Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Set Decoration Odyssey, Part 13 by Greg Dziawer

Neola Graf poses with a famous cobra statue.

       

"Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n."
-John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)

I confess. As I've delved into early '70s West Coast sex films, including those made by Edward D. Wood, Jr., I've become obsessed with background decor. Specifically, I'm interested in the set decorations at a studio that once stood at 7428 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. It was here that Ed Wood shot interiors for three of his last four directorial efforts: Take It Out In Trade (1970), Necromania (1971) and The Young Marrieds (1972). This was also where hundreds of silent 8mm porn loops were shot. Eddie was surely there, in more ways than we may yet know.

The studio was run by talent agent and cinematographer Hal Guthu, a man best known for representing models and exotic dancers. The building housed a small set upstairs and another downstairs—multiple sets in one, really, as the walls, light fixtures, and paintings were reshuffled and rearranged from film to film. 

Among the most recognizable, striking, and ubiquitous set decorations at Guthu's studio are a pair of Chinese Guardian Lions and a black velvet painting of a panther descending a stone staircase. Certainly another star, albeit one not yet highlighted in this series of articles, is the bronze statuette of a King Cobra poised to strike. I've wondered at times if it's an ashtray, given its era, but likely not.

Here is the cobra, an obvious phallic symbol, in just some of its onscreen glory. Several of these films are directly connected to Ed Wood, while others exist in Eddie's professional orbit in the adult film industry of the late '60s and early '70s.

Why was Beast Man demoted from lead villain to sidekick? I have a theory.

Beast Man was almost the main villain in the Masters of the Universe franchise.

Beast Man was among the earliest MOTU figures.

Now poised to make a comeback on Netflix, Masters of the Universe (or MOTU) was one of the dominant multimedia franchises of the 1980s, with a successful toy line from Mattel and a hit syndicated cartoon series from Filmation. And the character of Beast Man—a bright orange, gorilla-like villain with dominion over the animal kingdom—has been a key part of the franchise since the very beginning. Beast Man was among the first four Mattel figures released in 1982, and he was a major character in the 1983 TV series, where he was voiced by John Erwin. As portrayed by Tony Carroll, he also turned up in the live-action 1987 movie from Cannon.

In all these forms, Beast Man has consistently been portrayed as the right-hand man of the franchise's main villain, the demonic sorcerer Skeletor, as the latter fights the heroic warrior He-Man for control of the far-away planet Eternia. Prominent as Beast Man is, he's always been a mere sidekick, deemed a "savage henchman" on Mattel's toy packaging. One early '80s document from Mattel describes Beast Man as the "number one stooge for Skeletor." That word "stooge" gives you some indication of the character's IQ.

But another internal document from Mattel shows that Beast Man was originally intended as MOTU's main antagonist. A wonderful MOTU site called Battle Ram: A He-Man Blog recently shared a fascinating early MOTU story treatment called "The Fighting Foe-Men" written by sci-fi/fantasy author Don Glut. Here is how Beast Man is described in that document:

Each of the villains is out for his own gain, usually to obtain the Power Gem for himself, but they occasionally accept one of them as their leader — Beast-Man 

BEAST-MAN — Another native of Eternia’s jungles whose tribe — or pack — has seemingly always been at war with their natural enemies, the human tribe of He-Man. Beast-Man has formidable strength, but it is his ferocity that makes him a natural leader. He has the agility of a gorilla. But when he dons his various costumes, he takes on the powers of other animals — the speed of a gazelle, the charging force of a rhino, etc. Beast-Man, though he despises He-Man’s tribe, yearns to take one or more of its females as a bride. He is totally evil and corrupt. His only redeeming quality is the “love” he bears for his own race, though it is actually more like instinct than any real emotion. His voice is guttural, almost a growl.

When I saw this passage, I was taken aback because it seemingly confirmed some suspicions I'd had while revisiting the Filmation Masters of the Universe TV series from the '80s. Namely, I began to wonder if Beast Man were being subtly (or not so subtly) coded as African, to serve as the opposite of the blond, Nordic-looking hero, He-Man. And "The Fighting Foe-Men" demonstrates that this was not merely my imagination. Note the terminology Don Glut uses in his description of Beast Man: "native," "jungle," "tribe," "race," etc. These can be neutral terms, but they are also the building blocks of hateful racist stereotypes. Note, too, that Beast Man is denied humanity and is likened to a gorilla. In particular, he is held apart from "the human tribe of He-Man."

