The Wood/Dziawer Odyssey, Part Nine by Greg Dziawer

Joanne Cangi as Geraldine in The Violent Years (1956).

Joanne's big movie role.

Duluth, MN-born actress Joanne Cangi (1937-2014) had only a brief TV and film career in the mid-1950s. In 1955, she notched a couple of appearances on a forgotten NBC sitcom called It's a Great Life (featuring a pre-Andy Griffith Frances Bavier). She also acted in one low-budget juvenile delinquent picture for a small independent studio called Headliner Productions in 1956. But that Poverty Row JD picture was the Ed Wood-scripted masterpiece The Violent Years.

Joanne played Geraldine, a member of the all-girl gang headed by doomed debutante Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead). Ed's script dishes out harsh punishments to its young miscreant characters; bad girl Geraldine, for instance, is gunned down by the cops after trashing a schoolroom as part of some subversive conspiracy. Those are the breaks, honey.

I'm currently mired in research for other, longer articles in this series, but in the meantime, I'd like to share with you some clippings about Joanne Cangi that I've recently discovered. The Cangi clan migrated from Minnesota to California when the actress was very young, so Joanne spent her adolescence in sunny, touristy Orange County, CA. Spurred on by her mother, she entered and won numerous local beauty contests. By 16, in fact, she was already chosen to be queen of the annual summer bacchanal known as the Orange County Fair. Her duties included posing with an ostrich, as seen in this whimsical newspaper clipping from 1953.

"Preparing for ostrich races." Aren't we all?

A statuesque blonde, Joanne seems to have attained some degree of renown in northern Orange County in the mid-1950s. She attended Garden Grove High School back then, and during her junior year, she was named queen of the Camp Pendleton Rodeo. A few years later, after having graduated from GGHS, Joanne graciously returned to her alma mater to crown a young woman named Pat Wood as the new "Miss Garden Grove." That event was documented in the school's yearbook, with Joanne all smiles in the accompanying photo.

Excerpt from the Garden Grove High School yearbook; Inset: a news clipping about the Camp Pendleton Rodeo.

Joanne Cangi's local celebrity status was such that she was even called upon to visit the sick and bedridden, as seen in the clipping below in which she "exchanges holiday greetings with iron lung patient Allen Conkwright." Note that the photo caption refers to Ms. Cangi as a "starlet," suggesting her film and TV career was already underway. The actress' address is supplied in the text as well. A quick Google search reveals a short dead-end street lined with modest one-story houses.

Mr. Conkwright in the iron lung.

The Violent Years aside, movie stardom was not in the cards for Joanne Cangi. She later married a man named Doug Nicholls, moved to Michigan in the early '60s, got into real estate, and had four children. Her 2014 obituary in the Orange County Register alludes to a "brief acting career" and an encounter with John Wayne but makes no mention of her role as a teenage nogoodnik in an Ed Wood movie.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Holiday Sampler by Greg Dziawer

Don't say we never got you anything. We got you this.

As the holidays approach and we gather with loved ones to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, let's whet our appetites with some vintage newspaper clippings related to Edward D. Wood, Jr. and his incredible cast of repertory players. These are just some interesting tidbits I've uncovered while doing research for upcoming articles.

Let's dig in, shall we?

I. Valda Hansen and her pollen pills

Valda's ad from 1984.

Although she appeared in only one of Ed Wood's films, playing the fraudulent White Ghost in 1959's Night of the Ghouls, flaxen-haired starlet Valda Hansen is still remembered fondly as one of Eddie's inner circle of performers. She's a memorable interview subject in Rudolph Gray's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) as well as the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion (1992). Valda's disctinctive but sporadic appearances in exploitation films like Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman (1975) sputtered out by the mid-'70s, so I was suitably surprised when I stumbled upon her in a 1984 print ad for Pollitabs. This mysterious product, still available today, was a pollen-based (get it?) nutritional supplement endorsed by none other than Valda herself and superstar gymnast Mary Lou Retton, then America's sweetheart after her gold medal performance at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Julianne McNamara, another gold medal gymnast from the '84 games, is also cited in the ad copy.

The supplement ad is a fascinating little artifact of its era. Note, for instance, the North Hollywood address for ordering Pollitabs. This appears to be the same environs in which Valda resided throughout her adult life to the end, as well as the very same geography in which Ed Wood lived and an epicenter of the porn industry as it came into existence and flourished there in the 1970s.

Valda began modelling professionally right out of high school, perhaps even sooner, and appears to have continued doing so, at least locally, for decades. In the Pollitabs ad, which ran in the December 5, 1984 edition of the Indianapolis Jewish Post, she certainly appears to possess  the "energy" and "vitality" that the copy promises. Less than a decade later, however, still in her early 50s, Valda succumbed to cancer all too soon. 

II. Tor Johnson's tour of London

Tor Johnson in London, 1947.

Featured in three of Ed Wood's best-known films, including the aforementioned Night of the Ghouls, the bald, hulking professional-wrestler-cum-actor Tor Johnson remains one of the most beloved members of Ed's eccentric stock troupe. A Swedish immigrant, Tor began his wrestling career as a heavy, ironically dubbed "The Swedish Angel." In those early days, the wrestler did indeed possess hair, but it was long gone by the late 1940s. 

An odd little item from the June 28, 1947 edition of the Perth Mirror in Western Australia, depicts Tor wearing a comical beanie cap, plus a baggy suit, knee-length overcoat, and ludicrously undersized necktie. He towers over the gentleman standing next to him.

Headlined "Giant Goes To London," the clipping in question is a wire-service photo of the wrestler's visit to the British capital. The caption explains what he's doing there:

TOR JOHNSON, 30-stone [420-pound] "Man Mountain," who played the part of the great ape in the film "King Kong" 15 years ago, in playful mood on his arrival in London to take part in an International "catch-as-catch-can" wrestling contest at Harringay [sporting arena] next month. Johnson claims to be the strongest man in the world.

