is before she takes on some new chick in the toilet… some little bitch who feels strongly for advancement, and doesn't mind the smell of an ancient crotch to get it."

Detail from the artwork.

Reflections: Thus far, all the stories I've covered in this Angora Fever series were published between 1971 and 1973. "The Loser" stands out by virtue of having been published as late as 1975. Looking back, the same thing was true of the stories in Blood Splatters Quickly; the vast majority of tales in that collection date from 1971-73, with only a couple being published afterward. In retrospect, the early 1970s might have been the busiest era of Ed Wood's entire life, creatively speaking.

My supposition is that Ed was drinking even more heavily by 1974 and was therefore somewhat less productive. Not that the well ever totally ran dry, mind you. Eddie kept writing until the last year of his life, and there were film projects, too -- both features and loops -- to occupy his time. His creative partnership with director Stephen C. Apostolof was still thriving during these years, for instance. And Rudolph Grey pinpoints 1975 as the year that Ed wrote and directed 12 short films for the Sex Education Correspondence School. But perhaps Eddie wasn't turning out short stories quite as regularly as he had in 1972.

Bob Blackburn, who curated both Blood Splatters Quickly and Angora Fever, explained via Facebook why these stories mostly derive from the same brief historical era:

Those years, 1971-1973, are the ONLY years [for which] Ed lists the story titles [on his writing resume], and that is what I worked off of when collecting them from the original magazines. And you are right: even with his alcohol consumption, Ed was a workhorse during the early '70s, attested by the sheer volume of stories and articles. He lists approximately 170 [of these on his resume], as well as the over 700 -- yes, 716 to be exact -- "short picture stories," and all of this between just those three years!  

It boggles the mind, and as you know, Bernie [Bloom, head of Pendulum Publishing] kept firing and rehiring him. I am not sure of the exact date/year when the final ax fell, but '74 or '75 would be about correct. I have only found a few stories published after 1973, and then of course they recycled a few after '73 that were written prior.

Bob then added that he was very careful about adding stories from outside that 1971-73 time period, unless they were directly credited to Ed or one of his well-known pseudonyms (such as Ann Gora or Dick Trent) or displayed strong evidence of Wood's authorial style. "The Loser" is credited to "Shirlee Lane" -- "Shirley" being the name of Ed Wood's drag persona -- and displays many of the author's usual tropes, as evidenced by my list of trademarks.

So what had changed in Eddie's writing between the Nixon years and the Ford years? Judging by "The Loser," nothing at all. He's still writing about the exact same topics (lustful, cocktail-guzzling lesbian secretaries) in the exact same way. Even the customary twist ending arrives right on cue. What's noteworthy in "The Loser" is his depiction of the older lesbian, Miss Riley. Here's how Eddie introduces her: "She was fifty and starting to shrivel up, but she still wanted some and none of the other girls in the office wanted anything to do with her." Eddie himself was 50, almost 51, when this story was originally published and clearly feeling his age. Miss Riley seems like his in-story surrogate. Had this story been adapted for the screen, Ed might have played that role himself.

Next: "Hooker by Choice" (1972)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "Try, Try Again" (1971)

C'mon, Tony, don't give up.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

The story's full artwork.

The story: "Try, Try Again," originally published in Suck 'Em Up, vol. 4, no. 2, October/November 1971. Credited to "Ann Gora."

Synopsis: Tony is struggling with sexual performance issues, and it's ruining his life. He hasn't been able to have sex for the last three months, and it's having a detrimental effect on his health, his appearance, and even his job! He meets a beautiful new girl, Jeanie, in a cocktail lounge and takes her back to his apartment, fearing that the same old thing will happen. Once she gets naked on his bed, his erection will disappear. And, true to form, that's exactly what happens. But Jeanie notices that Tony perks up when he sees her in her angora sweater and matching pink miniskirt. Perhaps it's time for him to consider a change of clothes... and a change of name as well!