Glut's story outline acknowledges Beast Man's athletic ability and brute strength but not his intellect. More alarming, though, is the detail that the villain "yearns to take one or more [human] females as a bride." Is this a reference to the stereotype about African men lusting after white women? Maybe the most disturbing sentence in this entire description is: "His only redeeming quality is the 'love' he bears for his own race, though it is actually more like instinct than any real emotion." Glut feels obligated to put quote marks around the word "love" and again makes it clear that Beast Man acts on mere "instinct." The message here is clear: Beast Man is not like us. He is apart from us, less than us. He is a thing to be hated and feared.

Here is my theory. Someone at Mattel recognized that the company could not possibly build its flagship toy line around a blond-haired white man battling a gorilla-like jungle denizen. The ugly implications of this match-up would be impossible to miss, and the company would be accused of spreading racist propaganda to children. Beast Man, therefore, was demoted to a subservient role. Is this, in a way, actually worse? This way, Skeletor and Beast-Man have a master/slave relationship, with Skeletor sitting in a throne, giving commands to his underlings like the interlocutor in a minstrel show. And still, on the other side of Eternia, you have a hero who looks like the poster child for the master race.

Perhaps, when I was playing with my Masters of the Universe action figures in the early-to-mid-1980s, I was also unknowingly getting a lesson in racial politics. And I haven't even started talking about Jitsu yet.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Set Decoration Odyssey, Part 12 by Greg Dziawer

Look for tridents and skulls in the films of Edward D Wood, Jr.

Is this a lost film?

Inevitably, as I revisit the pornographic films Ed Wood made late in his career, I find myself staring again and again at the same studio space in a building at 7428 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. In its heyday, this was a film set run by talent agent and cinematographer Hal Guthu. For years, this small facility was continually redressed and reconfigured for countless low-budget adult features and pornographic 8mm silent shorts called loops, including many made by Ed. Hal's studio was a testament to the magical illusion of the movies, never identically rendered from one film to the next. The sets were intended to be invisible, tricking us into believing this was a distinct and real space.

In the early 1970s, dozens, perhaps hundreds of loops were shot on Hal's sets, many of them with subtitles penned by Ed Wood. Eddie even appears on camera in one such loop set in a Mexican prison. That turns out to be the downstairs set at Guthu's place, the one with the fake brick wall backdrop. As these articles have detailed ad infinitum, commonly reused set decorations—everything from statues to sheets to paintings—identify Hal's space. These familiar items appear not only in loops but pornographic features as well, including three of Ed Wood's latter-day directorial efforts: Take It Out In Trade (1970), Necromania (1971), and The Young Marrieds (1972).

Which brings us to this week's specimen, a softcore sex film without a title card released under the fabricated name Documentary of a Madam. Now widely available across streaming sites from cult disc label Vinegar Syndrome, the film has often been misidentified as The House Near the Prado (1969). The film's star, Marsha Jordan, was a mainstay of softcore features of the 1960s and '70s, including those directed by Stephen C. Apostolof. A couple of Jordan's collaborations with Apostolof, including 1972's The Class Reunion and The Snow Bunnies, were even scripted by Ed Wood! In Documentary of a Madam, Jordan gives one of her most engaging performances as a madam.

It seems The House Near the Prado was also issued under the title Diary of a Madam back in the day, causing it and Documentary of a Madam to be conflated. But, given its theatrical poster, The House Near the Prado is an entirely different, more mainstream film that seemingly remains lost to this day. Apart from Jordan herself, the cast lists of Prado and Documentary are distinct. Joe Rubin of Vinegar Syndrome agreed with me that they are different films.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 97: "Drag Trade" (1967)

Time to dive into one of Eddie's books from the Summer of Love.

Some other Triumph Fact Books.

