Speaker 1: Ephemeral is a production of five heart three D audio.
Speaker 1: For full exposure, listen with that phones. The last night
Speaker 1: I saw a flying obdue they couldn't have possibly been
Speaker 1: from this planet. But I can't say a word. A
Speaker 1: muzzled by Amy Brass, I can't even min I saw
Speaker 1: that they On the last episode of Ephemeral, we explored
Speaker 1: the illustrious career of filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr. We
Speaker 1: looked at Wood's most famous films, including Plan Nine from
Speaker 1: Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, and we debated
Speaker 1: the inherent quality of Wood's output and how much that
Speaker 1: even matters. Here. Our producer Trevor Young picks up the story.
Speaker 1: Edward filmed Plan nine from Outer Space in nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't premiere until three years later in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. In the meantime, Wood directed my personal favorite
Speaker 1: of his Night of the Ghouls. Through my powers of
Speaker 1: the supernatural, I and I alone can bring him to
Speaker 1: this room tonight, from that place in the deep blackness
Speaker 1: of death from which no visitors to return, where the
Speaker 1: sun is seen to rise, the sun is seen to set,
Speaker 1: where the gracious Moon comes from the east and its
Speaker 1: long journey across the night sky to the west Wingate Foster,
Speaker 1: through the powers of doctor Actula, will again be permitted
Speaker 1: to walk. Here's Bill Shoot, author and professor of English
Speaker 1: at San Antonio College. In some ways, the companion piece
Speaker 1: to Plan nine, Night of the Ghouls is even more surreal,
Speaker 1: though it's not as well known because it did not
Speaker 1: get a theatrical release. It wasn't released until the VHS
Speaker 1: era in the eighties. When my children were young, I
Speaker 1: had the VHS tape of that and they requested to
Speaker 1: watch it over and over again when they were like
Speaker 1: ten years old, and I think my children have watched
Speaker 1: it ten or fifteen times. The story behind that film's
Speaker 1: delayed release is an interesting one. Apparently, Edward had failed
Speaker 1: to pay the laboratory that developed the negatives for the film,
Speaker 1: so the laboratory stowed the film away until Edward paid
Speaker 1: the fees, but he never did so it sat in
Speaker 1: a warehouse for twenty five years until super fan Wade
Speaker 1: Williams paid the bill himself and released the movie on
Speaker 1: VHS tape into Despite the issues with that film, Edward
Speaker 1: carried on and kept writing scripts. In nineteen sixty Wood
Speaker 1: wrote and directed The Sinister Urge. Well, what's happened now?
Speaker 1: Least rated Jaffee Studio. That again they picked up Lila, Sally,
Speaker 1: Carol Jaffee, the whole crowd who took them Our old friend,
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Matt Carson. Oh boy, something's going to have to
Speaker 1: be done about him. As we move into the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: he did direct The Sinister Urge, which is a kind
Speaker 1: of sex crime oriented film. It's really an early kind
Speaker 1: of slasher film in some ways, although you could only
Speaker 1: go so far without in ninety two, but it also
Speaker 1: was a sex exploitation film in that it dealt with
Speaker 1: as it was called by the police and the film
Speaker 1: the dirty picture Racket, the smut picture racket. I read
Speaker 1: in the morning paper where the police departments we signed
Speaker 1: a special detail to clear up this silly dirty picture business.
Speaker 1: That was the last I guess we'd say, mainstream film
Speaker 1: directed by Edwood. This became a big turning point in
Speaker 1: what's career keeping and to write more exploitation material in
Speaker 1: the form of both screenplays and novels. As softcore sex
Speaker 1: films came in in the sixties, he wrote and later
Speaker 1: directed films of that sort. Orgy of the Dead, based
Speaker 1: on one of his novels, was a classic. Although he
Speaker 1: did not direct that, he wrote it. He was on
Speaker 1: the set and it has a very Edward ambiance to it. Ah,
Speaker 1: the curiosity of you on the road to ruin? May
Speaker 1: it ever be so adventurous? It's so frightened? Well, we
Speaker 1: certainly can't stay here. Come on where in there? It
Speaker 1: frightens me silly? There's nothing in there to be afraid? Dog?
Speaker 1: Then then what's that music? That's what I want to
Speaker 1: find out? And as the sixties moved on, he moved
Speaker 1: into the sex film and also sex writing fe He
Speaker 1: in a way was a pioneer of that in that
Speaker 1: he moved into the hardcore eight millimeter loops. People who
Speaker 1: are historians of West Coast Horn have pointed out that
Speaker 1: one of the series that he was involved with, the
Speaker 1: Swedish Erotica, was a very pioneering series, and Ed directed
Speaker 1: a number of those loops. Eventually, Wood moved away from
Speaker 1: directing movies and focused on his adult content. Ed wrote
Speaker 1: a lot of sex oriented novels and short stories and
Speaker 1: also non fiction prose, and that's how he paid the bills.
Speaker 1: There are at least seventy five if not a hundred
Speaker 1: novels that he wrote, often under pseudonyms, but he kept
Speaker 1: a record of those works and was proud of those
Speaker 1: works and gave signed copies of them to friends. And
Speaker 1: they're quite interesting field for people to read. I don't
Speaker 1: know that people want to read seventy five of them,
Speaker 1: but you could easily acquire a handful of them. There's
Speaker 1: some collections of the short stories that are available, and
Speaker 1: all of the qualities that people like about his films
Speaker 1: really are there in his writings. Also, as Edward moved
Speaker 1: away from filmmaking throughout the sixties and seventies, his personal
Speaker 1: life also started to change. Here's family friends, Bob Blackburn,
Speaker 1: who knew Cathy would as widow. They were both alcoholics,
Speaker 1: and I'm not afraid to say that because it's the
Speaker 1: honest truth. And even when I knew her, she was
Speaker 1: still drinking. There's people and their stories that the two
Speaker 1: of them were kind of like the battling Bickerson's like
Speaker 1: when they were both in their cups and a little
Speaker 1: bit trunk, that things would fly and they could get
Speaker 1: physical at times. Bob tells us that would shift into pornography.
Speaker 1: Is a double edged sword. He was good at it,
Speaker 1: and there was money there, but it was also something
Speaker 1: that would was forced into, largely by his inability to
Speaker 1: make it in Hollywood as a traditional filmmaker. A lot
Speaker 1: of people don't realize that Edward was a porn pioneer
Speaker 1: working for Bernie Bloom for Pendulum Publishing in starting like
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixty nine and then his heyday in
Speaker 1: the early seventies. He was writing the short stories and
Speaker 1: he was writing the articles. He was also writing some
Speaker 1: of the editorials. He was writing a lot of the
Speaker 1: descriptions for the pictorial layouts, you know, for the girls.
Speaker 1: You know, they had to have a little story or
Speaker 1: fantasy for the guys presumably who were buying the magazines
Speaker 1: and the drinking increased, so they because they include Cathy
Speaker 1: and this, they were kind of in a downward spiral.
Speaker 1: These years were tough on the Woods. Ed was struggling
Speaker 1: to find work and money was inconsistent. They moved around
Speaker 1: a lot. They actually bought a house out in North Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and once the house was repossessed and their cars got
Speaker 1: repossessed just because they couldn't make the bills. They had
Speaker 1: to put a lot of their furniture and personal artifacts
Speaker 1: and storage. They couldn't pay that that got sold off,
Speaker 1: So a lot of Ed's memorabilia got sold off, went
Speaker 1: to a collector, a couple of collectors, and actually ended
Speaker 1: up being bought about seven or eight years ago by
Speaker 1: the step nephew of Paul Marco, a guy named Jason
Speaker 1: in Sulaco who lives here in l A. And he
Speaker 1: bought what we called the trunk, which had all of
Speaker 1: ed scrap books and a bunch of memorabilia. I was
Speaker 1: attempted to a bid on it myself. He went for
Speaker 1: about thirteen thousand dollars plus the fees plus the ship.