The caption writer has taken some liberty with the facts. According to the IMDb, Tor's known acting appearances date back only to 1934, the year after Kong Kong was released. Alas, though he may well have been "the strongest man in the world," Tor Johnson did not play the doomed ape in the RKO classic. The creature was instead bought to life through stop-motion animation.

Happily, Tor's 1947 appearance at Harringay was captured for posterity by newsreel cameras. The plummy Pathe narrator again refers to Tor as "King Kong" and repeats the wrestler's weight as 30-stone. The newsreel's claim that Tor was seven feet tall was an exaggeration of about nine inches. "The promoters [of the wrestling contest] evidently wanted to put over this farce as a serious sport," the narrator quips. "So far as we're concerned, it was one long series of laughs."

Tor did make an early, uncredited appearance in a 1936 Ronald Colman film called Under Two Flags, set amidst the French Foreign Legion. Glen or Glenda actor Captain DeZita, who was mostly going by the name Baron De Orgler at the time, would claim involvement in this same film as a consultant. DeZita frequently alleged—likely bullshit—to have been in the French Foreign Legion himself.

Tor Johnson died at the age 67 in 1971 and is buried in the San Fernando Valley, hub of the 1980s porn industry.

III. Dolores Fuller plays it safe

Ed Wood's live-in girlfriend as well as the co-star of his 1953 masterpiece Glen or Glenda, Dolores Fuller would break up with the idiosyncratic writer-director by the middle of the decade. Dolores' acting career, including occasional appearances in episodic television and films, had seemingly dried up by 1959. But she kept finding work as a print model, as in this ad sponsored by the National Safety Council. This picture ran in the Valentine's Day 1959 edition of the Boston Daily Record.

Dolores Fuller: "A cute Valentine herself."

"Valentine, I love you true—sure hope no one runs over you." True poetry. Appropriately, then, Dolores shifted careers shortly after this ad and became a professional songwriter herself. Within a few years, she was busy writing lyrics for hit songs by Elvis Presley. A frequent interviewee in documentaries and articles about Ed Wood, Dolores lived to be 88. She was buried in Las Vegas.

Happy Holidays, and don't choke on that Golden Turkey!

Here are two stories I couldn't sell! Enjoy!

"Can't be a winner every time, hon." - Edith Massey

What can I say, folks? Every once in a while, even a seasoned professional writer like myself comes up with a loser. A flop. A stink bomb. A turkey. It happens. I'm sure even Jackie Collins had the occasional bad day. Not everything can be Hollywood Wives. And when it happens, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. Jackie knew it. I know it.

Some of the stuff I write is purely for my own amusement, but most of it is written to reach an audience, either through this blog or through some online platform that actually pays me. But what is funny or interesting to me is not always funny or interesting to other people. I have learned that lesson many times in the past, and I will learn it many times in the future.

With that said, here are two articles I wrote in hopes of making a sale. Neither one sold, and since they were both time-sensitive, they are no longer relevant or salable. Past their expiration date, both of them. Still in all, I hope that you will either enjoy them or at least learn from my mistakes.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 76: Johnny Duncan in 'Plan 9'

From Batman & Robin to Plan 9, Johnny Duncan had a colorful career in pictures.

The morgue wagon boys.

Strange things are afoot at the old cemetery near Jeff and Paula Trent's house. Two gravediggers have been killed—torn apart, as if by a bobcat—and a handful of police officers have arrived on the scene to take the witnesses' statements and search the grounds for any clue as to who or what committed these murders. The investigation is led by plainclothesmen Inspector Daniel Clay (Tor Johnson) and Lt. John "Johnny" Harper (Duke Moore), aided by two uniformed patrolmen (Paul Marco and Carl Anthony). Lt. Harper tells Inspector Clay that the "morgue wagon oughta be along most any time" to collect the bodies. The sooner the better, since this boneyard stinks to high heaven.

Confident that Lt. Harper has the foul-smelling crime scene well in hand, Inspector Clay departs to explore the rest of the cemetery. An unwise decision, we'll soon learn. Remarkable events transpire in rapid order. A single flying saucer zooms over the area, bringing with it a blinding light and an incredible wind that is neither hot nor cold, just powerful. The Trents (Gregory Walcott and Mona McKinnon) are on their back porch at the time and find themselves thrown to the ground while having a heart-to-heart chat. Lt. Harper and the two patrolmen witness the UFO, too.

By this point, two morgue wagon attendants—decked out in matching jackets, collared shirts, and white pants—have arrived to carry away the bodies. They're carrying one of the gravediggers on a stretcher. When the saucer flies over their heads, however, all five men are knocked to the ground. The morgue wagon guys unceremoniously dump the gravedigger's body into a nearby field. Somewhere else in the cemetery, the man-mountain Inspector Clay remains standing. Fate has something far worse in store for him that night.

A body (Hugh Thomas, Jr.) is thrown into a field.

Batman and Robin (1949)

I've seen Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) countless times over the last 26 years, but it was only recently that I paid any attention whatsoever to those two guys from the "morgue wagon." (And, incidentally, that does not seem to be a standard industry term. Ed Wood simply made it up.) Part of what drew my attention to them was revisiting the colorized version of Plan 9 released by Legend Films in 2006. The addition of color to a black-and-white film brings out details that might otherwise go unnoticed, including props, sets, and, yes, background actors.

In the Legend Films edition, for instance, the two morgue attendants are tinted in such a way that they look like a set of twins in matchy-matchy outfits, as if they'd been dressing alike since childhood and carried that habit into their adult years. Once you notice them, it's difficult to ignore them as they theatrically throw themselves to the ground, then regain their composure and confer among themselves.