You know what's crazy? This series has been running for nearly seven years, dissecting seemingly every aspect of Edward D Wood, Jr.'s life and career, and yet we've barely touched on the dozens of full-length books Eddie wrote between 1963 and 1978. I've reviewed exactly three of Ed's novels, plus the posthumously published showbiz treatise Hollywood Rat Race. My colleague, Greg Dziawer, has been more focused on the books Ed Wood didn't write, i.e. the smutty paperback novels and sex manuals written by his colleagues and contemporaries but sometimes mistakenly attributed to Ed.

And yet, all the while, there's a mammoth body of literature that we've hardly made a dent in. These aren't "speculative" or "possible" Wood works either. These are undisputed and iron-clad. Ed put his real name on the cover of many of them! For whatever reason, though, we just haven't gotten around to them.

Well, for a change of pace this week, I've decided to cover Drag Trade, a paperback book released in 1967 by Triumph News Co. Inc. of Van Nuys, CA. Eddie went by his own name on this project. He's listed as "Ed Wood Jr." on the cover and "Edward D. Wood, Jr." on the title page. According to Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey, that's Eddie himself in drag on the cover. I have no reason to doubt it; the eyes and chin look about right. But the fellow on the cover does look a bit more put-together than Eddie usually did.

Drag Trade's cover bears the legend "A Triumph Fact Book." Other books in this series include Virginity: Its Causes and Cures (1968) by Lydia Swann, The Money Lovers (1968) by Richard Christy, The Changing Sexual Deviant (1968) by Lance Boyle, She Prostitute (1968) by Wallace Arthur, The Mind Benders (1967) by Jonathan Smith, and the ever-popular Sodomy (1968) by Matt and Kathleen Galant. It seems this franchise was rather robust in the late '60s. 

According to the Technical Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Triumph was "one of the most important publishers in the industry" during this time but was "reportedly not publishing as of July 1970."

The cover page for Drag Trade identifies the book as "A Triumph Novel" and "A Novel by Edward D. Wood, Jr." Rudolph Grey, too, refers to it as a novel. So what is this thing, a factual account or a fictional novel? I'd say neither. 

Frankly, Drag Trade reads more like a series of short stories than it does like a novel. Each chapter—and there are eight of wildly varying length—contains its own individual set of characters. There is no overarching plot here. Instead, Drag Trade is structured (mostly) as a collection of case studies, as if Ed were relating real-life stories ripped from the headlines. A quintessentially Wood-ian disclaimer at the beginning declares: "These chapters are based on fact. Only the names of characters have been changed... for obvious reasons." (If Jack Webb and Criswell had a baby, that's how it would talk.)

I'm tempted to call Drag Trade a compendium of fictional nonfiction. Like "Drag It Out" or "Trucking's a Ball," it's purely the product of the author's booze-soaked imagination, but it's presented as the truth. The book is such a jumble of unrelated anecdotes and pseudo-journalistic digressions that it defies summarizing. Luckily, at the beginning of the penultimate and longest chapter, Ed Wood does manage to explain the premise with some degree of clarity:

"[I]t is not the plain transvestite who interests us here. What is of interest is the homosexual transvestite and the temporary drag who puts on women's clothing for the purpose of criminal activities."

Keep in mind that, throughout this book, Ed uses the word "drag" as a noun to describe a cross-dresser. So, in a larger sense, Drag Trade is about the overlap between transvestism and criminality. In some areas of the country, Ed Wood reminds us, cross-dressing was a crime in and of itself. But this book is really about men who exist at the fringes of society because of their transvestite tendencies and who turn to a life of crime, including robbery and prostitution, because they see this as their only viable option. In the book's final chapter, labeled "EPILOG," Ed clarifies:

"There are few 'true' transvestites who become criminals, few ever even get themselves into any kind of trouble. But the world is very big, and in it are many houses."

Nevertheless, this book is filled with stories of boys who start dressing as girls and end up either dead or, more commonly, in prison.

One such sad case is that of Charles Myers, aka Charlotte Myers, aka Shirley Myers. The son of a migrant farm worker and a gold-digging "beer-bar floozy," Charles is appalled by his mother's greed and promiscuity and responds by becoming closer to his father. Things go wrong for Charles when he introduces his girlfriend Shirley to his dad. The old man makes such a fuss over the young lady that Charles decides to feminize himself. 