Wood trademarks: Erectile dysfunction (cf. Necromania); vitamins (a lifelong passion for Criswell, cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space); breasts described as "mounds" (cf. "The Hooker," "A Taste for Blood," "So Soon to Be an Angel," "Unfriendly Persuasion"); limp penis compared to worm (cf. "Florence of Arabia"); tongues (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "The Hazards of the Game," "The Responsibility Game"); the color pink (cf. "2 X Double"); angora sweater (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "The Responsibility Game"); cocktail lounge (cf. The Cocktail Hostesses); Scotch (cf. "The Responsibility Game," "So Soon To Be an Angel"); cross-dressing (cf. Glen or Glenda, Death of a Transvestite, Killer in Drag); male and female versions of the same name (cf. Glen or Glenda); nylon (cf. "Then Came Thunder").

Excerpt: "He locked the door behind them and gazed at the gorgeous creature dressed in the furry pink angora sweater and matching pink miniskirt. Her legs, encased in sheer nylons ended in shoes which curved to the curve of her dainty feet. She was all woman and there was no doubt about that."

Reflections: Yesterday, I reviewed a story that had very few of Ed Wood's usual tropes, and today's story consists of almost nothing but those tropes. Who else but Eddie would write about a successful businessman who solves all of his personal and professional problems by slipping into a pink angora sweater? That's textbook Ed Wood right there. Reading all these stories back to back like this has really given me a new understanding of Eddie's particular quirks and obsessions. You can feel, in these pages, how he truly longed for any soft materials. Angora, yes, but also marabou, silk, satin, and even nylon. There's a line in Orgy of the Dead (1965) -- "This one would have died for feathers, furs, and fluff!" -- that describes the author to a T.

And Ed's characters are forever guzzling Scotch in his stories. Maybe that was wishful thinking on Ed's part, since he was reduced to drinking bottom-shelf, rotgut Imperial (an American blended whiskey) during those years. Interestingly, the few times that Scotch is mentioned in Nightmare of Ecstasy, it's usually when Ed himself is telling anecdotes about Bela Lugosi. In a chapter called "The Wood Spooks," for instance, Ed talks about a time when Bela called him in the middle of the night, begging for him to bring over a bottle of Scotch. Ed complied, only to have Bela point a gun in his face. This anecdote made it into Ed Wood (1994), but keep in mind that, in this same story, Eddie claims to have been attacked by a shark in the South Pacific.

In searching for that story in Nightmare of Ecstasy, I came upon this little gem from Valda Hansen.

I'm including it here because of that detail of Ed saying he was "turned on" during this strange little game. It suggests that Eddie's level of arousal depended greatly on fantasy and role playing, which is also true for Tony, the hero of "Try, Try Again." But it's important for Eddie to establish that his protagonist is a strict heterosexual who has plenty of willing female companions. He just occasionally enjoys dressing up in women's clothing and even assuming a female identity, that's all. It's Glen or Glenda all over again: "Glen is not a homosexual. Glen is a transvestite, but he is not a homosexual."

One last point: "Try, Try Again" is what I'd call one of Ed Wood's "uptown" stories. By the 1970s, Eddie was living in abject poverty, and a lot of his characters were doing the same. Many of the stories in Angora Fever take place in back alleys, basement apartments, and flophouses. But Ed's imagination did not stay on Skid Row. Occasionally, he liked to write about characters who shower regularly, dress fashionably, work in fancy offices, and have swanky apartments, too. So a Wood story might take place in the gutter or in a penthouse, but I think there's a special level of verisimilitude to the ones that take place in the gutter.

Next: "The Loser" (1975)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "The Rue Morgue Revisited" (1972)

I can really only show you this much of the artwork.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

The original source material.

The story: "The Rue Morgue Revisited," originally published in Horror Sex Tales, 1972. Credited to "Dick Trent."

Synopsis: The residents of Paris are shocked by the brutal, seemingly inexplicable murders of a woman and her daughter. Their home in the Rue Morgue has been left in disarray, but nothing has apparently been stolen, not even two bags of gold totaling almost four thousand francs. Moreover, the daughter (minus her left breast) has been stuffed into a chimney, while the mother has been nearly decapitated and the hair ripped from her scalp. Since the home was tightly locked, how could the killer have escaped without notice? The police are baffled, though one suspect has been taken into custody. The brilliant C. Auguste Dupin, however, makes his own examination of the crime scene and solves the mystery rather easily. No human could have committed such an act, he decides. Once he knows this, he devises a little trap to lure the animal's owner out of hiding.