One of these stretcher bearers has been positively identified as actor-dancer Johnny Duncan (1923-2016), best known today for having portrayed Robin the Boy Wonder in the 1949 Columbia serial Batman and Robin. He was the second actor to play the famed DC character, following Douglas Croft in a 1943 Batman serial. And, yes, that's definitely Duncan in Plan 9. He confirmed as much in a lively, career-spanning 2005 interview. He had little recollection of the film or of Ed Wood, other than the fact that Eddie "made some cheap pictures." For the actor, it was just another job in a screen career that spanned about two decades.

That's the damnedest thing about Johnny Duncan, a Kansas City, MO native who started as a professional dancer in the 1930s when he was a teenager before leapfrogging to a movie contract with Fox. He worked with many famous people over the years, including esteemed directors like John Ford and Stanley Kubrick, and yet he did not seem to take himself especially seriously.

Duncan was the very epitome of a journeyman actor, going from job to job with no real thought as to building a reputation or personal brand. As he tells it, he never actively sought out a film career. It just sort of happened. An agent saw him and signed him, and that was that. From Westerns to musicals to comedies, Johnny was up for anything. He just went wherever he was wanted until he wasn't wanted anymore. After his career dried up in Hollywood, Johnny got out of movies and into the business world; by the 1990s, he was Vice President of Fall Creek Resorts in Branson. He seemed content to live out his days in his native Missouri, though he occasionally missed California and its people.

In his later years, long since retired from showbiz, Johnny Duncan gladly appeared at conventions to meet fans and discuss his role as Robin. Though Duncan's diverse resume includes such titles as The Wild One (1953), The Caine Mutiny (1954), and Spartacus (1960), his name will forever be connected to the deathless Batman franchise. And Johnny seemed perfectly fine with that, having been a fan of the comics before he ever took the role of Dick Grayson. He claimed he even read Batman books on his honeymoon, much to his bride's annoyance.

Filmed over the course of about three grueling months in 1949, Batman and Robin was eventually released in 15 separate chapters, each one averaging about 17 minutes. These would be shown as appetizers before a main feature. The series, directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet, is notable for including the first live-action depictions of such seminal Batman characters as reporter Vicki Vale and Commissioner Gordon. The latter is played by another Plan 9 from Outer Space actor, Lyle Talbot, bringing his usual reassuring stoicism to the part.

Lyle Talbot as Commissioner Gordon in Batman and Robin (1949).

Johnny Duncan in The Flaming Urge.

Johnny Duncan had some funny anecdotes about making Batman and Robin, including how his paunchy costar Robert Lowery had to be squeezed into his costume each day. The costumed crime fighters called each other "Fatman and Bobbin" on the set. Already 26 at the time, Duncan was technically too old to play the adolescent Boy Wonder, but his short frame and tousled hair made him look younger than he was. His high, thin, affectless voice also contrasted with Lowery's deeper, more nuanced vocals.

Though the Columbia serial is considerably more serious than William Dozier's 1966 Batman TV series, the former was clearly an influence on the latter. It is jarring, however, to see that the 1949 version of Wayne Manor is an underwhelming two-story suburban dwelling that looks like it could be the home of Ward and June Cleaver. And the Batmobile is simply a 1949 Mercury convertible straight off the lot. A nice vehicle, sure, but not nearly as customized as other Batmobiles we've known.

Batman and Robin was just one of Johnny Duncan's many showbiz adventures. The Missourian's career as a dancer and actor brought him into contact with such luminaries as Sammy Davis, Jr., Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, Lana Turner, Alan Ladd, future president Ronald Reagan, and more. Several of these Hollywood legends, including Bogey and Cagney, became close personal friends of his. He even did a number of films with the East Side Kids, including Million Dollar Kid (1944), which he called "probably the worst picture I ever did." He befriended several of the Kids along the way, including Huntz Hall. That connection was lasting. Shortly before Hall died in 1999, he called Duncan to talk over old times.

"You know it was really a sad thing," Duncan reflected, "because Huntz was really nothing like he was on the screen—stupid like that, you know?"

Johnny Duncan had never worked with Edward D. Wood, Jr. before Plan 9 from Outer Space, and the two would never again cross paths professionally. But Duncan did appear in an arson drama called The Flaming Urge (1953) with Harold Lloyd, Jr. of Married Too Young (1962) fame. Duncan had filmed his part in the movie under the more innocent title The Spark and was dismayed by the suggestive name switcheroo. "I've never seen it yet to this day," he admitted.

When asked in 2005 whether he would write an autobiography, Duncan said, "My life has been interesting to me. It really has." But he worried that younger people would not recognize such names as Joan Crawford or James Cagney. "So I don't know if it would be an interesting book to them or not." Nevertheless, in 2011, Richard Lester published a biographical volume called Johnny Duncan: Hollywood Legend. As always, Duncan was depicted on the front cover in his Robin costume. 

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 75: The Mocambo (1941-1958)

A UFO hovers ominously over the Mocambo on Sunset Blvd.

The VHS release of Look Back in Angora.

There are several fine, lovingly made documentaries about Ed Wood. The three best known examples—Look Back in Angora, Flying Saucers Over Hollywood, and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr.—were all released in the early-to-mid 1990s. That tracks. Rudolph Grey's book about Eddie came out in '92, Tim Burton's biopic followed two years later, and several of Ed's movies were either being issued or reissued on VHS back then. It was a good time to be an Ed Wood fan.

Perhaps the best documentaries about Edward D. Wood, Jr. are the man's own films. From his crude cowboy drama Crossroads of Laredo (1948) to the formulaic porn loops he worked on in the 1970s, these motion pictures truly capture Eddie's life and times. Jean-Luc Godard famously said that "film is truth 24 times a second," and Ed Wood's movies show how true that (slightly pretentious) maxim is.

Take Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) as an example. You want to see what Vampira, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, and the rest of the Wood gang looked like back in the 1950s? They're all in Plan 9, alongside many other members of Eddie's oddball entourage. And you can't tour Quality Studios as it was during those years, but you can see the scenes Eddie filmed there, including that infamous cockpit aboard American Flight #812. You know, the one with the shower curtain and the circular slide rule.