One fateful night, Charles convinces Shirley to switch clothing with him as some kind of foreplay. Unfortunately, Shirley's parents catch the couple at a most inopportune moment and charge the boy with rape. From there, he spirals into a life of crime from which he never recovers. It ends up with him killing a Hollywood cabbie while in full drag. I doubt even Charles could explain exactly how he got to that point.

That's how Drag Trade is. These stories take place all over the United States—with a couple of side trips to Japan—but feature a lot of common elements.

• These men often come from unhappy or broken homes, with one parent either absent or emotionally distant. 

• Some of these cross-dressers decided to become more feminine in order to please their fathers, while many more were turned into pseudo-daughters by their coddling, overprotective mothers. (Shades of Ed Wood's own, oft-repeated origin story.) 

• Either way, the one loving parent dies, and the child is left to fend for himself. 

• Many of these characters travel to a big city in search of opportunities. There, they commit crimes in order to feed their addiction to women's clothing. 

• Ultimately, after a period of success, they go too far and are arrested. 

• Their stories usually end with them going to prison and having to wear drab denim uniforms and get their hair cut short—the ultimate punishment in this universe.

Was Ed Wood inspired by Tor Johnson?

What stands out, then, are the weird variations on the book's basic themes. Ed devotes Chapter Three, for instance, to Stephen/Sadie, "a 240-pound, 35-year-old man" from a Swedish-American family. "He favored sheath dresses," Ed writes, "but his great hulk didn't really look good in them." I could not help but imagine Stephen as Tor Johnson. 

Chapter Two concerns Ranee Smith, a young African-American man from a family of poor Arkansas sharecroppers. This part of the story is written in a ridiculous ersatz "Negro" dialect possibly inspired by the works of Mark Twain.

Interestingly, Ranee leaves the family farm partly to get away from meddlesome Civil Rights workers who just want to stir up trouble. Ed Wood's thoughts on race relations have no business being in a fetish book like Drag Trade, but that doesn't stop him from getting on his soapbox occasionally. 

In Chapter Six, he tells the story of some black cross-dressers who, at the suggestion of a New York agitator, attempt to infiltrate an all-white gay bar. ("It was a White Bar and catered only to the White swish crowd.") The "stout" owner, Nellie, is a lifelong member of the Ku Klux Klan and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep out these interlopers. At the climactic moment, however, a wealthy Hollywood star enters the bar and recognizes the leader of the protesters. Not wanting to offend this high-paying client, Nellie allows the black cross-dressers to stay. I think most people would consider this a small step forward for tolerance and sanity. Not Eddie. He writes:

"The Swish-in sit down was abated by that simple action, and the whites took to the idea like a duck to water. But the man from New York would have used his regular violence if necessary. The black hats won that round. It certainly is time for the white hats to do as much. The great vote is still undecided."

It boggles my mind that Eddie would make repeated pleas for tolerance on behalf of cross-dressers yet still be in favor of racial segregation. At moments like these, he seems like some wild-eyed prophet ranting at passersby on a street corner.

When it comes to the sections of Drag Trade set in Japan, I don't know what to say so I'd better say very little and avoid displaying my ignorance. According to Ed, the Japanese have a great fondness for feminized men called "sister boys." Lesbians, much less common, are called "brother girls." Furthermore, says Ed, "many of these clubs which support the female impersonator as a means of entertainment, prefer American or European acts against those of the Japanese." Is any of this accurate? I don't have the foggiest idea, and I doubt Ed does either. He's either fabricating all of this or repeating things he has heard or read elsewhere.

As I said before, I've barely looked at Ed's novels, but I've reviewed plenty of his short stories. I can confidently say that Drag Trade is made from of the same basic material as those stories. As ever, Ed Wood's main motifs are cross-dressing, sex, booze, and death. Typically, Eddie devotes many paragraphs to describing items of clothing, particularly fuzzy angora sweaters. But there are the usual skirts, blouses, nighties, negligees, and undies, as well. Silk, satin, and nylon retain their customary importance in this novel as they do in other Wood works.

Many of the scenes in this book take place in grubby bars or sleazy cocktail lounges, Ed's usual locales. Drag Trade is peopled by drunks, hustlers, bums, hookers, and con men, exactly the same kind of people who populate Blood Splatters Quickly and Angora Fever. Eddie also flat-out cannibalized this novel for ideas for his later short stories, including "Super Who?" (the "female" robber who turns out to be a guy) and "Island Divorce" (blackmailing a prominent man with embarrassing gay photos).