Speaker 1: Being so but they kind of were always one step
Speaker 1: ahead of the landlord when they moved into their apartment
Speaker 1: right up here on Yucka's Street, where they lived for
Speaker 1: the last four or five years of Ed's life. By
Speaker 1: December of nineteen seventy eight, they were in arrears of
Speaker 1: six months worth of rent, and on the morning of
Speaker 1: December seven, they were forcibly evicted from their apartment they're
Speaker 1: on at on the street. All their possessions, like file
Speaker 1: cabinets that Ed had. I heard, you know, rumors of
Speaker 1: a bail Legosi biography that he was working on called
Speaker 1: Lugosi Postmortem. That could have been something in there. All
Speaker 1: they had was a close on their back and a
Speaker 1: little tiny leather suitcase that held some personal papers. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: not that manuscript, but they did have the manuscript for
Speaker 1: Hollywood rat Race, as well as a shooting script for
Speaker 1: Ed's Pride and Joy called I Woke Up Early the
Speaker 1: Day I Died, which was a film which actually ended
Speaker 1: up getting made in the late nineteen nineties, but it
Speaker 1: never technically released. A friend of theirs, an actor friend
Speaker 1: of theirs named Peter co said he would come get
Speaker 1: them and brought them back to his apartment up in
Speaker 1: North Hollywood, and three days later, on Sunday, the tenth
Speaker 1: Ed was in a bedroom feeling bad. There's I guess
Speaker 1: the TV with a football game on, and Kathy and
Speaker 1: Peter and a couple of other friends were in the
Speaker 1: living room having drinks, and one of their friends went
Speaker 1: in the bedroom that had was sleeping in or lane
Speaker 1: and with the game on, and he had passed away.
Speaker 1: So she came out and said, Hey, I think Eddie's died.
Speaker 1: They all went in there to look, and in fact
Speaker 1: he was, and Cathy said his eyes were open as
Speaker 1: if he'd seen death. Edward D. Wood Jr. Died on
Speaker 1: December tenth, and it seemed as though the sad story
Speaker 1: of Edwood had come to a close. But just a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, Wood's story would reach millions of
Speaker 1: new people and he would finally get the fame he desired.
Speaker 1: For most of his life, Wood's work was somewhat underground
Speaker 1: or obscure, but after his death he started to gain
Speaker 1: a little more popularity. Some of this stuff was starting
Speaker 1: to get known a little bit among collectors, you know,
Speaker 1: a hardcore cult movie film buffs, video tapes were starting
Speaker 1: to come in a little bit, maybe just a hair
Speaker 1: later in early eighties, but there was an underground collector
Speaker 1: circuit that would, you know, trade here's robot monster. Here,
Speaker 1: I'll trade you to Edward Films for you know, this
Speaker 1: streaming sheet creature or whatever. But then came Edward's big
Speaker 1: break in the Medved Brothers published their book The Golden
Speaker 1: Turkey Awards, naming ed Wood the worst director and his
Speaker 1: film Planned nine from Outer Space the worst movie of
Speaker 1: all time. That one look started that whole ball rolling.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd be sitting here talking right now
Speaker 1: with that book handic and that because I don't think
Speaker 1: ed ever would have gotten a notoriety that he has, because,
Speaker 1: for one, the Tim Burton film would never gotten made
Speaker 1: with that that book. The fame of that medved Brother's book,
Speaker 1: like the influence of that cannot be underestimated. I would
Speaker 1: say millions of people watched Plan nine because of that,
Speaker 1: and that means that it was kind of cemented into
Speaker 1: the cannon in a way that few other movies happen.
Speaker 1: That was writer Katherine Coldron, who we talked to last episode.
Speaker 1: Intentional or not, Edward became a household name almost overnight.
Speaker 1: Suddenly Edward films were everywhere, movie theaters, video stores, on TV.
Speaker 1: Here's bill shoot the kind of worst film of all time,
Speaker 1: Golden Turkey Thing. I was never a fan of that.
Speaker 1: I never liked the con to say mentioned in that,
Speaker 1: But I have a feeling that ed Wood was around
Speaker 1: long enough that he had the attitude that if they
Speaker 1: spell the name right, any publicity is good publicity. He
Speaker 1: certainly was a man who had a sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Am I happy that that happened, Well, if it makes
Speaker 1: the film is well known, I'm very happy that it happened,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that he has been rediscovered. The fact
Speaker 1: that Edward is famous for making What's you Know? Been
Speaker 1: called the worst movie of all time. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's the legacy that he would have chosen, but
Speaker 1: I do think that he must be very happy that
Speaker 1: people have watched his movie in such enormous droves. Kathy
Speaker 1: always used to say, Eddie would have loved the attention.
Speaker 1: He would have been out there, he would have been
Speaker 1: appearing at everything in talking and he would have It
Speaker 1: would have given him a new hope in a new life.
Speaker 1: As Bill tells us, the revival was good timing because
Speaker 1: the eighties saw a huge boom in cult films and
Speaker 1: physical media collectors. You had fanzines and magazines like Psychotronic Video, Watchdog,
Speaker 1: The Phantom of the Movies, and many of the other
Speaker 1: folks of that sort. You had vhs. You had Rhino
Speaker 1: video with catalogs in hand. I wonder through these sacred decades,
Speaker 1: be it rock and Roll, Country, Rhythm and Blue Comedy,
Speaker 1: Children's Fair, or the Unravaged Home Video, Oh Sweet Rhino,
Speaker 1: Virtuous Rhino, you had the early days of something Weird video,
Speaker 1: and you had people like Elvira with her television show.
Speaker 1: Hello darling, it's me Elvira and Mistress of the Dark.
Speaker 1: That video cutie who makes the boys stand up and Saluti. Well,
Speaker 1: it's time to reach into the old vault for today's
Speaker 1: video treasure boy talking about scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Speaker 1: It smells like a really ripe one. Let's see it's
Speaker 1: killers from space. Oh yeah, right, well, I'll just stick
Speaker 1: this where the sun does shine. No, not there in
Speaker 1: the DCR. I'm sorry that Edward passed away when he did,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm sorry he passed away at all. But
Speaker 1: had he lived into the eighties, I have no doubt
Speaker 1: that he would have thrived in the straight to video
Speaker 1: market of the eighties. He certainly know how to make
Speaker 1: a slasher film. The Sinister Urge from the early sixties,
Speaker 1: with a little more explicit violence and sex and shot
Speaker 1: in color would have been a perfect low budget slasher film.
