WEBVTT - Ed Wood II 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:05.080 Ephemeral is a production of five heart three D audio. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:13.000 For full exposure, listen with that phones. The last night 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.800 I saw a flying obdue they couldn't have possibly been 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.320 from this planet. But I can't say a word. A 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.040 muzzled by Amy Brass, I can't even min I saw 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:32.920 that they On the last episode of Ephemeral, we explored 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.400 the illustrious career of filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr. We 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.680 looked at Wood's most famous films, including Plan Nine from 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.440 Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, and we debated 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.680 the inherent quality of Wood's output and how much that 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.360 even matters. Here. Our producer Trevor Young picks up the story. 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.680 Edward filmed Plan nine from Outer Space in nineteen fifty six, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.800 but I wouldn't premiere until three years later in nineteen 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:09.200 fifty nine. In the meantime, Wood directed my personal favorite 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.000 of his Night of the Ghouls. Through my powers of 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.800 the supernatural, I and I alone can bring him to 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.040 this room tonight, from that place in the deep blackness 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.959 of death from which no visitors to return, where the 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.360 sun is seen to rise, the sun is seen to set, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.080 where the gracious Moon comes from the east and its 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:37.400 long journey across the night sky to the west Wingate Foster, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.959 through the powers of doctor Actula, will again be permitted 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:49.040 to walk. Here's Bill Shoot, author and professor of English 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.880 at San Antonio College. In some ways, the companion piece 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:58.720 to Plan nine, Night of the Ghouls is even more surreal, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.240 though it's not as well known because it did not 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.960 get a theatrical release. It wasn't released until the VHS 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.200 era in the eighties. When my children were young, I 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.400 had the VHS tape of that and they requested to 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.760 watch it over and over again when they were like 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.880 ten years old, and I think my children have watched 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.639 it ten or fifteen times. The story behind that film's 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.560 delayed release is an interesting one. Apparently, Edward had failed 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.239 to pay the laboratory that developed the negatives for the film, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.240 so the laboratory stowed the film away until Edward paid 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.840 the fees, but he never did so it sat in 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.320 a warehouse for twenty five years until super fan Wade 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.600 Williams paid the bill himself and released the movie on 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:50.600 VHS tape into Despite the issues with that film, Edward 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:55.480 carried on and kept writing scripts. In nineteen sixty Wood 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.519 wrote and directed The Sinister Urge. Well, what's happened now? 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.440 Least rated Jaffee Studio. That again they picked up Lila, Sally, 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.480 Carol Jaffee, the whole crowd who took them Our old friend, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.320 Lieutenant Matt Carson. Oh boy, something's going to have to 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.880 be done about him. As we move into the nineteen sixties, 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.320 he did direct The Sinister Urge, which is a kind 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:25.680 of sex crime oriented film. It's really an early kind 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.480 of slasher film in some ways, although you could only 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.880 go so far without in ninety two, but it also 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.400 was a sex exploitation film in that it dealt with 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.840 as it was called by the police and the film 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.960 the dirty picture Racket, the smut picture racket. I read 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.560 in the morning paper where the police departments we signed 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:50.200 a special detail to clear up this silly dirty picture business. 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.800 That was the last I guess we'd say, mainstream film 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.400 directed by Edwood. This became a big turning point in 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.440 what's career keeping and to write more exploitation material in 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:07.840 the form of both screenplays and novels. As softcore sex 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.000 films came in in the sixties, he wrote and later 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:16.040 directed films of that sort. Orgy of the Dead, based 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.599 on one of his novels, was a classic. Although he 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.400 did not direct that, he wrote it. He was on 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.280 the set and it has a very Edward ambiance to it. Ah, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.599 the curiosity of you on the road to ruin? May 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:37.160 it ever be so adventurous? It's so frightened? Well, we 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:42.680 certainly can't stay here. Come on where in there? It 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.520 frightens me silly? There's nothing in there to be afraid? Dog? 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.040 Then then what's that music? That's what I want to 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.280 find out? And as the sixties moved on, he moved 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:00.839 into the sex film and also sex writing fe He 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.800 in a way was a pioneer of that in that 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:12.359 he moved into the hardcore eight millimeter loops. People who 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.640 are historians of West Coast Horn have pointed out that 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.359 one of the series that he was involved with, the 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.320 Swedish Erotica, was a very pioneering series, and Ed directed 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:30.520 a number of those loops. Eventually, Wood moved away from 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:35.159 directing movies and focused on his adult content. Ed wrote 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:40.479 a lot of sex oriented novels and short stories and 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:45.640 also non fiction prose, and that's how he paid the bills. 