But this wasn't all a familiar experience for me. I learned some things, too. A stealth theme of Drag Trade is that of acceptance, both by individuals and by society at large. Eddie uses the word "accept" a lot throughout Drag Trade, as in Chapter Seven when he opines:

"It is never enough to dress up in girls' clothes, in one's room, and parade for one's self in front of a full length mirror. They must get out on the street and be accepted in the role by all of society. The female impersonator, on stage, accomplishes just that. He is seen and accepted for what he is."

This made me realize how important the idea of acceptance is in Ed's debut feature Glen or Glenda (1953) as well. Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell) advises Barbara (Dolores Fuller) that she "must take the place, give the love, and accept the facts that [her boyfriend Glen's alter ego] Glenda has always accepted." Ed uses the idea of acceptance throughout Glen or Glenda, as when Dr. Alton says that Glen and Barbara "accepted each other" on the night of their engagement or that Alan/Ann ('Tommy' Haines) was "accepted" into the United States Army. That word must have meant a lot to Ed.

Dr. Alton makes a plea for tolerance in Glen or Glenda.

Although Drag Trade contains many of the same themes —and even some of the same scenes—as Glen or Glenda, it utterly lacks that film's sense of can-do optimism. In Glenda, for instance, Dr. Alton says that "Glen/Glenda should consult a competent psychologist." But in Drag Trade, Ed tells us that "Charlie would have to stand Psychiatric treatment for another three years, but there was no Psychiatrist who would ever be able to help him."

In Glen or Glenda, the good doctor assures the audience that a happy, well-adjusted transvestite "can be more of a credit to his community and his government" once he receives the proper feminine attire. But these same items of clothing only inflame the criminal impulses of the characters in Drag Trade. These men guard their wardrobes jealously and are willing to resort to robbery and worse in order to obtain more feminine finery. Not a good citizen in the bunch.

Honestly, there is so much information contained within Drag Trade that I couldn't possibly describe it all to you without this review turning into a 10,000-word behemoth. I thought about reviewing each chapter individually, as if they were separate short stories, but even that approach wouldn't work since the chapters range from just half a page to nearly 50 pages in length. At first, it seems that each chapter is going to contain one case study apiece, but Eddie gives up on that sensible structure about midway through. The back half of Drag Trade is a random scrapheap of stories and ideas, with crime and cross-dressing as the only connecting threads.

All in all, Drag Trade is everything a fan might conceivably want out of an Edward D. Wood, Jr. novel. It's campy. It's delirious. It's idiosyncratic in that very particular, stilted, Wood-ian way. It certainly gives you insight into how Eddie thought, what he valued, and how he viewed the world at large. But I would suggest that readers start with the short story collections instead. I'm beginning to think that the short story, rather than the novel, was Eddie's ideal medium as a writer. I can handle six or seven pages of this stuff at a time. After 159 pages, I felt discombobulated.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Set Decoration Odyssey, Part 11 by Greg Dziawer

This week, Greg's got your back.

Classic smut from the past.

I spend a lot of my free time scanning through pornographic loops, specifically the 8mm silent ones shot on the West Coast in the early 1970s. My principal impetus is scoping out the geography where Edward D. Wood, Jr. likely toiled in various capacities.

In previous articles from this series, I've discussed a loop in which Wood himself appears as an actor. I've also transcribed the subtitles of dozens of loops that Eddie feasibly wrote and shared box cover summaries that Ed probably penned. I know a few Woodologists who also suspect that Ed edited some—possibly even many—of these hardcore shorts. We can also be reasonably certain that Ed Wood was present on set for many of these films, serving as what we'd call a director. Note that, other than the performers, there would be roughly three to five people in the crew for these films.

That brings us to an obscure loop called "Sexretary's." At least I think that's the title. That's the way it's listed on the back cover of the 1995 tape compilation All Lesbian Peepshow Shorts #587. The Peepshow Loop series released by Blue Vanities ran past 600 volumes, with a dozen or so loops per volume, from the late '80s right through the demise of the VHS era. It's a staggering collection of adult shorts. Early '70s West Coast loops, hundreds upon hundreds falling into the orbital path of Ed Wood, are a particular staple of the series. 