Speaker 1: And some of the straight to video things were made
Speaker 1: for five thousand dollars during that period. So I think
Speaker 1: that there are people who admired Edwood, who put a
Speaker 1: qut of perhaps gotten him set up in that world,
Speaker 1: and then he could have gotten into the world of
Speaker 1: the conventions the way that someone like Herschel, Gordon Lewis
Speaker 1: and Ray Dennis Steckler, these people were able to benefit
Speaker 1: from the renewed interest in their work. Edward could have
Speaker 1: had a successful second career during the eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: had he lived, and who knows what kind of works
Speaker 1: he could have created there. So I think that's a
Speaker 1: horrible lost opportunity because of his passing at a relatively
Speaker 1: young age, and we can just dream about the things
Speaker 1: he could have created had he lived longer. And it
Speaker 1: didn't stop there. Here's Bob Blackburn again, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden people started discovering a few of his other
Speaker 1: films like Glennard Linda or Ride to the Monsters, and
Speaker 1: they started having the college screenings like U c. L
Speaker 1: A Film school had a screening like an eighty one
Speaker 1: or eighty two. Now when you're in college, I used
Speaker 1: to see the Marks Brothers films because that was like
Speaker 1: in the late sixties orly seventies, like they were screening
Speaker 1: Duck Soup and Horse Feathers and all because you get
Speaker 1: high and you go to watch these funny Marks Brothers movies.
Speaker 1: So they were doing the same thing with this on
Speaker 1: college campuses, get high and watch Edwood movies, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure led to the so bad it's good and so
Speaker 1: that it's hilarious moments because you're stone and you're watching
Speaker 1: Plan nine and it doesn't make sense, and you're going, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, is that a shower curtain? What? You know? What? What?
Speaker 1: It's daytime, it's nighttime, it's daytime, it's nighttime. Are those hubcaps?
Speaker 1: What the heck is that? But I think some people
Speaker 1: started taking Ed's work a little bit more seriously than that.
Speaker 1: They started discovering things in it that they went, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's more here than what appears on
Speaker 1: the screen. The more they found out about Ed, the
Speaker 1: deeper the film's got, and it just kind of snowballed
Speaker 1: a little bit for people that took a bit of
Speaker 1: a more serious approach to filmmaking in general. To odd
Speaker 1: tours had just been called that. One of the Edwards
Speaker 1: super fans from this period was Rudolph Gray, who wrote
Speaker 1: an extensive biography called Nightmare of Ecstasy, The Life and
Speaker 1: Work of Edward D. Wood, Jr. Released in It was
Speaker 1: the first time that Ed's personal story had been made
Speaker 1: public and widely available, and it got noticed. Soon a
Speaker 1: bio pick about Wood's life was in the works at
Speaker 1: Columbia Pictures. The director was Tim Burton, famous for films
Speaker 1: like Edward Scissor Hands, Joyce. I just saw a strange
Speaker 1: did you get a good look at and Beetle Juice?
Speaker 1: You help me? Look how much you might call Nila?
Speaker 1: And Okay, I want out for good. In order for
Speaker 1: me to do that, Hey, I gotta get married. Hey,
Speaker 1: these are my roles? Come to think of it, I
Speaker 1: don't have any roles. And Johnny Depp was cast to
Speaker 1: portray Edwood. Mr Legos, why are you buying a com
Speaker 1: planning on dying? So? No, that's title of Cities and
Speaker 1: ten Days. If that's conceivable. Do you know that I
Speaker 1: saw you performed Dracula into Keepsie. That was a terrible production.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. You know you're you're much
Speaker 1: scarier in real life and you're in the movie. The
Speaker 1: film was being written by screenwriters Larry Karazowski and Scott Alexander.
Speaker 1: I recently attended a Q and A with Karazowski at
Speaker 1: the Secret Movie Club in l A, where he talked
Speaker 1: about the process. We didn't want to make Edward a
Speaker 1: figure of of laughter. Uh, nothing's worse than me see
Speaker 1: a movie about like bad filmmakers and they're they're they're
Speaker 1: they're purposely trying to make them bad. Befo Wars. Edward
Speaker 1: was always meant to be a figure of giggles. It
Speaker 1: was always like the worst filmmaker of all time, the
Speaker 1: worst film festival of all time, There's all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Maybe part of it was we had made
Speaker 1: a film before this is called Problem Child, which got
Speaker 1: the worst reviews of all time, and so we we
Speaker 1: we sort of went into the this a little more sympathetically.
Speaker 1: We're like, what if you don't make fun of that,
Speaker 1: but celebrate in the weird way and celebrate his passion
Speaker 1: and celebrate the fact that he actually was a successful filmmaker.
Speaker 1: He had a vision, he had a passion, and he
Speaker 1: got that passion up on the screen. That heartfelt story
Speaker 1: is what attracted Tim Burton. Tim Burton sort of became
Speaker 1: curious about this movie when it was just just like
Speaker 1: literally a three page treatment, And when we met with him,
Speaker 1: we literally just said Ed and bella love story, because
Speaker 1: for us, that what it was all about, much like
Speaker 1: the friendship between Bella Legosti and ed Wood. Tim Burton
Speaker 1: had a father early relationship with Vincent Price. He saw
Speaker 1: in me a persona of the unreal, somebody who he
Speaker 1: knew was a guy named Vincent Price, and that intrigued him.
Speaker 1: He wanted to identify with somebody who was real but unreal,
Speaker 1: and so the filmmakers agreed on making that place of
Speaker 1: empathy central to the film. The movie titled ed Wood
Speaker 1: Premier to you control everyone's fature like the puppet master.
Speaker 1: So I pull up, Yes, you pull the string, pull
Speaker 1: the strings. I liked that I was able to ask
Speaker 1: Larry how accurate they thought Depth's portrayal of Edward really was,
Speaker 1: and if he was actually as eccentric as he seems
Speaker 1: in the movie. When you talked to the people who
Speaker 1: worked with Edwood, they talked about what just he would
Speaker 1: call him up at one of the Plan nines on
Speaker 1: you Gotta Get Up. He was always this enthusiastic cheerleader,
Speaker 1: and obviously he had to be that person, uh, in
Speaker 1: order to get these I think he made something like
Speaker 1: nine movies you know, as a director, made because he
Speaker 1: was just like you know, he created this whole little
Speaker 1: family of people who she believed in him and he
Speaker 1: believed in them, and in all fairness, most of these
Speaker 1: people no one ever believed in them ever, So I
Speaker 1: don't think we were dishonest in anyway whatsoever. It was
Speaker 1: he Johnny Depp. I'm not sure he's Johnny Depp, but
Speaker 1: that being said, one of the best days on the set.
Speaker 1: This is actually a great story and it kind of relates,
Speaker 1: kind of doesn't. But um, we were shooting on Hollywood
Speaker 1: bullets off a Hollywood bull of the Muslim Frank scene.
Speaker 1: One of our crew members came over. I wasn't even there.
Speaker 1: One of the crew members came over to Scott and said,
Speaker 1: there's this woman over there waiting for the bus. And
Speaker 1: she said she was married to Ed. And Scott was like, what,
Speaker 1: what the hell and she was She's literally carrying like
Speaker 1: bottles of boots and things. And it went over and
Speaker 1: it was Cathy Would. And none of us had met
Speaker 1: Cathy Would at that point, and so Scott went over
Speaker 1: and said like Kathy, and she's like yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: He's like, oh my god, this is going to meet you.
Speaker 1: I'm Scott Alexander wrote this thing, and you know, like this,
Speaker 1: You're it's it's it's such any to meet you. And
Speaker 1: she's like, I'd love to beat Johnny. Can I meet Johnny?
Speaker 1: And we're like oh, and Scott was just like okay, sure,
Speaker 1: And so Scott brought over to the set and knocked
Speaker 1: on Johnny's trailer and Scott came in and said, like, Cathy,
Speaker 1: what is out there? And it was the day of
Speaker 1: the Musso scene. So Johnny was like in address and
Speaker 1: he was makeup, was smeared and all these things. And
Speaker 1: Johnny was like, I can't go out the meter like this.
Speaker 1: She's gonna think we're just like making fun of her husband.