Plan 9 is a treasure trove of detail about life in Eisenhower-era America. Here, you'll see examples of 1950s fashion, technology, social attitudes, architecture, and consumer products. Just look at the huge Fords, Dodges, and Buicks that zip across the screen. People didn't know what "fuel economy" even was back then. And check out the Coca-Cola bottles and the L&M cigarette package on the table outside Jeff and Paula's home during the scene in which the Trents are interviewed by Col. Edwards (Tom Keene) and Lt. Harper (Duke Moore). Nostalgic movies set in the 1950s, including Ed Wood (1994), scramble to get these kinds of period details correct. Plan 9 doesn't have to scramble. Eddie just used what was available in Los Angeles at the time.

Coke and cigarettes in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

One of the most remarkable passages of Plan 9 arrives at about the 17-minute mark. Much has already happened by this point in the movie. Vampira and Bela's characters have died, had their respective funerals, and risen from the dead. Pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) has spotted a flying saucer and confessed this remarkable event to his supportive wife Paula (Mona McKinnon). Two bumbling gravediggers (J. Edward Reynolds and Hugh Thomas, Jr.) and lumbering Inspector Clay (Tor Johnson) have been killed by zombies. After all this, Reverend Lynn Lemon presides over Clay's funeral ("The bell has rung upon his great career.") with Vampira watching from the bushes and UFOs hovering overhead.

What follows is a remarkable, newsreel-esque montage lasting about a minute and a half, comprised of both stock footage and newly filmed pick-up shots, augmented with hyperbolic narration by Criswell and dramatic library music. The point of this montage is to show that the three saucers are brazenly flying over major American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, ultimately attracting the attention of the military. What had been a series of intimate, interconnected stories about a few characters (a grieving old man, a married couple, some police officers) is now a national phenomenon.

Unsurprisingly, most of the montage focuses on Eddie's adopted hometown of Hollywood. Criswell tells us that the three saucers were spotted "high over Hollywood Blvd." as we see amazed motorists pointing at the sky. A fictional newspaper called the Hollywood Chronicle is first seen coming off the printing press, then being read by a suit-wearing man (supposedly Ed Wood himself). Its banner headline reads: SAUCERS SEEN OVER HOLLYWOOD. A slightly crumpled copy of the Chronicle is laid out on a table at a diner, surrounded by various cups and silverware. Finally, a tubby drunk staggers through an alley and picks the paper up off the sidewalk before waddling out of frame.

Meanwhile, the saucers fly over the headquarters of CBS, NBC, and ABC. But then, for reasons known only to himself, Eddie has the aliens visit Sunset Boulevard, and we get a glimpse of what the glitzy Sunset Strip—a 1.5-mile stretch of road through West Hollywood cluttered with clubs, stores, and billboards—looked like 60 years ago. There's a shot in which a saucer soars over the Crescendo, a nitery that lasted from 1954 to 1964 and played host to top jazz, folk, and comedy acts of the day. Everyone from Louis Armstrong to Bob Newhart gigged there. The joint was named after the GNP Crescendo record label and was owned by GNP honcho Gene Norman. (The club is long, long gone, but the label is carried on today by Gene's son, Neil.)

On the night this footage was shot, "cool jazz" singer June Christy was performing there. An appreciative write-up in the June 10, 1957 edition of Billboard said that the chanteuse "seems to have reached full showbiz maturity." Soon-to-be-controversial comedian Lenny Bruce was also on the bill. A banner advertising cabaret singer Frances Faye is seen in the background. Faye's 1959 album Caught in the Act was recorded at the Crescendo.

Flying saucer over the Crescendo club. Inset: a Billboard review of June Christy's act.

Eddie cuts to another drunk (production assistant and future For Love and Money director Don Davis) staggering out of a cocktail lounge, a bottle of wine still in his hand. He shields his eyes, apparently from the brightness of the UFO, then looks down skeptically at the bottle. "There comes a time in each man's life," says Criswell, "when he can't even believe his own eyes." This bar, incidentally, seems to be a real location. The address over the door is clearly visible as 4092. If this is meant to be Sunset Blvd. as well, that address now corresponds to a parking lot.

Don Davis shields his eyes from the harsh light of truth.

The Mocrumbo in Slick Hare (1947).

When the film cuts back to the UFO, it's no longer dangling over the Crescendo but over the Mocambo, a plush night club that stood at 8588 Sunset Boulevard from 1941 to 1958. The place was demolished decades ago, barely outliving its co-founder Charlie Morrison; an H&M now stands in its approximate spot. Throughout most of the 1940s and 1950s, however, it was one of West Hollywood's true hot spots, attracting movie star customers and top-flight musical and comedy talent.

(Our poor Plan 9 drunk, incidentally, is so disoriented by this that he sets the bottle of wine down. It's a classic example of the "no more for me" trope.)

Abbott & Costello, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf, Bob Hope, and too many more to mention played the Mocambo. And the clientele? Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Judy Garland went there. Practically every major movie star you can name from that era. Liz Taylor, Clark Gable, John Wayne. The list goes on and on. They came for the exotic, Latin-inspired decor (including many live birds!), the big band music, and the opportunity to dance the night away. This was a place to see and be seen.

Ed Wood himself visited the Mocambo at least once, according to Kathy Wood. "We went to clubs like the Brown Derby, Ciro's, Mocambo," she told Rudolph Grey in Nightmare of Ecstasy, "but not much. We sort of stayed home and got drunk."