The ninth loop in the collection, "Sexretary's" opens with a medium shot of actress Alice Friedland sitting behind a zebra-striped table, writing. She's wearing glasses—a rarity for her. A Chinese Guardian Lion sits in front of her, parked on the right side of the screen. Yes, it's one of the same lions that appears in Ed Wood's final directorial feature, The Young Marrieds (1972). There, it's a prop in the bedroom shared by the unhappily wed Ben and Ginny, the latter being another of Alice Friedland's screen roles.

While Alice was a stripper and would soon go on to dance at the fable Body Shop on the Sunset Strip, she would later deny having ever performed hardcore sex on film, despite having done so in The Young Marrieds. And she does likewise in "Sexretary's." The loop consists of two girls having sex. It graphically depicts oral-to-genital contact, digital rubbing and insertion, and finally penetration by dildo.

It looks to me like a late-era Cinema Classics loop, made not long before the arrival of subtitles. "Sexretary's" features editing techniques that were common in films produced by Noel Bloom during this era. For instance, it includes dissolve wipes at both the beginning and end. (Coincidentally, wipes are also prominent in the 1965 Wood-scripted softcore feature Orgy of the Dead.)

Noel headed Cinema Classics, the film offshoot of his dad Bernie's publishing arm, Pendulum. At that time, Eddie's day job was toiling at the publishing firm. He wrote every conceivable kind of text for Bernie—including short stories, photo captions, editorials, and nonfiction articles—with his work appearing in upwards of a thousand adult magazines. Bloom père et fils would rapidly evolve their multimedia porn empire into the mammoth Swedish Erotica brand, in which Ed Wood played a key but overlooked part.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 96: The voice of Edward D. Wood, Jr.

This article takes you where we've never taken you before -- into Ed Wood's larynx.

DISCLAIMER: This article is strictly for fun. Apart from one linguistics class in college, I have no training in any of what I'm about to discuss. If you want or need to correct me, please get in touch. This is meant to start a discussion, not settle one.

Performance or party trick?

When an actor portrays a real-life figure from history, he must decide whether or not he is going to do an impression of that person. Audiences have come to expect actors in biopics to mimic the vocal and physical mannerisms of the people they're pretending to be. And it's well known that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a weakness for uncanny impressions. A few weeks ago, for instance, Renee Zellweger brought home an Oscar for her studied portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy, just as Rami Malek had done a year earlier for channeling Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

A lot depends, I suppose, on whether the subject of the biopic is a celebrity (or at least a public figure) and whether there are sufficient audio and video recordings of that person upon which to base a performance. As an example, people know what the real John F. Kennedy looked and sounded like, so an actor portraying JFK is obliged to study the man's speeches and press conferences.

But at what point does this leave the realm of acting and simply become a party trick? If you slavishly imitate every little tic of a real life person, you don't have much opportunity to make the character your own.The great thing about Shakespeare's historical plays is that the people being portrayed in them are long dead. Who's to say what the real Richard III sounded like? The actor, then, has a little more breathing room when it comes to inventing the character.

The question of imitation is one that must have faced nearly every cast member of Tim Burton's 1994 biopic Ed Wood. After all, this is a film about people in show business -- public figures, each and every one -- and there is sound footage of just about all of them. A couple of supporting characters, including Eddie's grouchy boss Mr. Kravitz at Universal and skeptical Mr. Feldman at Warner Bros, are fictional. But just about everyone else is based on an actual human being.

Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.

Martin Landau faithfully impersonated Bela Lugosi and won an Oscar for his troubles. Lugosi must be one of the most mimicked actors in Hollywood history, so Landau's path was clear when he took this iconic role. The miracle of that performance is that it does transcend the status of party trick. Even within the confines of doing a Lugosi impression, with his face slathered in makeup by Rick Baker, Landau manages to imbue his character with genuine pathos and vulnerability.