Speaker 1: And then I was like five minutes Johnny come to
Speaker 1: set and he's like, you know all right, and he
Speaker 1: opens the door and he walks out and Cathy sees
Speaker 1: him and she's like, you look just like my Eddie
Speaker 1: and it says totally was great. And she went home
Speaker 1: and she came back and she brought Edward's wallet. We
Speaker 1: had it still had his I D and all these
Speaker 1: other things and hand the Johnny said like, please keep
Speaker 1: this and be and and have this in your pocket
Speaker 1: when you make all those things. So even though it
Speaker 1: was obviously there's quotation marks all over the things that
Speaker 1: happened in this movie. His wife recognized it as being
Speaker 1: like close enough. That is more or less backed up
Speaker 1: by Bob Blackburn, who has gotten a firsthand account of
Speaker 1: Ed's personality through Kathy. He was a party kind of guy.
Speaker 1: He loved having people around when they could afford it.
Speaker 1: One of their apartments out in North Hollywood had a
Speaker 1: swimming pool and Edward have pool parties all the time.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite stories that Kathy told me, and
Speaker 1: this tracks me up. Ed was taken a bath one
Speaker 1: day in their North Hollywood apartment and here's a knock
Speaker 1: or and ring on the doorbell and he so he
Speaker 1: put to towel and grabs the towel and goes out
Speaker 1: and opens the doorners a fuller brush salesman there, and
Speaker 1: Ed cracks up and he goes, hey, I'm right in
Speaker 1: the middle of a bath. If you want to come
Speaker 1: in and try and sell me something, I'm willing to listen.
Speaker 1: And the guy goes, Okay, I know it could make
Speaker 1: a sale here. So it goes back into the sits
Speaker 1: in the tub, but the guy sits on the john
Speaker 1: and they start talking. The guy pulls his brushes out
Speaker 1: and it grabs one and thrubs his back and stuff
Speaker 1: and says, hey, you want to drink and a guy yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So it gets a bottle again and they became fast friends.
Speaker 1: It was that kind of guy that I think you
Speaker 1: would like. The movie was a critical success and as
Speaker 1: widely regarded as one of Tim Burton's best films, but
Speaker 1: perhaps more importantly, it redefined ed Wood for a whole
Speaker 1: new generation. Here's bill shoot. The Edwood movie was written
Speaker 1: by two people who are super fans of Edwood. That
Speaker 1: sort of gave him immortality. Now how do I view
Speaker 1: the Edwood film? I view it very much like the
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly Story was to Buddy Holly. They changed things
Speaker 1: for dramatic license. Composite characters were created. Was it accurate No?
Speaker 1: Was it six accurate? Maybe? But it was made by
Speaker 1: people whose heart was in the right place, and the
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly Story did a great job of getting people
Speaker 1: interested in Buddy Holly. With Johnny Depp as ed Wood,
Speaker 1: with the great Martin Landau as Bella Legosi, it was
Speaker 1: a great film. Was it accurate? No? There are things
Speaker 1: that were invented for the film. There were parts of
Speaker 1: his life that were not included but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it was respectful. It got people interested
Speaker 1: in his work, and if it does that, then I'm
Speaker 1: glad it exists. And I think so many people got
Speaker 1: their introduction to Edward through that film. It's still a
Speaker 1: popular film to day. I don't think Edwood or anyone
Speaker 1: could have imagined a z Grade George Weiss produced film
Speaker 1: having the making of that recreated in a multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: Hollywood movie. There's something mind blowing about that on some level.
Speaker 1: I guess you never know what will be rediscovered for
Speaker 1: future generations. Edwood never got to work for Columbia or
Speaker 1: Allied Artists, but in his death and in his posthumous fame,
Speaker 1: he is up there now in terms of recognition with
Speaker 1: the people he admired and he looked up to that
Speaker 1: were wrongs above him on the ladder. And there's something
Speaker 1: validating about that. And to me, there's something inspiring that
Speaker 1: makes me happy and warms my heart about that. To me,
Speaker 1: this begs the question was what happy with his status
Speaker 1: as a low budget filmmaker. In his book Hollywood Rat Race,
Speaker 1: he describes some to stay for Hollywood and the movie business.
Speaker 1: So how did he feel about his own work. What
Speaker 1: more might he have wanted for himself. Here's Bill Shoot,
Speaker 1: followed by Bob Blackburn. Edwood would have loved to have
Speaker 1: worked for an outfit like American International or Lippert or
Speaker 1: one of the smaller allied artists. He was always aspiring
Speaker 1: to that level, and I'm sure he would have been
Speaker 1: happy to work on that level, to work for Sam
Speaker 1: Katsman or someone like that. But he was a wrunger
Speaker 1: to below that. He was a Hollywood outsider. He recognized
Speaker 1: that and realized that. But no, he would have loved
Speaker 1: to broken those doors down and been Alfred Hitchcocker, been
Speaker 1: the orsen Wells that everybody says he would have loved
Speaker 1: to have been. He would have loved to have the
Speaker 1: power and the ability to make the movies he wanted
Speaker 1: to make down the road with the actors that he
Speaker 1: would have love to have worked with. But he did
Speaker 1: what he did with what he had, and that, to
Speaker 1: me is the victory for Edwood, is the fact that yes,
Speaker 1: he came to Hollywood to make movies, and guish darn it,
Speaker 1: he did make movies. You know, Over the years, the
Speaker 1: Edward fandom has only grown, and with the help of
Speaker 1: the internet, various lost works have been discovered. I have
Speaker 1: a private Edward Facebook group, and we found out recently
Speaker 1: that ed had been hired to write a script based
Speaker 1: on a book biography of Frank Leigh He who was
Speaker 1: the notiter Dame football coach in the forties. And this
Speaker 1: guy who was a friend of Frank Lahis had written
Speaker 1: a biography and somehow had contacted Ed in the mid
Speaker 1: seventies to write a script based on this. Well this
Speaker 1: none of us had ever heard of it, but somebody
Speaker 1: found it in a library at St. Mary's College. It
Speaker 1: turned out to be actually in Edward script that nobody
Speaker 1: had never heard about, and there's going to be a
Speaker 1: book about it. I mean up with the script and
Speaker 1: some notes about the script by a couple of Edward scholars.
Speaker 1: I will call them for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: but there are people that dive much deeper into Edwood
Speaker 1: than I do. So it's amazing that a lot of
Speaker 1: things that Ed wrote or producer did are still coming
Speaker 1: to light, you know, thirty some plus years, forty years
Speaker 1: after his death. Bob Blackburn says his online community is
Speaker 1: hoping to keep the Edward flame alive. I get a
Speaker 1: lot of these people in there who are just passionate
Speaker 1: who call themselves Edwood. Oh files because they really dig
Speaker 1: deep into Ed's history, his work, his friendships, his working relationships.
Speaker 1: They are the ones that discovered this script, uh in
Speaker 1: the in this library, they've discovered a couple of novels
Speaker 1: that went under a different title than what we knew
Speaker 1: them as a couple of people in there are working
Speaker 1: on books about Ed. There's a gal who's uh doing
Speaker 1: a biography that I think focus is a little bit
Speaker 1: on Ed's spiritual qualities. He's an intriguing person. I mean
Speaker 1: from just the human standpoint, he was an intriguing guy,
Speaker 1: and I think people want to get to know who
Speaker 1: this person was and why he was and his triumphs
Speaker 1: and especially his failures, you know, because he had both,
Speaker 1: some more than others. But what drove him where was
Speaker 1: his creative well that he drew from a lot. Here's
Speaker 1: a MovieMaker author and was talking about him today, and
Speaker 1: really Wood's legacy goes further than his own career. In
Speaker 1: a way, he blazed a trail for future artists to come.