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.839 There are at least seventy five if not a hundred 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.840 novels that he wrote, often under pseudonyms, but he kept 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.159 a record of those works and was proud of those 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.359 works and gave signed copies of them to friends. And 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.120 they're quite interesting field for people to read. I don't 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.880 know that people want to read seventy five of them, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.320 but you could easily acquire a handful of them. There's 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:14.320 some collections of the short stories that are available, and 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.880 all of the qualities that people like about his films 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.360 really are there in his writings. Also, as Edward moved 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:26.200 away from filmmaking throughout the sixties and seventies, his personal 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.400 life also started to change. Here's family friends, Bob Blackburn, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:36.839 who knew Cathy would as widow. They were both alcoholics, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.440 and I'm not afraid to say that because it's the 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.800 honest truth. And even when I knew her, she was 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.839 still drinking. There's people and their stories that the two 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.039 of them were kind of like the battling Bickerson's like 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.200 when they were both in their cups and a little 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.840 bit trunk, that things would fly and they could get 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.640 physical at times. Bob tells us that would shift into pornography. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.440 Is a double edged sword. He was good at it, 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.239 and there was money there, but it was also something 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.560 that would was forced into, largely by his inability to 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.520 make it in Hollywood as a traditional filmmaker. A lot 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.840 of people don't realize that Edward was a porn pioneer 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.080 working for Bernie Bloom for Pendulum Publishing in starting like 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.920 in the nineteen sixty nine and then his heyday in 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:28.560 the early seventies. He was writing the short stories and 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.080 he was writing the articles. He was also writing some 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.720 of the editorials. He was writing a lot of the 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.000 descriptions for the pictorial layouts, you know, for the girls. 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.000 You know, they had to have a little story or 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.680 fantasy for the guys presumably who were buying the magazines 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.120 and the drinking increased, so they because they include Cathy 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.400 and this, they were kind of in a downward spiral. 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.520 These years were tough on the Woods. Ed was struggling 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.480 to find work and money was inconsistent. They moved around 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.440 a lot. They actually bought a house out in North Hollywood, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.840 and once the house was repossessed and their cars got 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.760 repossessed just because they couldn't make the bills. They had 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.960 to put a lot of their furniture and personal artifacts 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.840 and storage. They couldn't pay that that got sold off, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.640 So a lot of Ed's memorabilia got sold off, went 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.960 to a collector, a couple of collectors, and actually ended 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.840 up being bought about seven or eight years ago by 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.679 the step nephew of Paul Marco, a guy named Jason 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.280 in Sulaco who lives here in l A. And he 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.319 bought what we called the trunk, which had all of 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.120 ed scrap books and a bunch of memorabilia. I was 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.040 attempted to a bid on it myself. He went for 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.720 about thirteen thousand dollars plus the fees plus the ship. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.959 Being so but they kind of were always one step 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.000 ahead of the landlord when they moved into their apartment 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.240 right up here on Yucka's Street, where they lived for 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.520 the last four or five years of Ed's life. By 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.480 December of nineteen seventy eight, they were in arrears of 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.040 six months worth of rent, and on the morning of 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:17.400 December seven, they were forcibly evicted from their apartment they're 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.319 on at on the street. All their possessions, like file 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.400 cabinets that Ed had. I heard, you know, rumors of 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:29.200 a bail Legosi biography that he was working on called 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.280 Lugosi Postmortem. That could have been something in there. All 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:34.960 they had was a close on their back and a 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.439 little tiny leather suitcase that held some personal papers. Unfortunately 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.960 not that manuscript, but they did have the manuscript for 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.760 Hollywood rat Race, as well as a shooting script for 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.040 Ed's Pride and Joy called I Woke Up Early the 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.880 Day I Died, which was a film which actually ended 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.720 up getting made in the late nineteen nineties, but it 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.040 never technically released. A friend of theirs, an actor friend 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.320 of theirs named Peter co said he would come get 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.400 them and brought them back to his apartment up in 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:08.720 North Hollywood, and three days later, on Sunday, the tenth 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.560 Ed was in a bedroom feeling bad. There's I guess 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.280 the TV with a football game on, and Kathy and 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:16.760 Peter and a couple of other friends were in the 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.040 living room having drinks, and one of their friends went 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.679 in the bedroom that had was sleeping in or lane 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.600 and with the game on, and he had passed away. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.240 So she came out and said, Hey, I think Eddie's died. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:31.880 They all went in there to look, and in fact 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.840 he was, and Cathy said his eyes were open as 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:40.040 if he'd seen death. Edward D. Wood Jr. Died on 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.600 December tenth, and it seemed as though the sad story 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.320 of Edwood had come to a close. But just a 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.840 couple of years later, Wood's story would reach millions of 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.800 new people and he would finally get the fame he desired. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.800 For most of his life, Wood's work was somewhat underground 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.560 or obscure, but after his death he started to gain 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.840 a little more popularity. Some of this stuff was starting 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.680 to get known a little bit among collectors, you know, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:27.120 a hardcore cult movie film buffs, video tapes were starting 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.040 to come in a little bit, maybe just a hair 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.520 later in early eighties, but there was an underground collector 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.079 circuit that would, you know, trade here's robot monster. Here, 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.680 I'll trade you to Edward Films for you know, this 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.920 streaming sheet creature or whatever. But then came Edward's big 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:49.200 break in the Medved Brothers published their book The Golden 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:53.400 Turkey Awards, naming ed Wood the worst director and his 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.720 film Planned nine from Outer Space the worst movie of 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:02.440 all time. That one look started that whole ball rolling. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.760 I don't think we'd be sitting here talking right now 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.840 with that book handic and that because I don't think 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.840 ed ever would have gotten a notoriety that he has, because, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.600 for one, the Tim Burton film would never gotten made 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.439 with that that book. The fame of that medved Brother's book, 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.000 like the influence of that cannot be underestimated. I would 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.480 say millions of people watched Plan nine because of that, 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.080 and that means that it was kind of cemented into 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.280 the cannon in a way that few other movies happen. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:37.360 That was writer Katherine Coldron, who we talked to last episode. 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.600 Intentional or not, Edward became a household name almost overnight. 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:48.600 Suddenly Edward films were everywhere, movie theaters, video stores, on TV. 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:55.000 Here's bill shoot the kind of worst film of all time, 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.440 Golden Turkey Thing. I was never a fan of that. 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.679 I never liked the con to say mentioned in that, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.400 But I have a feeling that ed Wood was around 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.360 long enough that he had the attitude that if they 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:13.000 spell the name right, any publicity is good publicity. He 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.480 certainly was a man who had a sense of humor. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.080 Am I happy that that happened, Well, if it makes 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.200 the film is well known, I'm very happy that it happened, 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:27.200 And I'm glad that he has been rediscovered. The fact 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.240 that Edward is famous for making What's you Know? Been 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.560 called the worst movie of all time. I don't know 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.960 if that's the legacy that he would have chosen, but 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.280 I do think that he must be very happy that 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.400 people have watched his movie in such enormous droves. Kathy 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.400 always used to say, Eddie would have loved the attention. 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.600 He would have been out there, he would have been 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.920 appearing at everything in talking and he would have It 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:52.880 would have given him a new hope in a new life. 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.040 As Bill tells us, the revival was good timing because 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.280 the eighties saw a huge boom in cult films and 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:09.880 physical media collectors. You had fanzines and magazines like Psychotronic Video, Watchdog, 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.400 The Phantom of the Movies, and many of the other 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:18.200 folks of that sort. You had vhs. You had Rhino 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:23.560 video with catalogs in hand. I wonder through these sacred decades, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:29.160 be it rock and Roll, Country, Rhythm and Blue Comedy, 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:36.240 Children's Fair, or the Unravaged Home Video, Oh Sweet Rhino, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.960 Virtuous Rhino, you had the early days of something Weird video, 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.360 and you had people like Elvira with her television show. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.840 Hello darling, it's me Elvira and Mistress of the Dark. 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:55.080 That video cutie who makes the boys stand up and Saluti. Well, 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.480 it's time to reach into the old vault for today's 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:02.480 video treasure boy talking about scraping the bottom of the barrel. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.280 It smells like a really ripe one. Let's see it's 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.480 killers from space. Oh yeah, right, well, I'll just stick 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.640 this where the sun does shine. No, not there in 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:23.160 the DCR. I'm sorry that Edward passed away when he did, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.520 of course, I'm sorry he passed away at all. But 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.680 had he lived into the eighties, I have no doubt 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.160 that he would have thrived in the straight to video 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.720 market of the eighties. He certainly know how to make 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.520 a slasher film. The Sinister Urge from the early sixties, 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.320 with a little more explicit violence and sex and shot 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.320 in color would have been a perfect low budget slasher film. 