But what of Landau's co-stars? With the exception of George "The Animal" Steele as unintelligible Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, most of the actors in Ed Wood basically use their own, natural speaking voices. The infamous prognosticator Criswell spoke with a breathy, slightly sing-songy Indiana drawl, but actor Jeffrey Jones simply gives him a deep, stentorian tone. Late in the film, Burton uses some archival audio from Plan 9 from Outer Space and we get to hear the melodious voice of the real Criswell. The difference is a little jarring. If you'd only seen Ed Wood and not Plan 9, you might not know this is supposed to be the same guy.

Similarly, when Sarah Jessica Parker says the name "Glen," she doesn't elongate it to "Glee-yun" the way Dolores Fuller did. Notoriously, Parker opted not to spend any time with Fuller while preparing for Ed Wood. But I can't say that it would have mattered much. Max Casella did meet Paul Marco, yet it didn't really affect Casella's performance in any noticeable way, at least not audibly. Elsewhere in the film, Lisa Marie and Bill Murray sound more like themselves than they sound like, respectively, Vampira and Bunny Breckinridge.

A special exception must be made for Vincent D'Onofrio as Orson Welles. His entire performance was post-dubbed by cartoon voice mainstay Maurice LaMarche, whose Welles impression is legendary. Burton must have felt that this was a case in which the public would expect a spot-on impersonation of a celebrity's voice. For what it's worth, D'Onofrio reprised the role of Orson Welles in a 2005 short called Five Minutes, Mr. Welles and provided his own voice.

But at the center of this film is Johnny Depp in the title role. Johnny obviously found a voice for the character, but was it anything like Eddie's real voice? Well, let's refresh our memories a little. Here is the real Ed Wood talking for four and a half minutes straight. I've taken this audio from two sources: the 1953 film Glen or Glenda and the 1974 trailer for Fugitive Girls. This way, you get to compare and contrast Eddie's voice from two different eras of his life. I think that, in the Fugitive Girls voice-over,  you hear the accumulative effects of 21 years of rotgut whiskey and California smog in Eddie's delivery.

So, having listened to that, how would you describe Ed Wood's voice?

 In the Glenda excerpts, he sounds low, smooth, and gentle. I'd say that Eddie's voice is oral rather than nasal and almost musical in nature, marked by occasional quick inhalations of air and a slight sighing tone. His accent is vaguely East Coast, but I don't hear any traces of the stereotypical "New York" accent. Ed is definitely a rhotic speaker, meaning he pronounces his r's in words like "before" and "after." If a word starts with h, he'll propel it forward with a little extra breath, as in "I hope not. I really hope not."

By the time of Fugitive Girls, Eddie's voice had a little more grit to it, and his diction was less precise. Most English speakers pronounce the word "girls" with a z sound at the end, i.e. "gurlz." When Eddie pronounces it, he ends the word with a hissing sound: "gurlssss." The musicality was still there in his voice, though, perhaps even more so than in Glenda.

The truly strange thing is that Ed Wood's voice is very recognizable to me by now, yet I'm having difficulty describing or categorizing it. If I were trying to do an impersonation of Eddie, I wouldn't know where to start. Ed's voice is tough to pin down, let alone mimic.

Given that, I'd say Johnny Depp captures the essence of Ed Wood's personality without doing a precise imitation of the man. Depp has cited numerous inspirations for the voice he gives to Eddie. In this interview, he describes the character as an amalgam of Ronald Reagan, Casey Kasem, and Jack Haley's Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile, he denies the longstanding rumor that the voice is based on Jon Lovitz's lying "Tommy Flanagan" character from Saturday Night Live. "I wouldn't be that blatant," Depp explains.

I'd like to suggest another, perhaps subliminal influence on Johnny Depp's performance. Obviously, in prepping for this film, he must have watched Glen or Glenda numerous times. About six minutes into the film, there's a voice-over monologue delivered by Patrick/Patricia, the suicidal cross dresser played by Walter "Mr. Walter" Hadjwiecyz. ("The records will tell the story.") I've assembled a brief side by side comparison, so you can hear how Johnny Depp talks in Ed Wood and how Patrick/Patricia talks in Glen or Glenda. Listen for the little tremble in the voice and the intimate, almost whisper-like tone.



I don't know if Walter Hadjwiecyz recorded that voice-over himself or simply played the part of the dead body. But I don't think it's too fanciful to suggest that the monologue had an influence on the way Johnny Depp played Ed Wood.