Speaker 1: I think we should celebrate the ingenuity of the z
Speaker 1: Grade Poverty Row filmmaker who is like a sleight of
Speaker 1: hand artist who makes you think you're seeing things you
Speaker 1: don't actually see, or you see something that represents something larger,
Speaker 1: and he can't afford to do this something larger. But
Speaker 1: if you flash it for a second or two, and
Speaker 1: if you're in the right spirit, it's not a problem.
Speaker 1: It works. It's ghoulish, or you're afraid of it, or
Speaker 1: it shocks you, and it does what it needs to
Speaker 1: do and you move on to the next scene. We
Speaker 1: need to remember, an Edwood film, most of the time,
Speaker 1: is instantly recognizable. You watch a minute of it and
Speaker 1: you know that it was directed by him, or that
Speaker 1: he wrote it if he did not direct it. So
Speaker 1: that in itself is a great achievement. How many people
Speaker 1: can have that said about their work, that it is
Speaker 1: instantly recognizable. So we need to take our hat off
Speaker 1: to Edwood for creating works that are still entertaining people
Speaker 1: decades and decades and decades after they were made, that
Speaker 1: originally played on the most marginal circuit, but which are
Speaker 1: known and loved, and which people quote dialogue from today.
Speaker 1: That is an amazing achievement. And people are writing about
Speaker 1: him and rediscovering his works and republishing his writings. I
Speaker 1: hope that in that great film set in the Sky
Speaker 1: or that modest film set in the Sky, that Edward
Speaker 1: is aware of the love and appreciation that his work has.
Speaker 1: All three of us producers on Ephemeral are huge Edward
Speaker 1: fans in the most sincere way possible. So after this break,
Speaker 1: we're going to come back and talk about a few
Speaker 1: of our favorite films. To finish up our deep dive
Speaker 1: into Edwood, we wanted to step back and have a
Speaker 1: casual conversation about Woods films. So joining me now are
Speaker 1: my fellow Ephemeral producers slash hosts X and Alex Williams Tevin.
Speaker 1: Where did you become acquainted with Edward films? In our family?
Speaker 1: So bad It's good movies are like the number one
Speaker 1: way that we communicate with each other as human beings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like if I go home for Christmas, the conversation is
Speaker 1: mostly just about whatever the new riff tracks stuff is.
Speaker 1: And we just didn't We just did and watched all
Speaker 1: these bad movies and make fun of them. Um, but
Speaker 1: where did it come in in your life? I like
Speaker 1: would see his stuff like in my local video store
Speaker 1: growing up. You know, they had like posters and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I like new about like Plan nine
Speaker 1: for Matter space, for example, but I never really like
Speaker 1: watched it. I think like a lot of like fifties
Speaker 1: sixty genre movies just like didn't appeal to me growing
Speaker 1: up necessarily. So it was really the Edward biopic. I
Speaker 1: think the Tim Burton movie in that like kind of
Speaker 1: piqued my interest. And I think that's like probably true
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, at least a lot of
Speaker 1: people in my age bracket. I'm a millennial, and um,
Speaker 1: I've always loved Tim Burton, so I like love and
Speaker 1: trust anything he does. But that movie especially just like
Speaker 1: really blew me away. The first time I saw it.
Speaker 1: It was just like so different from anything else he's
Speaker 1: ever done. You know, it was like very much grounded
Speaker 1: in reality. It was like this very kind of funny,
Speaker 1: lovable story about a director. And you know, I would
Speaker 1: like go on to love similar types of movies, like
Speaker 1: The Disaster Artists, which paints a pretty interesting picture of
Speaker 1: Tommy Wiz oh something about those kind of like biopic
Speaker 1: movies are always just great to me. Um, I love
Speaker 1: that we can take these people who are typically kind
Speaker 1: of laughed at and culture and like see like the
Speaker 1: heart behind them and really like come to appreciate them
Speaker 1: and understand them as people. So anyways, long story short,
Speaker 1: I loved that movie and so from there I started
Speaker 1: like actually going back to Edward movies. And at around
Speaker 1: that same time, I got really into VHS collecting, So
Speaker 1: I started collecting all these old you know VHS tapes
Speaker 1: of Wood movies and watching them on my CRT and
Speaker 1: having a great time with them. So I'd say probably
Speaker 1: like the last five years, I've been really digging into
Speaker 1: all the old Edwood movies and coming to actually really
Speaker 1: like them. So like The Disaster Artist, I think in
Speaker 1: the Disaster Artists, over the credits they actually show side
Speaker 1: by side, um, like the scenes that they did in
Speaker 1: the Disaster Arts movie and the scenes from the room
Speaker 1: and just to show you how like on the nose
Speaker 1: they got the costumes and the blocking, the blocking, the
Speaker 1: blocking enclothes and everything and and plan and um. The
Speaker 1: ed Wood the Tim Burton biopic or biopic if you will,
Speaker 1: I think it is super on the money too, I
Speaker 1: mean the down to like you know, the cardboard um headstones,
Speaker 1: getting you know, tossled and whatever. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible. How good of a job they did.
Speaker 1: If nothing else has just like got you really inspired
Speaker 1: to like go back and see the original movies. I
Speaker 1: wish they had done like a side by side. I
Speaker 1: met somebody on YouTube's done it just like did that
Speaker 1: exact same thing you were describing from the disaster artist.
Speaker 1: Do you all have a favorite Edward movie, Trevor, You
Speaker 1: maybe said that yours this Night of the Ghouls Trumpet, Yeah,
Speaker 1: something about the trumpet and the silly Seance and the Skelly.
Speaker 1: I love Skellies, man. I don't know what it is. Um.
Speaker 1: If I was gonna be honest about which ones I
Speaker 1: like enjoy an ironically, Um, I actually think like Glennard
Speaker 1: Glenda is like his best actual film. Like if you're
Speaker 1: judging it on the merits that we normally do for
Speaker 1: like a standard film, I'd say Glendard Glenda. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it. Um is like way more sincere. I think
Speaker 1: the scripting and the subject matter is like a lot
Speaker 1: more nuanced. You know, it still makes use of a
Speaker 1: lot of like be your role and other patchworky things,
Speaker 1: but like whatever, it's like a lot more forgivable in
Speaker 1: the context. Uh No, I just the the use of
Speaker 1: Baule in that movie is absolutely bizarre, where it's this,
Speaker 1: it's this. I agree with you that the narrative has
Speaker 1: the sincerity of of a cross dressing and it actually
Speaker 1: Edward actually plays the title character in it, doesn't he So,
Speaker 1: like Bill shoots said something really interesting and the interview
Speaker 1: take that kind of took me back that if ed
Speaker 1: would only made Glennar Glenda, he would still like have
Speaker 1: a place in the history books. And I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, a few weird things had to
Speaker 1: transpire for anyone to be talking about Edwood now, I think,
Speaker 1: But but I don't know that. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of buy that Bill, Yeah, like Glennard Glenda
Speaker 1: is a is a completely unique film. But the use
Speaker 1: of bear roll so it's this, this cross dressing narrative
Speaker 1: about personal identity, and it's a little far, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little far reaching him and and kind of
Speaker 1: goes all over the place. But then there's Bella le
Speaker 1: Ghostie as this random narrator figure with bureau footage of
Speaker 1: buffalo running projected behind him, screaming, just stringing, and so
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how you fregive something
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, it's so it's so brilliantly bizarre
Speaker 1: that your I gruth. I think glennar Glenda is definitely
Speaker 1: his best one. Like I was watching them, I got
Speaker 1: to that one like a little bit later on, and
Speaker 1: I think I'd already watched Plan nine and like Brought
Speaker 1: of the Monster. I was like, Okay, this was actually
Speaker 1: a little bit better. That blows him out with Glenn
Speaker 1: Glenda obviously, Like yeah, like what is Bella leghostie doing there?