For a club that lasted less than two decades, the Mocambo had a seismic impact on popular culture. Remember the Tropicana, where Ricky worked on I Love Lucy? Yeah, that was based on the Mocambo. Lucy and Desi were fans of the place. Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny spent a whole cartoon, Slick Hare (1947), at a parody of the Mocambo called "the Mocrumbo," where a flashing neon sign advises patrons that they'll have to make a "small down payment" on the $600 dinners offered within. In the cartoon, the restaurant is depicted as a star-studded but chaotic and disorganized place, where crates of vegetables are left to rot on the floor and the refrigerators are dripping with grease. This was supposedly based on writer Michael Maltese's real-life observations! But who cares when Bogey and Bacall are regulars?

Eartha Kitt is the purrrrrfect headliner for the Mocambo.

In the stock footage from Plan 9, seductive singer-actress Eartha Kitt is headlining at the Mocambo. This film might have been taken during Kitt's much-publicized 1953 stint at the club. How wonderful, then, that Ms. Kitt made a cameo in the Ed Wood-scripted I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998). Below is a blurb from the December 10, 1953 issue of Jet about Kitt's three-week stand at the Mocambo, plus a vintage photograph showing an alternate angle of the famous marquee. Apparently, Greece's King Paul and Queen Frederika had attended a Mocambo floor show, and Los Angeles mayor Norris Poulson was shocked by the lyrics of Miss Kitt's flirty songs like "C'est Si Bon" and "I Wanna Be Evil." The scandalous publicity only made her performances at the Mocambo more popular.

A press clipping about Eartha Kitt's appearance at the Mocambo in West Hollywood.

Broadcast pioneer Larry Finley.

You sharp-eyed viewers will have noted by now that there is another venue visible next door to the Mocambo. That's Larry Finley's Restaurant, located on the same premises and named after the New York-born radio and TV broadcaster. Larry was then appearing on radio station KFWB (980 on your AM dial). These days, KFWB plays all Mexican music, but from the 1920s to the 1950s, the station aired a variety of programming during radio's so-called "golden age." Stars like Bing Crosby and Ronald Reagan got their start on KFWB, in fact.

By the 1950s, the beefy, balding, gregarious Finley—said to have possessed "the voice with a smile"—was hosting his nightly, six-hour talk show, Larry Finley Time, from the Sunset Blvd. restaurant. That fact was advertised quite prominently on the sign outside. I guess the idea was that you could stop by for a meal or a drink and see a genuine radio show, complete with celebrity guests, being produced right in front of you. Good old Larry kept the party going until 4am every night. By the end of the 1950s, however, KFWB had switched over to playing rock & roll music and would become quite a powerhouse in that field.

Largely forgotten today, Larry Finley (1913-2000) was an interesting character in his own right. Over the course of his 86 years, he pursued a number of careers, including nightclub manager, with various degrees of success. His after-hours broadcasts made him one of the first late-night talk show hosts. He tried to start his own radio network but could never get it off the ground. On the plus side, though, he was one of the first to see the potential of video and audiotape and became a leader in that industry. When he died in April 2000, the Los Angeles Times eulogized him as such but also mentioned the radio shows and the Sunset Blvd. restaurant.

Had it not been for Plan 9 from Outer Space, I might never have heard of Finley, the Crescendo, or even the Mocambo. That's why I say that Ed Wood's movie, as outlandish as it is, serves as an incredible documentary of the 1950s.

What's been happening in 'Mary Worth'? Oh my god, so much.

Mary refused to wear the chain mail bikini. Sorry.

It's been a couple of months since I've done one of my "comic strip roundup"-type posts at this blog, so I figured it was time to do another. The last time we spoke, the current Mary Worth story about dog lover Saul Wynter and his protective pooch Bella was just getting started. As you'll recall, Mary and Toby approached Saul and Bella at a Charterstone pool party. Muffins were offered. It didn't go well.

What happened after that?

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 74: The Canned Film Festival (1986)

Laraine Newman (fourth from left, in usherette costume) heads the cast of The Canned Film Festival.

Let's face it. Old B-movies, especially those of the horror and sci-fi variety, are inherently funny to many viewers. The plots are often far-fetched, the dialogue improbable, the acting dubious, and the special-effects shoddy. Audiences see these films, and their first instinct is to laugh. And yet the characters onscreen are required to take themselves and their situations very seriously indeed. Which, in turn, makes the movies even funnier.

This is the central truth that has fueled the Ed Wood cult for decades. People come to his movies mainly to laugh at their cheapness and naivete. I've been in these theaters. I've heard the laughter. I've done some of the laughing myself. I couldn't help it.

Vampira: One of the early horror hosts.

This phenomenon hardly began with the publication of Harry and Michael Medved's The Golden Turkey Awards in 1980. Television horror hosts have been poking fun—and not always in a gentle way—at sci-fi and horror movies since the 1950s and 1960s. One such wisecracking host was Maila "Vampira" Nurmi, who actually appeared in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and forever after became associated with the director, much to her embarrassment. In Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), Eddie complains that Vampira "doesn't show [the movies] the proper respect."

A certain level of kidding is present, too, in the fan magazines of that period. Rudolph Grey maintains that the Ed Wood cult really began in the pages of Forrest J. Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, where stills from Eddie's movies would run with captions like "one of the un-best movies of all time." Ackerman's readers were the ones who grew up and and alerted the authors of The Golden Turkey Awards to the existence of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Plan 9.

The Medved book brought this type of humor into the mainstream, and it introduced Ed Wood's movies to a larger audience, too The "bad movie" cult thrived in the 1980s as never before. In 1982, Paramount released It Came From Hollywood, a compilation of vintage "Grade Z" movie clips hosted by a gaggle of comedians, including Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd from Saturday Night Live. That film devoted an entire segment to Eddie. In 1988, Mystery Science Theater 3000 debuted as a local program in Minneapolis before going national on Comedy Central the next year. That series eventually dissected several of Eddie's films, including Bride of the Monster (1955), The Violent Years (1956), and The Sinister Urge (1960).