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.840 And some of the straight to video things were made 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:56.520 for five thousand dollars during that period. So I think 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.440 that there are people who admired Edwood, who put a 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.240 qut of perhaps gotten him set up in that world, 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:05.640 and then he could have gotten into the world of 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:10.040 the conventions the way that someone like Herschel, Gordon Lewis 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.480 and Ray Dennis Steckler, these people were able to benefit 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.080 from the renewed interest in their work. Edward could have 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:23.000 had a successful second career during the eighties and nineties 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.360 had he lived, and who knows what kind of works 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.280 he could have created there. So I think that's a 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:33.479 horrible lost opportunity because of his passing at a relatively 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.000 young age, and we can just dream about the things 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.320 he could have created had he lived longer. And it 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.840 didn't stop there. Here's Bob Blackburn again, and all of 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.520 a sudden people started discovering a few of his other 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.360 films like Glennard Linda or Ride to the Monsters, and 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.760 they started having the college screenings like U c. L 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.560 A Film school had a screening like an eighty one 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.000 or eighty two. Now when you're in college, I used 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.080 to see the Marks Brothers films because that was like 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.520 in the late sixties orly seventies, like they were screening 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:13.679 Duck Soup and Horse Feathers and all because you get 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.119 high and you go to watch these funny Marks Brothers movies. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:19.679 So they were doing the same thing with this on 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.760 college campuses, get high and watch Edwood movies, which I'm 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.719 sure led to the so bad it's good and so 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.240 that it's hilarious moments because you're stone and you're watching 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.680 Plan nine and it doesn't make sense, and you're going, well, 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.919 wait a minute, is that a shower curtain? What? You know? What? What? 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.400 It's daytime, it's nighttime, it's daytime, it's nighttime. Are those hubcaps? 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.280 What the heck is that? But I think some people 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.720 started taking Ed's work a little bit more seriously than that. 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.160 They started discovering things in it that they went, well, 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.760 wait a minute, there's more here than what appears on 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.320 the screen. The more they found out about Ed, the 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.879 deeper the film's got, and it just kind of snowballed 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.679 a little bit for people that took a bit of 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.400 a more serious approach to filmmaking in general. To odd 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.280 tours had just been called that. One of the Edwards 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.560 super fans from this period was Rudolph Gray, who wrote 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.240 an extensive biography called Nightmare of Ecstasy, The Life and 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.040 Work of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Released in It was 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.120 the first time that Ed's personal story had been made 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:33.320 public and widely available, and it got noticed. Soon a 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.719 bio pick about Wood's life was in the works at 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.480 Columbia Pictures. The director was Tim Burton, famous for films 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.800 like Edward Scissor Hands, Joyce. I just saw a strange 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:52.879 did you get a good look at and Beetle Juice? 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.640 You help me? Look how much you might call Nila? 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.639 And Okay, I want out for good. In order for 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.240 me to do that, Hey, I gotta get married. Hey, 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.520 these are my roles? Come to think of it, I 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.440 don't have any roles. And Johnny Depp was cast to 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.800 portray Edwood. Mr Legos, why are you buying a com 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:19.720 planning on dying? So? No, that's title of Cities and 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.680 ten Days. If that's conceivable. Do you know that I 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:27.160 saw you performed Dracula into Keepsie. That was a terrible production. 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:30.439 I thought it was great. You know you're you're much 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.800 scarier in real life and you're in the movie. The 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.840 film was being written by screenwriters Larry Karazowski and Scott Alexander. 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.320 I recently attended a Q and A with Karazowski at 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.680 the Secret Movie Club in l A, where he talked 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.720 about the process. We didn't want to make Edward a 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:54.000 figure of of laughter. Uh, nothing's worse than me see 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.880 a movie about like bad filmmakers and they're they're they're 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.760 they're purposely trying to make them bad. Befo Wars. Edward 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.600 was always meant to be a figure of giggles. It 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.280 was always like the worst filmmaker of all time, the 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.520 worst film festival of all time, There's all that kind 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.040 of stuff. Maybe part of it was we had made 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.600 a film before this is called Problem Child, which got 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:16.680 the worst reviews of all time, and so we we 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.440 we sort of went into the this a little more sympathetically. 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.840 We're like, what if you don't make fun of that, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.000 but celebrate in the weird way and celebrate his passion 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.000 and celebrate the fact that he actually was a successful filmmaker. 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.639 He had a vision, he had a passion, and he 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.439 got that passion up on the screen. That heartfelt story 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.280 is what attracted Tim Burton. Tim Burton sort of became 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.720 curious about this movie when it was just just like 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.440 literally a three page treatment, And when we met with him, 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:52.080 we literally just said Ed and bella love story, because 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.600 for us, that what it was all about, much like 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.320 the friendship between Bella Legosti and ed Wood. Tim Burton 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.240 had a father early relationship with Vincent Price. He saw 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.600 in me a persona of the unreal, somebody who he 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.840 knew was a guy named Vincent Price, and that intrigued him. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.600 He wanted to identify with somebody who was real but unreal, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.199 and so the filmmakers agreed on making that place of 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.280 empathy central to the film. The movie titled ed Wood 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.879 Premier to you control everyone's fature like the puppet master. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.600 So I pull up, Yes, you pull the string, pull 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:39.760 the strings. I liked that I was able to ask 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.439 Larry how accurate they thought Depth's portrayal of Edward really was, 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.359 and if he was actually as eccentric as he seems 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.720 in the movie. When you talked to the people who 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.560 worked with Edwood, they talked about what just he would 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:57.840 call him up at one of the Plan nines on 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:02.720 you Gotta Get Up. He was always this enthusiastic cheerleader, 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.800 and obviously he had to be that person, uh, in 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:07.800 order to get these I think he made something like 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.959 nine movies you know, as a director, made because he 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.480 was just like you know, he created this whole little 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.840 family of people who she believed in him and he 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.160 believed in them, and in all fairness, most of these 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.320 people no one ever believed in them ever, So I 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:27.000 don't think we were dishonest in anyway whatsoever. It was 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.399 he Johnny Depp. I'm not sure he's Johnny Depp, but 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:33.040 that being said, one of the best days on the set. 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.679 This is actually a great story and it kind of relates, 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.200 kind of doesn't. But um, we were shooting on Hollywood 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.119 bullets off a Hollywood bull of the Muslim Frank scene. 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:45.600 One of our crew members came over. I wasn't even there. 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.520 One of the crew members came over to Scott and said, 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.800 there's this woman over there waiting for the bus. And 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:57.359 she said she was married to Ed. And Scott was like, what, 0:22:57.359 --> 0:22:59.280 what the hell and she was She's literally carrying like 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.560 bottles of boots and things. And it went over and 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:04.680 it was Cathy Would. And none of us had met 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:07.520 Cathy Would at that point, and so Scott went over 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.119 and said like Kathy, and she's like yes, yes, and 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:11.840 He's like, oh my god, this is going to meet you. 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.040 I'm Scott Alexander wrote this thing, and you know, like this, 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.439 You're it's it's it's such any to meet you. And 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.520 she's like, I'd love to beat Johnny. Can I meet Johnny? 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.840 And we're like oh, and Scott was just like okay, sure, 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:28.240 And so Scott brought over to the set and knocked 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:32.960 on Johnny's trailer and Scott came in and said, like, Cathy, 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:35.520 what is out there? And it was the day of 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:40.520 the Musso scene. So Johnny was like in address and 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:43.000 he was makeup, was smeared and all these things. And 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.359 Johnny was like, I can't go out the meter like this. 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:48.960 She's gonna think we're just like making fun of her husband. 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:51.879 And then I was like five minutes Johnny come to 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:55.600 set and he's like, you know all right, and he 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.600 opens the door and he walks out and Cathy sees 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:01.800 him and she's like, you look just like my Eddie 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:05.760 and it says totally was great. And she went home 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:09.040 and she came back and she brought Edward's wallet. We 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:10.919 had it still had his I D and all these 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:13.600 other things and hand the Johnny said like, please keep 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:15.880 this and be and and have this in your pocket 0:24:15.920 --> 0:24:18.920 when you make all those things. So even though it 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:22.399 was obviously there's quotation marks all over the things that 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.280 happened in this movie. His wife recognized it as being 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:30.159 like close enough. That is more or less backed up 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.080 by Bob Blackburn, who has gotten a firsthand account of 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:37.600 Ed's personality through Kathy. He was a party kind of guy. 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.960 He loved having people around when they could afford it. 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:43.520 One of their apartments out in North Hollywood had a 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:46.520 swimming pool and Edward have pool parties all the time. 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.199 One of my favorite stories that Kathy told me, and 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:51.960 this tracks me up. Ed was taken a bath one 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.600 day in their North Hollywood apartment and here's a knock 0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:57.560 or and ring on the doorbell and he so he 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.200 put to towel and grabs the towel and goes out 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:03.320 and opens the doorners a fuller brush salesman there, and 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:05.679 Ed cracks up and he goes, hey, I'm right in 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:07.240 the middle of a bath. If you want to come 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:10.320 in and try and sell me something, I'm willing to listen. 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.639 And the guy goes, Okay, I know it could make 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.879 a sale here. So it goes back into the sits 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:17.720 in the tub, but the guy sits on the john 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:20.520