Speaker 1: Like what is his purpose in this movie? He's just
Speaker 1: there because he has Bella ghost Yeah, Like Brand of
Speaker 1: the Monster is just like really boring, and it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like this very stereotypical like fifties horror film type. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then like Plan nine is just awful. I mean,
Speaker 1: start to finish, it's just terrible. So you think Edward
Speaker 1: got worse and worse and worse, And he got worse,
Speaker 1: He got worse. His ability to conceptualize a plot, like
Speaker 1: a plot like a leads to be leads to see yeah,
Speaker 1: and even really to have a story like this is
Speaker 1: like the overarching tale of like what's happening? Um is
Speaker 1: pretty muddled. I can't really think of a movie of
Speaker 1: his word where the story and the plot come through
Speaker 1: pride of the monster maybe the most, but even that
Speaker 1: is very confusing. Yeah, the girl gets like lost slash
Speaker 1: abducted by like mad scientists who like creates monsters in
Speaker 1: his lab. He wants to like keeper, and he's like
Speaker 1: super bitter because he was like ostracized from his community
Speaker 1: or his country because he wanted to experiment with making
Speaker 1: a people atomic people, right, And then cops come in
Speaker 1: and save the girl, kill the dude, and leave. I
Speaker 1: guess it's pretty straight. And don't don't forget about all
Speaker 1: the thirst trapping they do, like like slowly the shirt
Speaker 1: guy's shirt this keeps getting more and more destroyed. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's very intentional. So Max, which one is
Speaker 1: your favorite then? Or I would say Glennard Glenda or
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't it doesn't couch as a short,
Speaker 1: but the final curtains it's it's weird. It is objectively
Speaker 1: really kind of like creative. There's it's like all done
Speaker 1: through narration and stuff. It's it's it's really interesting. It's
Speaker 1: like I feel like those are ones we can see
Speaker 1: like ed Woods, like really trying to be creative with
Speaker 1: this stuff. When it's like I guess he was trying
Speaker 1: to be creative with Plan nine. Just what came out
Speaker 1: is just yeah, I'll probably say those are my two favorite.
Speaker 1: I Plan nine, hands down is my favorite. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite UM so bad It's Good films or
Speaker 1: just like you could call it a genre film of
Speaker 1: the fifties, but it's barely a genre film because it's
Speaker 1: so outside the norms of of storytelling. But it's got
Speaker 1: so many iconic moments to meet. I mean just the
Speaker 1: opening which he uses in other films, to the opening
Speaker 1: with Criswell in the casket Bcarly that that is also
Speaker 1: what's great is Chris wall is a character in UM
Speaker 1: Night of the Ghouls, right, that is pretty cool, I
Speaker 1: will say. And his voice is always echoing everyone else's
Speaker 1: voices norm and this is always going yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you got a point. Their Plan nine, I think is
Speaker 1: like his most like quotable and easily recognizable, I think
Speaker 1: for a reason, right like the Grave, very vampire with
Speaker 1: Tour Johnson as the detective, given the other detectives instructions
Speaker 1: that you can barely understand vampire having no words, Um
Speaker 1: the Great Flying Saucer special effects from I think the
Speaker 1: like lack of continuity or consistency between those things, like
Speaker 1: how the one guy describes it as like a cigar
Speaker 1: shaped ship, and then when you actually see it it's
Speaker 1: like a saucerer. It like looks nothing like a cigar.
Speaker 1: I love stuff like that because I will say that
Speaker 1: when it comes to historical accounts, the early ones of
Speaker 1: UFOs were as cigar shaped. The saucer came later on,
Speaker 1: so it's like he got his like stories and the
Speaker 1: plot mixed up. I do like that a fist fight
Speaker 1: on the ship causes it to blow up and catch
Speaker 1: on fire. There's nothing, they're just they're just punching each
Speaker 1: other and the ship catches on fire. It's like in
Speaker 1: the whole time, it's like you stupid, stupid people. It's
Speaker 1: like the aliens are supposed to be so sophisticated by
Speaker 1: all you have to do is just getting a fist
Speaker 1: fight and their ship blows up. So one interesting question.
Speaker 1: I guess this is like the bigger philosophical question. I
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of broach with you too. You know,
Speaker 1: in the episodes, we have very different opinions about like
Speaker 1: you know whether it's like okay to sort of suspend
Speaker 1: disbelief when you're like seeing stuff like that just so
Speaker 1: you can like authentically genuinely enjoy it. Um, or do
Speaker 1: you kind of like take this more MST three K
Speaker 1: approach to it and like is that the way you
Speaker 1: should enjoy stuff like ed Wood? Um? I'm kind of
Speaker 1: down the middle, frankly, Like they're just times where it's
Speaker 1: so just like obviously not good that like you can't
Speaker 1: help it's just like laugh at it for that reason.
Speaker 1: But they're like there are other times where like actually
Speaker 1: just like turn my brain off and like have a
Speaker 1: fun time watching whatever's on the screen. So I don't
Speaker 1: really have an answer. I'm just curious what you all think.
Speaker 1: I think the question is kind of ancient and potentional
Speaker 1: answerable about um is aesthetic value objective? Like what does
Speaker 1: it mean if something is good or bad? I don't
Speaker 1: and I don't really know if there's a way that
Speaker 1: anything should be enjoyed. I don't think you necessarily need
Speaker 1: to know anything about Edwood. I don't think you. I
Speaker 1: think maybe if you had never seen another movie it
Speaker 1: might help to enjoy. But yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean Um, I call it so bad that it's good,
Speaker 1: maybe as a little bit of shorthand because they are
Speaker 1: so difficult to talk about because they're just so different
Speaker 1: than anything else that's out there. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: have what I would call very sincere enjoyment. Maybe not
Speaker 1: from all of them hashtag Nite of the Goals, but
Speaker 1: like Plan nine, y'all. I have watched probably a dozen times.
Speaker 1: It's I've used little clips from it in lots of
Speaker 1: ephemeral episodes because it's in the public domain. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's just got great lines like in the future, which
Speaker 1: is where all of us will live someday, in all
Speaker 1: of us will live the rest of our lives exactly
Speaker 1: I wish I had memorized. There's been parts in my
Speaker 1: life where I have really had a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: memorized from from Plan nine. But yeah, so like that,
Speaker 1: I would say the enjoyment that I have watching Plan nine.
Speaker 1: When I slewt Max and I think you were it
Speaker 1: was Max and Mom and Dad. I saw it in
Speaker 1: a theatrical simulcast with the riff tracks guys, and it
Speaker 1: was colorized, and I had never seen a colorized before,
Speaker 1: and that just took it to the next level. I
Speaker 1: probaised them Abe at least a dozen times. I would
Speaker 1: watch it right now. I genuinely enjoy it um and
Speaker 1: I laughed the whole time. Oh yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was thinking about this, like when
Speaker 1: we were doing the episode about her Carvey. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Carnival Souls. If you just kind of sit
Speaker 1: there and watch Carnival Souls, it's not a good movie.