By the way, if any of this article interests you, I'd suggest you check out a series of videos made by Wired featuring Hollywood dialect coach Erik Singer. They offer a truly astonishing breakdown of various actors portraying real-life people. So far, Erik hasn't gotten to Ed Wood. Here's hoping, though.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Woodologist Odyssey, Part 5 by Greg Dziawer

Angel Scott poses in front of 6383 Yucca St. in late 2019.

As I continue obsessing over Edward D. Wood, Jr., my research has led me to cross paths with a number of folks who, like me, are more than just casual fans of the writer-director. The most seriously afflicted of these people can even be affectionately termed Woodologists.

Being a Woodologist means possessing not only an abiding interest in Ed's life and work but also a desire to learn more about Ed than we previously knew. Most critically, a Woodologist will take action to learn more.

I first encountered Angel Scott in a private Ed Wood forum on Facebook. She self-describes as a fan of Ed—both his films and his writings—and is interested in learning more about Ed as a person. She humbly admits that she has no educational background in film or the arts but enjoys studying these subjects in her free time.

Angel is also a pastor/chaplain to people of different faith backgrounds, especially those at end of life. "I knew I would work with end of life from early on," she told me. "I didn't choose it. God planted me there. And I at times find joy. Sadness. Laughter. I get to meet some really cool people."

She made the pilgrimage to Hollywood late last year to visit locations associated with Ed and is currently writing a book about him.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Set Decoration Odyssey, Part 10 by Greg Dziawer

This week, Greg takes a look at a rare Rene Bond loop from 1971.

Never a dull moment in 1971?

On October 12,1892, American schoolchildren began reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms for the first time. Seventy-nine years later to the day, Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" topped singles charts around the world, its lyrics ironically referring to a young man missing school to be with an older lover. Funny how values change over time.

But October 12, 1971 was a day like any other at a building that stood at 7428 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. At the time, a small studio was situated there, run by talent agent and cinematographer Hal Guthu. For Ed Wood obsessives, Hal's name doubtless rings a bell. He served as the cinematographer on two pornographic features directed by Ed, Take It Out In Trade (1970) and Necromania (1971). Interiors for both of those films were shot at Guthu's studio, as well as hundreds of silent 8mm loops destined to be exhibited in peepshow arcades or in the privacy of customers' homes.

I've spent a lot of time identifying the set decorations that were common to those features. These same decorations also turn up in another of Wood's late-career porno flicks, The Young Marrieds (1972), and they're ubiquitous in numerous other West Coast loops of the era, many of which likely featured some involvement by Ed Wood.

That day in October 1971, prolific adult film actress Rene Bond, the female protagonist in Necromania, arrived at Hal's studio to shoot a loop punningly titled "Lady 'Dike'tor." Guthu was Rene's agent and friend, so the actress worked at Hal's studio often. He rented out his sets to a variety of film companies. It was a smart setup by Hal, with multiple revenue streams. He provided both the girls and the sets, and he could even get behind the camera if needed. His clients shooting there that day were a pair of unknown and forgotten filmmakers, director Herb Redd and cameraman Marv Ellis.

In fact, Redd and Ellis' names might have been lost to time entirely if two of the loops they shot at Hal's studio that day hadn't survived, containing the original clapperboards at the head of the reels. I recently spotted "Lady 'Dike'tor," featuring a pre-breast-enhancement Rene Bond (another clue this is 1971), as the first loop on the Blue Vanities compilation All Lesbian Peepshows #562, released in 1994. A vast trove of vintage loops from the era, the Blue Vanities compilation series started in the '80s and ran to well over 600 volumes, eventually totaling upwards of ten thousand loops. It's a lot to sift through, admittedly, but over and over I always find some little gem connected to Ed Wood.

I was happy to note, for instance, that "Lady 'Dike'tor" was shot on the very same set as the climax of The Young Marrieds. The same blue wall is adorned by recognizable set decs like the lion's head door knocker that greets visitors to Madame Heles' abode in Necromania. And perhaps most awesome of all, as I have rarely seen it elsewhere, the white brick fireplace prop is visible at the right edge of frame.