The Canned Film Festival

A less-heralded, indeed largely forgotten, example of this trend was a syndicated series called The Canned Film Festival. Lasting for 13 wacky weeks in the summer of 1986, it was hosted by another Saturday Night Live veteran, Laraine Newman, whose thin frame and Los Angeles twang had typecast her somewhat as a Valley Girl ditz. The show's title served as both a pun on the famed Cannes Film Festival and a reference to the program's sponsor, Dr. Pepper. The soft drink maker had long prided itself on its eccentricity (see the "I'm a pepper!" spots with David Naughton), so underwriting a series built around wild and woolly B-movies somehow seemed a natural fit for the brand.

At the time, Dr. Pepper was running its own ambitious Mad Max-inspired science-fiction ad campaign. That campaign, like The Canned Film Festival itself, was devised by a New York-based marketing firm called Young & Rubicam. This company had handled Dr. Pepper's marketing since 1969. Y&R finally lost the Dr. Pepper account in 2008 after nearly 40 years of truly creative, memorable advertising.

If The Canned Film Festival hadn't debuted two years before Mystery Science Theater 3000, one might almost be tempted to call it an MST3K ripoff. Like that series, Canned has its own high-concept premise, explained at length in the introduction. Laraine Newman plays Laraine, the owner of a small, struggling movie theater called the Ritz in the fictional town of Limekirk, Texas. She runs the place with her reclusive, rarely-seen mother—Mom running the projector, daughter serving as usherette—but business is lousy. At first, Laraine tries to lure customers by adding laundry facilities and selling eccentric snacks at the concession stand. (Chocolate Covered Lug Nuts, anyone?)

An announcer (Bill St. James, uncredited) informs us: "And that didn't work, so she gathered together a collection of the strangest, silliest, most unusual movies ever made, stocked every refreshment imaginable, and she called it The Canned Film Festival! Will she pull it off? Will Laraine and her mom survive?" Based on the show's short shelf life, the answer was obviously no. While MST3K lasted a decade and has recently been revived on Netflix, Canned came and went in a few months. The two series covered a lot of the same territory. Of the 13 films shown on Canned, seven wound up on MST3K. And one of those was Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster.

Tor: The ultimate door prize?

The Bride of the Monster episode gives you a good idea of what The Canned Film Festival was all about. Running an hour and a half with commercials, the show intersperses movie segments with sitcom-like vignettes centered around Laraine and her group of zany regulars who come in to wash their clothes and watch the flicks. Of these supporting players, I recognized amiably dopey character actor Patrick Garner from his appearances on Chappelle's Show, where he made an ideal "clueless white guy" stereotype. (You Square One Television fanatics might remember him as "Simon Legume" on Mathnet.) Kathryn Rossetter and Phil Nee have also had durable careers in TV and film without ever becoming household names. Unlike MST3K, there is no commentary from the cast during the movie portions.

At the outset of the show, Laraine Newman is proudly handing out genuine Tor Johnson masks from Don Post Studios. Perky, naive Becky (Laura Galusha, whose resume is largely barren) is freaked out by Tor's visage, while gossipy Doris (Rossetter) is thoroughly unimpressed. Two nerds, talkative Fitzy (Garner) and taciturn Chan (Nee), are more enthusiastic. Laraine's character, meanwhile, can be described as a trivia-spouting film fanatic. She describes the feature to her patrons this way: "Tonight's film is Bride of the Monster, written and directed in 1953 by the legendary Edward Wood. It stars Bela Lugosi. You know, he was hoping this movie would launch his comeback, but it never did." And, yes, the film really was made in 1953 despite not being released until 1955. Good catch, Canned Movie Festival.

Both the announcer and Fitzy point out that Bride of the Monster was Bela's "last speaking role." This is something I hadn't considered, but it turns out to be true. After Bride, Bela appeared in The Black Sheep (1956) for director Reginald Le Borg but was not given any dialogue. His final role in Plan 9 was obviously silent. So, yeah, Bride is the last time Bela speaks in a movie. After staggering out of the theater, Fitzy and Chan debate what Bela's ultimate line actually is. Chan seems to think it was "AWWWWW!" but Fitzy insists it was more like "AHHHHHH!" ("AWWWWW!" was Tor's last line, Fitzy clarifies.)

Later, swapping trivia with Fritzy and Chan, Laraine drops this bombshell: "When [the filmmakers] rented the sea monster from the Disney studios for this film, they didn't have enough money to rent the motor to make it move. They had to make it move themselves!" Where she got the part about Disney, I have no idea. Maybe writers Ken Smith and Mike Wilkins thought the monster was from Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). For the record, the rubber octopus came from Republic's Wake of the Red Witch (1948) with John Wayne. 

In a lot of ways, The Canned Film Festival serves as a snapshot of the Ed Wood cult as it stood in 1986. This was six years before Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., the first comprehensive book about the director, so there were a lot of rumors, half-truths, and urban legends circulating about Eddie. Some of those stories are so entertaining, they've become permanent parts of the myth. When Fitzy mentions Tor Johnson breaking Ed's toilet seats, Laraine counters with: "He directed all his films wearing women's clothes! And no one knows where he's buried!" The toilet seat thing appears to be true, but the rest is hooey.

The show also tries to discuss Wood's movie from a critical/analytical standpoint. Fitzy opines that Bride "shows how absolute power corrupts absolutely. And never let a stranger strap a spaghetti strainer to your head!" For her part, Becky identifies with the Janet Lawton character. She's going through a rough patch with her boyfriend Jack (F. Richards Ford, largely absent from this episode) and offers this feminist interpretation of Bride of the Monster:

I see a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Well, she's engaged to Tony, but she goes out on her own. She's not afraid. She... she turns down dinner, and she goes to the swamp! The forbidden swamp! The swamp that everybody's afraid of! Oh, the men don't like the swamp. The men stand around outside the swamp, smoking cigarettes and talking about the weather and how much they don't like the swamp. But she... she rushes right in! Maybe that's what I have to learn! I have to learn how to go into the swamp all by myself and find out what it is I'm really afraid of. And then what? Go home and change and go out to dinner. (laughs) Is that what it's really all about?