Speaker 1: I mean what they made it with like twe dollars. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's like those scenes where it's like the worst time
Speaker 1: I think of. It's like she's in the doctor's office
Speaker 1: and he turns around and it's the cool and there's
Speaker 1: just that long pause and then there's a But it's
Speaker 1: like I could say I legitimately love that movie after
Speaker 1: watching it all those times. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just like dogs point, it's like what is good?
Speaker 1: What is bad? I don't know. I mean, objectively, if
Speaker 1: you really want to put it up on this whole grade,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's not a single Edward film that's
Speaker 1: even decent. But at the same time, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I I enjoyed going back and watching a bunch of these,
Speaker 1: like including the ones like I did not remember how
Speaker 1: much I enjoyed glennor Glenda despite what that eighteen minute
Speaker 1: long scene that's just nothing. It's just like almost softcore porn,
Speaker 1: that's about it. I mean, I don't know, it looked
Speaker 1: like they needed to get another eighteen minutes into the film.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, yeah, actually I remember this movie being terrible,
Speaker 1: and it is terrible, but it's a lot better than
Speaker 1: I remember it being. And I enjoyed it, and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching all these and I don't know. That's That's
Speaker 1: what matters to me, is like do I actually enjoy
Speaker 1: it or not? And I enjoy it wood stuff all
Speaker 1: the time, especially the colorized Plan nine. So first of all,
Speaker 1: Her Carvings Carnival Souls is a great film, and I
Speaker 1: will not accept any slander about that film. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a a low budget masterpiece frankly, But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess as far as like the enjoyment thing, I
Speaker 1: guess like I never want to feel like I'm part
Speaker 1: of a group of people who are like punching down
Speaker 1: or like making fun of something that was just kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, incompetence. It would feel wrong too,
Speaker 1: just like crap on somebody just because they don't have
Speaker 1: like the skills or the money. You know, like if
Speaker 1: they didn't do a good job at something and they
Speaker 1: were just like totally pretentious about it, like maybe that
Speaker 1: I would make fun of them. But you know Edward's case,
Speaker 1: he was just like had struggles and he was totally
Speaker 1: sincere in the thing he was wanting to do. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess I'm just saying I feel like
Speaker 1: some sense of like guilt at like laughing at the
Speaker 1: thing he did. Sometimes maybe it's inevitable, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's this interesting phenomenon that there's
Speaker 1: a jilion pretty extremely dull, low budget genre movies from
Speaker 1: the fifties and the sixties sci fi and lots of
Speaker 1: others westerns and and and crime films and whatever. But
Speaker 1: like there's about a sou I mean, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: thousands of other sci fi movies that this would, you know,
Speaker 1: like on paper, like a movie like Plan nine or
Speaker 1: Bright of the Monster Slash Bright of the Atom would
Speaker 1: would fit into. And yet you could watch dozens of
Speaker 1: those without any of them standing out to you. Probably
Speaker 1: maybe an element here or there, edwards stuff stands out
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. It's just so it's so very different
Speaker 1: than any than anybody else's work. Yeah, I know. It's
Speaker 1: just like there are plenty of movies that are just
Speaker 1: as bad as Monster, Like you know, there are a
Speaker 1: ton of movies like that, but that one does stand out.
Speaker 1: It's something about Edwards style. It's I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like how genuine you could tell the people are you
Speaker 1: know that you tell they're trying, you tell TORR. Johnson
Speaker 1: is actually really trying to deliver those lines and Plan nine.
Speaker 1: It's just nobody can understand it. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like you know that you can you can see
Speaker 1: a passion and stuff that you know, there's there's a
Speaker 1: good level of respect that I have, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're badly made movies, but they tried really hard. There
Speaker 1: are I mean, the craft of filmmaking in them is
Speaker 1: extremely low. So the lighting, the blocking, the set design,
Speaker 1: the acting, the writing. Yeah, the craft is very the
Speaker 1: craft the craft is doesn't demonstrate a whole lot of dexterity.
Speaker 1: So though, I mean, I think there's like a certain
Speaker 1: charm to that. And maybe that's just because I grew
Speaker 1: up as like a a nineties kid in video stores,
Speaker 1: and there was just like a certain sort of like
Speaker 1: aesthetic charm I think to like low budget filmmaking. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like never good, but there was this kind
Speaker 1: of like fun culture around it, right, Like the kind
Speaker 1: of sillier a like you know, videotape cover or poster
Speaker 1: was like the more compelled I felt to be like
Speaker 1: hell yeah, I want to grab this, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And like even today, this kind of like retro culture
Speaker 1: that kind of glamorizes that sort of like eighties low
Speaker 1: budget thing is like huge right now. And I think
Speaker 1: it's huge for a reason, you know, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't measure up to like the quality
Speaker 1: of proper filmmaking, it stands on his own as like
Speaker 1: its own sort of valuable genre. I think, But well
Speaker 1: it's worth something like, um, this is maybe a dated
Speaker 1: reference in a different way, but something like the Grindhouse,
Speaker 1: the Rebert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino double feature kind of misses
Speaker 1: the mark for me, because like I I appreciate, I
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, empathize with with the love
Speaker 1: letter to these maybe like hokier tropes of of older
Speaker 1: B movies. But it's it's just like a little insincere.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's the wrong word. It's it's just to make
Speaker 1: of maybe a little too much polish, you know, the
Speaker 1: polish to make it look bad doesn't come through in
Speaker 1: the same way that you know that it doesn't in
Speaker 1: the original. Yeah, that's another like topic I think is
Speaker 1: this thing about like camp. You know, camp is usually
Speaker 1: like unintentionally being bad, usually as a result of being
Speaker 1: a budget and you can't like fake camp, right, like
Speaker 1: you can't fake low budget. I don't know, and some
Speaker 1: people do that, Like I think, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: certain things like Shark Nado or whatever, like attempts to
Speaker 1: be bad on purpose and it just comes off being
Speaker 1: cringe e to me at least, like it just has
Speaker 1: to be that authentically right, it has to be like
Speaker 1: a happy mistake where it's not real or it doesn't count,
Speaker 1: you know. I think Catherine cold Iron's point, Um she
Speaker 1: brings up Shark Nado. It really resonated with me too.
Speaker 1: That like the overall impression that you get from him
Speaker 1: like that is cynicism. And the impression that you get
Speaker 1: from an Edward movie is kind of like a muddled
Speaker 1: hopeless optimism. Yeah, and I guess I I opt for
Speaker 1: the ladder. The ladder seems like more of a good
Speaker 1: time to me, like a better date, a better night
Speaker 1: in Yeah. Maybe on that note, than um, I don't
Speaker 1: know what are you? What do you? Guys? Just like?
Speaker 1: Favorite things about watching an Edward movie the end, Paul Mark,
Speaker 1: Paul Marco. He plays the same character over and over again. Kelton,
Speaker 1: He's like the real Like, oh jeez, why do I
Speaker 1: gotta go out to the cemetery again. It's the same character.
Speaker 1: It's like Proud of the Monster, Plan nine and Night
Speaker 1: of the Goals. It's the exact same character. He's referencing
Speaker 1: things that's happened in the previous movies and stuff. He's
Speaker 1: got a really good scene actually in um Night of
Speaker 1: the Goals. They give him they give him a little
Speaker 1: bit Night of the Goals, like he actually has some
Speaker 1: character in that one. Yeah, I think to echo, I
Speaker 1: think my favorite thing is just the characters that he's
Speaker 1: able to bring on. I think there's just so many
Speaker 1: memorable people. I mean, I love Chriswell for how cheesy
Speaker 1: he is, you know, I love Paul Marco for how
Speaker 1: silly he is. Yeah, Yeah, I mean obviously towards Johnson
Speaker 1: for just being like absolutely unhinged all the time. I
Speaker 1: don't think he ever says well, no, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever says any actual words in
Speaker 1: any Edward movie. But there's like a short period in
Speaker 1: Plan nine where he's like a cop at the beginning.