Wood trademarks: Since this is an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, very few of Ed Wood's usual trademarks are in evidence here. Eddie even keeps his beloved ellipses to a bare minimum. Our lustful orangutan could be considered a distant relative to Spanky the gorilla in Bride and the Beast (1958). And, again, there is some attention paid to nipples (cf. "Witches of Amau Ra," "Howl of the Werewolf").

Excerpt: "The girl's left breast had been severed from her body. Her nipple was later discovered beneath a chair in the corner of the chamber. Dark bruises and deep indentations of fingernails were found about the throat and it appeared as if the victim had been throttled to death."

Poe invented a genre in 1841.

Reflections: Edgar Allan Poe is said to have invented the modern detective story with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), in which eccentric busybody C. Auguste Dupin solves a seemingly impossible murder by visiting the crime scene, carefully inspecting the clues, and applying some keen analysis to his findings. Today, "Murders" reads almost exactly like a Sherlock Holmes story, with Dupin as Holmes and the narrator as Dr. Watson. But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's renowned sleuth didn't debut until 1887 -- 46 years after the Poe story -- and the word "detective" hadn't even been coined when "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was published. Dupin seems to be working on the case mostly for his own amusement.

God only knows what inspired Ed Wood to "revisit" the Poe story in 1972. Since this appeared in Horror Sex Tales, I thought he might tack some gratuitous sex scenes onto the source material. But how the hell do you get sex into "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" without making it a completely disgusting exercise in bestiality or inter-species rape? Ed is relatively restrained here. He establishes early on that the victims were "extremely lovely looking women," and he sexualizes the murders to an extent. The younger woman's breast is severed. A broom handle is inserted into the vagina of the mother. And semen is found at the crime scene. But these are all mentioned fleetingly.

For the most part, Ed sticks closely to the template of the original story. "Revisited" is almost like a Reader's Digest condensed version of the Poe mystery. Eddie spares us, for instance, the wordy prologue about the mental skills needed for such games as chess, draughts, and whist. He also skips the passages about the narrator's odd relationship with Dupin -- how they met, how they live, how they interact, etc. Ed just tells us the two are friends and focuses on the murders instead.

A side-by-side comparison reveals how Wood streamlines and modernizes the Poe text while keeping the general meaning intact. (Edgar's story is a hefty 13,765 words long, while Ed's is a mere 2,988, a reduction of 79%.) Here is a passage from the Poe story in which Dupin asks the narrator to draw some conclusions from the evidence at hand:

I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A madman," I said, "has done this deed -- some raving maniac, escaped from a neighboring Maison de Sante." 

"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it." 

"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual -- this is no human hair."

And here is the matching passage from the Ed Wood story:

I felt a sensation upon my flesh as Dupin asked me that question. “A madman,” I said, “has done this horrible deed. Some raving lunatic, a sadistic sex crazed lunatic, most probably had escaped from the nearby sanitorium.” 

“In some respects, you are correct. But a madman’s hair is not like the kind I hold in my hand. I disentangled this little turf from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madam L. Tell me what you can make of it?” 

I was completely unnerved.“This hair is most unusual! This is no human hair.” 

I notice only now that the maniac in the Wood story is described as "sex crazed." So that gives you an idea of what Eddie brought to this material.

Next: "Try, Try Again" (1971)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "Then Came Thunder" (1971)

Meet Thunder, one hell of a gal.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

Vintage paperback cover.

The story: "Then Came Thunder," originally published in Two Plus Two, vol. 3, no. 3, September/October 1971. No author listed.

Synopsis: Thunder is a beautiful, blonde lesbian who works as a topless waitress. Other than her looks, her greatest asset is her powerful, thundering voice. Thunder's crosstown rival is another lesbian named Sylvia. Everyone has been expecting a showdown between Thunder and Sylvia for a while, but the timing has never been right. Now, though, the two women have decided on the perfect venue. They will settle their differences with a marathon lovemaking session in a bed covered with pink nylon fur! The first to drop from exhaustion loses. Lesbians from far and wide gather to watch the bout through one-way glass, even paying admission. The "battle" rages on for hours and hours, with both women enjoying themselves immensely, but Thunder may have a secret weapon!