The female characters wander away from the movie from time to time to check on their laundry. The Canned Film Festival does show its age during a scene when Doris comments about Chan: "For a Chinaman, he doesn't know diddly about laundry!" Becky helpfully keeps her pal updated on the plot: "Tor Johnson throws a scientist to the sea monster, then he took the girl up to Bela Lugosi's room." And just like Johnny Depp in Ed Wood, actress Laura Galusha attempts to imitate Bela's hypnotic hand gestures.

"I and my so called droogs wore our maskies."

The episode ends on a hopeful note. Lovers Becky and Jack have reunited, and Laraine has even persuaded her hermit-like mother to come out of hiding and play the calliope at a nearby benefit show, though the diminutive old lady hides her face behind a Tor Johnson mask before slowly exiting the Ritz. The other characters all don their Tor masks and cheerfully follow her, except Doris, who doesn't want to mess up her pristine hairdo.

The Canned Film Festival was clearly a non-starter for both Dr. Pepper and Laraine Newman, so there was no second season. Maybe it was difficult for producers to sell an oddball, 90-minute program like this to stations across America. The show is nowhere near as well known as Mystery Science Theater 3000, and it lags behind such comparable series as Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection (1985-1986), Jay Ward's Fractured Flickers (1963-1964), and Joe Bob Briggs' MonsterVision (1991-2000) in terms of popularity.

Judging by its highly detailed Wikipedia page, however, The Canned Film Festival obviously has its fans. And it's pretty easy to see why. The series offered up some memorable B-movies at a time when those were not readily accessible on home video. The wraparound segments, while not staggeringly brilliant, are quite amiable. Laraine Newman is clearly having fun here; she probably didn't get a lot of opportunities to play know-it-all film buffs. The Bride of the Monster episode is a terrific time capsule item. Besides the movie and the vignettes, it includes a variety of truly loopy, sci-fi-inspired Dr. Pepper spots plus some promos for Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). And keep an eye peeled for a Sports Illustrated ad with a very young Rob Morrow.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 73: The saga of Eddie and the Famous Monsters album

Eddie desperately wanted a copy of this album, Famous Monsters Speak (1963), but never got it.

Forrest J. Ackerman and friend

By the summer of 1966, Edward D. Wood, Jr. was 41 and making his meager living mostly from writing lurid paperbacks and the occasional screenplay. The magazine work wouldn't start coming in steadily for a couple more years.

Forrest J. Ackerman (1916-2008), editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland for 26 years and one of America's preeminent collectors of horror and sci-fi memorabilia, has described himself as Eddie's "illiterary agent" during this era, though there's no evidence that he ever got Ed much work outside of the Orgy of the Dead tie-in paperback published by Greenleaf in 1966. Based on existing interviews and articles, it seems that Ackerman had little regard for Eddie's talents and considered him more of a nuisance than anything else.

"For a while, he called me up a great deal on the telephone, but he was always smashed out of his skull," Ackerman told Rudolph Grey in Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). "There was nothing much I had to say to him or could do for him or anything."

Still in all, Forrest J. Ackerman was a man with at least some connections in the publishing industry, and Eddie needed whatever work he could get by the mid-1960s. This letter from Ed to Forry perfectly captures the tenor of their relationship. It comes from the collection of a fan named Dennis, who purchased it at an auction of Ackerman memorabilia. In the letter, Ed is sniffing around for work, and Forry is trying to duck him at all cost. Along the way, though, Ed brings up an unusual LP he'd seen advertised in the pages of Forry's magazine.

                                          EDWARD D. WOOD, Jr.
                                          6136 Bonner Ave.
                                          North Hollywood, Calif.

                                          1 August 1966

         Mr. Forrest J. Ackerman
         915 S. Sherbourne Drive
         Los Angeles 32, Calif.

         Dear Forry

          Going into the second month that I haven't heard from you.   I certainly know all things take time, but do drop me a line and let me know if, and how things are progressing.  

          Two new paperbacks through San Diego.   "69 RUE PIGALLE" and "NAKED BONES".   Both should be interesting for Foreign sales.   "BONES" will be especially interesting to you for its horrific qualities.   Deals with many a carnival murder - monsters and mad men.   I am working on "DEVIL GIRLS" for this months sale.  

          Also, just as some information for your benefit.   Some time ago I put my little three bucks in an envelope and mailed for "FAMOUS MONSTERS SPEAK."   After much time I wrote, "Why do I not receive the record?" and of course there was the return - "We never received the money."   BETTER ADVISE YOUR READERS NOT TO SEND CASH.   Thus this time I sent a check which was cashed from New York to here by the Captain Company on June 27 - also for one of the back issues of the serials magazine -- but have not arrived as yet. 

          Let me hear from you from time to time and what is happening.   As soon as I get the phone back, and a car, we'll see you.

                                          My best for both our advances

                                          Ed

Almost breaks your heart, doesn't it? At this point, Ed didn't have enough money for a car or even a telephone line, both necessary for life in Los Angeles, and yet he was still ordering movie memorabilia from Forry's magazines. But that was Eddie. He was always a fan at heart, enamored by movies and the people who made them. Among his few remaining possessions when he died was a copy of the book Movie Monsters (1969) by British author Denis Gifford. Eddie also owned at least two volumes of Famous Monsters reprints: The Best of Famous Monsters of Filmland (1964) and Son of Famous Monsters of Filmland (1965), both from Paperback Library. Ed's copies of these books wound up in the possession of fan Bob Blackburn.

Books from Ed Wood's personal collection.