Speaker 1: It says a couple of lines very badly, but otherwise,
Speaker 1: like I love that that he's just like constantly screaming.
Speaker 1: Like Edwards screen direction was just like go out there
Speaker 1: and grunt and like slap them, and you know, I
Speaker 1: have a good time, and as a result, I have
Speaker 1: a good time. So I rewatched the riff tracks Plan
Speaker 1: nine from out of his Face and it's just like
Speaker 1: you see every time he hits somebody that movie, it's
Speaker 1: just like he pats them. Yeah, he's just like open handed.
Speaker 1: Like I love the Bale of the Ghost See and
Speaker 1: all of it. I just love Balor the Ghost See,
Speaker 1: even his little bit in Plan nine and the News
Speaker 1: when he's replaced by the person that is like a
Speaker 1: foot taller than him covering their face. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: They like made a a point to highlight that in
Speaker 1: the Edward Timburton movie, right, like he just like meets
Speaker 1: the guy in the diner. He's like, you look just
Speaker 1: like I mean, like holds the thing up to cover
Speaker 1: his mouth. I agree. I think bellele ghost. He is
Speaker 1: another one of those characters who just like really makes
Speaker 1: it happen. I know you were talking about the pull
Speaker 1: the strings Stephen Glennar Glenda, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1: It's great. It's a great scene. It's when it stands
Speaker 1: at my head, You're just like you sit and you say,
Speaker 1: what did he How did this end up in this movie?
Speaker 1: Why are why are these the same film? And it's
Speaker 1: one of the great mysteries. It's one of the great
Speaker 1: mysteries that Edward left behind unanswered. I will say another
Speaker 1: thing that I really do love is it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the same cast of actors through and through on
Speaker 1: all the films, because it kind of gives you that
Speaker 1: feel like it was like, you know, like friends and
Speaker 1: friends making films together and stuff. Because it's obviously toward
Speaker 1: Johnson and Paul Marco, but like, uh, you got like
Speaker 1: Duke Moore is in a bunch of them and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just like I like that whole like they were
Speaker 1: all a team together making these things and doing the
Speaker 1: best they could, and unfortunately the best they could was
Speaker 1: Planned nine from Outer Space. I wouldn't have it any
Speaker 1: other way. I'm glad it happened exactly the way it did. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I do I do wish that had I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know what more of a chance looks like, because
Speaker 1: he got to make like nine films or something, but
Speaker 1: he had such a sad ending to his life. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a couple of people said in the episodes
Speaker 1: that you know, he probably would have had like a
Speaker 1: really big, like cult revival potentially like a second wind
Speaker 1: of a career in the like eighties nineties had he
Speaker 1: been alive, And I see that as being very true.
Speaker 1: I think people would have absolutely loved some new Edward
Speaker 1: stuff in the eighties, you know. I mean they are
Speaker 1: according to IMDb at least there is an ed Wood
Speaker 1: film coming Grave rovers from out of Space, which is
Speaker 1: you know, kind of nine. Yeah, but like there's also
Speaker 1: like the Firstsaken Western's Crossroad of Avenger, which was that
Speaker 1: seriously he had worked on for like they made a
Speaker 1: I don't know an episode out of it in seventeen,
Speaker 1: so you know, there's still people out there trying to like,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess preserve it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how real all this stuff is, but he's giving
Speaker 1: credit as a writer on a lot of this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. I mean, Ed's interesting from a
Speaker 1: point of view of lost media. For sure. I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised if there are tons and tons of
Speaker 1: movies and scripts and things like sitting in warehouses that
Speaker 1: we don't know about that are going to come to
Speaker 1: light in upcoming years, you know, especially with like the
Speaker 1: Internet and like the huge like Edwood community online. I
Speaker 1: would be very surprised if those things don't start surfacing
Speaker 1: and getting funded somehow or whatever. So last question then, right,
Speaker 1: the show is called ephemeral. Do you guys own any
Speaker 1: Edward Ephebora. I feel like we probably have planed nine
Speaker 1: on VHS. Oh, I think we do. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: by we, I mean the Williams family. My father has
Speaker 1: a closet full of VHS tapes, and I think probably
Speaker 1: there's a plan nine VHS. I mean I don't think
Speaker 1: he has anything else of than that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think we had brought of the monster, and definitely
Speaker 1: don't wouldn't have Glenard Glendah. Yeah, I've got some some
Speaker 1: VHS tapes over there. I think I've got Plan nine
Speaker 1: right of Monster Glen or Gonda, and I think I
Speaker 1: actually have the Tim Burton movie on HS as well.
Speaker 1: But oh so do we you know, the biopic. All
Speaker 1: of these were just like regular watching for like in
Speaker 1: our family we would watch stuff like The Blob and
Speaker 1: like Creature from the Black Lagoon, and like, these are
Speaker 1: just like movies that we would just watch regularly as
Speaker 1: a family. And h Edward, especially Planned nine, but the
Speaker 1: other Edward films too, and the Edward biopic. We're all
Speaker 1: films that we watched a lot as a family, and
Speaker 1: we sit around, you know, at the dinner table. I
Speaker 1: could say something like Edi, make me Goolash, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how to make Kolash Balat and my favor,
Speaker 1: my favorite one from that movie. And Martin Landa, I
Speaker 1: think we won the Oscar for it, and he sure
Speaker 1: did deserve it because he did such a good job.
Speaker 1: He brought so much humanity but also so much creepiness
Speaker 1: to that role. Um and camp is what he's sitting
Speaker 1: there looking at the TV trying to command the TV
Speaker 1: and doing this weird thing with his hand, and and
Speaker 1: Johnny Depp Edwood is like, oh my god, Bella, how
Speaker 1: do you do that? He's like, you have to boot
Speaker 1: double jointed Hungarian. My favorite of force is Carlin off
Speaker 1: Sidekick God Love Sucker. Yeah. Anytime Bella Let's character like
Speaker 1: cusses or or said some something derogatory about someone else,
Speaker 1: it's just gold. This episode of Ephemeral was written and
Speaker 1: produced by Trevor Young, with producers Max and Alex Williams.
Speaker 1: Bill Shoot is a writer and professor of English at
Speaker 1: San Antonio College. He also wrote the introduction for the
Speaker 1: new book of posthumously released essays by ed Wood When
Speaker 1: the Topic Is Sex. Bob Blackburn is a family friend
Speaker 1: of the Woods who edited it and compiled the stories
Speaker 1: for When the Topic Is Sex, which you can find
Speaker 1: on bare Manner Media's website or wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1: And Catherine cold Iron is author of the book Plan
Speaker 1: nine from Outer Space. See more of her work at
Speaker 1: k cold Iron dot com. You also heard from screenwriter
Speaker 1: Larry Karazowski, who co wrote film ed Wood Big. Thanks
Speaker 1: to the Secret Movie Club in Los Angeles for hosting
Speaker 1: this Q and A and letting us record. You can
Speaker 1: check out their calendar at Secret Movie Club dot com.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about Edwood? Love him, hate him?
Speaker 1: Tell us why on social media. We're at Ephemeral Show
Speaker 1: and for more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. If the desert had been above the
Speaker 1: coffently copingst the business of