Wood trademarks: Thunder (cf. Plan 9 from Outer Space, Take It Out in Trade, "Exotic Loves of the Vampire," "Hellfire"); topless waitress (cf. "Never Fall Backwards"); "fluff" (cf. "Scene of the Crime," "Calamity Jane"); blue-eyed blonde (cf. "The Devil and the Deep Blue-Eyed Blonde"); the color pink (cf. "2 X Double"); fur (cf. "The Witches of Amau Ra"); satin (cf. "The Witches of Amau Ra"); nylon (cf. Glen or Glenda); dildo (cf. "Calamity Jane," "Come Inn"); "beaver" (cf. "Invasion of the Sleeping Flesh," "Come Inn").

Excerpt: "And at that same instance when Thunder and Sylvia saw each other naked for the first time in their lives, they both knew the entire session wasn't going to be so bad after all. The excitement of the moment caused their full, round breasts to heave up and down, forward and back, an added excitement to their eyes, their emotions and the heat which was building deep under their silk-haired muffs… beavers to the enlightened."

Reflections: Ed Wood never let plausibility get in the way of a good story. While some of his literary work can be classified as science fiction ("Time, Space and the Ship") or supernatural horror ("The Witches of Amau Ra"), Eddie was perfectly capable of being outlandish even when working outside the so-called "fantasy" genres. Take "Then Came Thunder" as an example. While this story theoretically takes place in our world, and its characters are subject to the same natural and physical rules as the rest of us, it bears no resemblance to human life as I know it. It is utterly absurd. And what did Ed Wood know of the lesbian subculture, either in Los Angeles or anywhere else? Next to nothing is my guess.

But he wrote "Then Came Thunder" anyway. Ed Wood was famous for working at a feverish pace, and it's easy to imagine him completing this story in a single woozy session, overtaken by his creative impulses. The central conceit here is that two warring lesbians would settle their dispute, not with violence, though this idea is briefly entertained, but with sex. Eddie was clearly amused by the thought that this would be a spectator event, like a prizefight in boxing, and he cheerfully devotes several paragraphs to the pre-fight hype and the gathering of fans. If he'd written a second draft, he might have added a weigh-in and a combative press conference.

Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) attends a wrestling match.

"Then Came Thunder" is almost as much a sports story as it is a sex story, and it got me thinking about Eddie's connection to the world of athletics. The 1994 film Ed Wood has him attending a wrestling match, meeting gargantuan grappler Tor Johnson in the process, but I can find no evidence that Eddie ever did such a thing. He famously died while avoiding a televised Raiders-Dolphins game in December 1978, so he was clearly not much of a football fan. And yet, according to Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: "Wood directed Thrills in Sports, a live television show for [local station] KTLA." Presumably, this was in the early 1950s. Frank J. Dello Stritto even described Wood as a "sometimes sports promoter." And then there is The Basketballers, an unfilmed 1973 screenplay for Steve Apostolof about "sex, sports and drugs on a small town college campus."

So sports had some impact on Ed Wood's life. Just how much, I don't know. The definitive "Ed Wood and sports" story has yet to be written. But "Then Came Thunder" reminded me of another famous fictional competition, specifically the epic joint-rolling contest that Shel Silverstein sang about in "The Great Smoke Off," as recorded on his 1978 album Songs and Stories.


Next: "The Rue Morgue Revisited" (1972)

Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "The Witches of Amau Ra" (1972)

"Next..."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

Horror Sex Tales.

The story: "The Witches of Amau Ra" (also known as "Witches Tale of Horror"), originally published in Horror Sex Tales, 1972. Credited to "Dick Trent."