As it turns out, the album Eddie wanted so badly is pretty easy to track down today. Famous Monsters Speak (A.A./Wonderland/Golden) was first issued in 1963 and then re-released on vinyl in 1970 and 1973. Under the title Classic Stories for Kids: From the Mouths of Monsters, it was reissued on CD by Digiview Entertainment in 2005. Image Entertainment released the album under its original title on CD in 2000. A vinyl copy will run you about $25 to $50 today on Ebay. The CD versions are much cheaper than that. Factoring in inflation, the CD is actually cheaper than the original release from 1963!

Here's the ad that would have enticed Ed Wood over five decades ago. The copy describes Famous Monsters Speak as "50 minutes of sheer terror," though the actual album clocks in at about 41 minutes. Note that the LP is said to be "brought to you by the editors of Famous Monsters magazine!" Curiously, the listed price is only $1.98. Had the price gone up by 1966 or was the extra dollar for shipping?

An ad for Famous Monsters Speak.

Here's a second, full-page ad for the album. Again, the price is given as $1.98, and readers are advised to mail in "two one-dollar bills." The canard about the album being 50 minutes long is also repeated. There is a reference to the album being sold in stores, so maybe poor Eddie should have gone that route instead.

Ed Wood obviously couldn't wait for this album to appear in stores.

The original LP cover in all its glory.

Like the magazine for which it is named, Famous Monsters Speak is aimed largely at children. But that would have suited Ed Wood perfectly. His own widow, Kathy, described Ed as "such a kid in a way" in Nightmare of Ecstasy. This is a spooky, atmospheric spoken word LP, enhanced with sound effects but lacking music. It consists of only two tracks: "Frankenstein's Monster Talks!" (19:54) and "Dracula's Return!" (21:12). For the CD reissue, these titles were simplified to the comparatively mundane "Frankenstein Speaks" and "Dracula Speaks."

The premise of Side One is that some scientists have converged in Zurich, Switzerland to hear some "crude recordings" that Dr. Frankenstein made of his monster. The monologuing monster, in chains, ponders how and why he was ever created and vows revenge on his maker. "I have one purpose," he snarls. "To end your life!" The tapes then seem to capture the creature as he escapes from bondage and goes on a killing spree. (Did he take the tape recorder with him and then send the reels back to the doctor, I wonder?) For a kids album, Famous Monsters Speak is pretty explicit in describing acts of violence. At one point, the creature makes this observation about his human victims: "They come apart so easily!"

In a strange way, with its verbose, vengeance-obsessed monster, this recording is actually closer in tone to Mary Shelley's gloomy original novel than James Whale's 1931 film ever was. This half of the LP ends with a dire warning from the immortal, unstoppable creature: "No one is safe from me! Which one of you is next?"

Side Two is given over to Count Dracula's return. It is presented as the desperate memoir of a most unfortunate man who found Dracula one night when he decided to snoop around the British Museum after hours. We hear him typing as he narrates his story aloud. According to this story, the old vampire's crypt is housed in the rat-infested basement of the Covent Garden museum. Dracula gives the interloper a message to deliver: "You will tell the people who walk above the ground that Count Dracula lives."

After explaining his modus operandi at length, the jovial, cackling Dracula takes his new "friend" out to the streets of London. The vampire likes to do his dirty work on crowded, well-lit thoroughfares with lots of people around. "That is horror," he explains. In no time at all, he hypnotizes a young lady with his magic ring, then drains her blood until she dies. When Drac takes the narrator to some kind of underground vampire convention, the man foolishly tries to escape. The count generously lets the narrator return to his normal life but warns, "I will come for you. Slowly, quietly." The narrator finishes typing his story just in time for Dracula to reclaim him, and the album ends abruptly.

Writer Cherney Berg

There was some intriguing talent behind this record, too. Both of these horror stories were written by Cherney Berg (1922-2003), son of radio and TV comedienne Molly Berg. In the 1950s and 1960s, Cherney worked as a writer and producer on Molly's show, The Goldbergs, as well as The Molly Berg Show. But he got other writing work as well, including scripting a 1967 Troy Donahue vehicle called Come Spy With Me. He was also a story editor on the 1966 animated King Kong series from Rankin-Bass and adapted The Nutcracker into an ice show starring Dorothy Hamill for a 1983 TV special. Cherney also worked on spoken word albums for children, including Scary Spooky Stories (1973) and  Great Ghost Stories (1973). In 1963, the same year as this album, Cherney also authored A Hideous History of Weapons, a mass market paperback from Collier.

Meanwhile, the voices on the album were provided by actor and comedian Gabriel Dell (1919-1988). As a young man, Gabe had been a member of the wisecracking screen troupe variously known as the Dead End Kids, the Bowery Boys, and the East Side Kids. In fact, I've reviewed some of his ESK films, including Smart Alecks (1942), Million Dollar Kid (1944),  and Mr. Wise Guy (1942). After aging out of that gig circa 1950, Gabe Dell kept working fairly regularly in TV and film until the early 1980s, including a role in the dreadful When the Girls Take Over (1962). To be fair, I should say Gabe was also in the 1974 disaster movie Earthquake and guested on shows like I Dream of Jeannie, The Fugitive, Ben Casey, McCloud, Sanford & Son, and more. He has all sorts of bizarre credits to his name, including playing Mordu in the two-part Legends of the Superheroes (1979) and voicing Boba Fett in The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978).

Gabe was also something of an impressionist. While he makes no attempt to imitate Boris Karloff or Colin Clive during "Frankenstein's Monster Speaks!" he obviously models his performance as Dracula after Bela Lugosi. This leads to some strange pronunciations along the way, like  "The vampire is kink!" and "Shit on that coffin!" For a while in the late 1950s and early '60s, Gabriel Dell served as a sidekick to TV comedian Steve Allen. Here he is on Allen's show, doing his Lugosi impression. The mood is lighthearted, but the voice is pretty much the same as what he uses on Famous Monsters Speak.

History does not record whether Ed Wood ever received his copy of the album... or at least received a refund for his $3.