Synopsis: It is midnight on October 31, the beginning of ten days of debauchery and murder for a secret, demonic conclave. One member of the conclave, a gorgeous witch named Karen, has an ambition to be a princess and live a life of ease and luxury. To do that, she'll have to find favor with the group's mysterious leader, Amau Ra. She makes love to a High Priestess named Toni and asphyxiates her in the process. She convinces two High Priests to let her take Toni's place in the bed chamber of Amau Ra. After Karen fellates the priests, they finally allow her to see the leader, who turns out to be very different from what Karen was imagining.

Wood trademarks: Witches (cf. "The Fright Wigs," "The Last Void"); phrase "She was a witch and a God-damned good one" (compare to phrases "She was a hell of a good private eye" and "She was damned good at everything she did" from "The Fright Wigs"); "big black" (cf. "Hitchhike to Hell," "Blood Drains Easily"); the Devil (cf. "Hellfire," "The Devil Collects His Dues"); women discarded when they get old (cf. "Flowers for Flame LeMarr," "The Movie Queen"); silk and satin (cf. "Exotic Loves of the Vampire"); character named Toni (cf. "Out of the Fog," The Cocktail Hostesses); negligee (cf. "Exotic Loves of the Vampire"); drunkenness (cf. "Epitaph for the Village Drunk"); pubic region (cf. "Wanted: Belle Starr"); pink (cf. "The Movie Queen," "2 X Double"); fur (cf. "The Movie Queen"); nipples (cf. "Howl of the Werewolf"); tongues (cf. "Gore in the Alley," "The Hazards of the Game," "The Hooker," "Bums Rush Terror" "The Responsibility Game"); eternity (cf. "Where Did Charlie Get on the Train"); "Pleasure hell" (compare to phrases like "orchestrations, hell" from "So Soon To Be an Angel," "starve hell" from "Starve Hell," and "think hell" from "The Devil Collects His Dues"); snake (cf. Orgy of the Dead, Necromania).

Excerpt: "Karen’s hand had already drifted to that region and probed and petted and slipped across the little man in the boat… and Toni could no longer contain herself as she reached down and grasped Karen's head and pulled it back up to her. Their mouths crushed together and their tongues entwined in a dance of pure delight and Toni's body moved furiously but rhythmically on the bed… inviting Karen's body to come on top of her."

Reflections: "The Witches of Amau Ra" is so quintessentially Ed Wood that it could serve as the Rosetta Stone for deciphering all of his other stories. You'll notice that my list of "Wood trademarks" got a little out of hand this time, but I couldn't help it. In these 2,898 words, you'll find many of the tropes, trademarks, obsessions, and oddities that distinguish Eddie's work from that of all other writers. In fact, if a person only had time to read one of Eddie's short stories but still wanted to get a feel for what his writing was generally like, "The Witches of Amau Ra" would be a good candidate.

Between this story and movies like Necromania (1970) and Orgy of the Dead (1965), Eddie really seemed to have a thing for satanic or supernatural sex cults with strangely formal rituals, prayers, and ceremonies. Greg Dziawer insists that Ed didn't really write the SECS Press psuedo-textbook Sexual Practices in Witchcraft and Black Magic (1971), but it's easy to see why many people think he did. This is obviously a topic that fascinated him and that he revisited again and again.

It makes me wonder, were there really groups like this in the 1960s and '70s? Were covens of witches -- or hippies who called themselves "witches" -- actually getting together to have orgies and perform black magic rituals in the Hollywood hills back then? Or was this mostly hysteria brought on by the Manson Family? Some of this must have been real. Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey (1930-1997) was obviously a real person, but he could have been more talk than action for all I know. When this phenomenon, the intersection of sex and the occult, is documented, it is usually done in a sleazy, sensationalized (read: unreliable) way. Maybe Eddie was making all this up. Or maybe he was getting invited to some very strange parties back then. The mind reels.

By the way, I'm sorry to report to you that the quaint euphemism "the little man in the boat" made me think of the Ti-D-Bol man of TV commercial fame.

The little man in the boat.

P.S. In its original form, "The Witches of Amau Ra" received a fairly spectacular two-page illustration. It's reproduced (albeit in censored form) below. Please click on it to see it at a larger size.

Next: "Then Came Thunder" (1971)