WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Plan 9 from Outer Space 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:09.079 Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. Today we 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.360 are bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema. 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.040 This one was originally published on August fifth, twenty twenty two. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.400 And oh boyd, this is the one we did on 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.680 Plan nine from Outer Space. Let's dive right in. 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.320 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:43.280 And this is Joe McCormick, and it's finally time for 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.000 our very first ed Wood movie on Weird House Cinema. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:51.960 Today's selection is perhaps the reigning world champion of the Schlocktagon. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.640 It is the nineteen fifty seven undead Saucer invasion film 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.360 Plan nine from Outer Space, a movie in which fussy 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.960 aliens attempt to conquer planet Earth by creating approximately three 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.840 zombies at a local cemetery in Los Angeles. I've been 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:11.680 wondering how long it would take us to do an 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.520 Edwood movie, and we debated whether we should do this, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.039 do this one or Bride of the Monster. They're both fantastic, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.720 but I think this might be a sort of emotional 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.720 episode for me because Plan nine is not only one 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.920 of the best and most famously bad movies of all time, 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.360 it also played a very special role in my life. So, Rob, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.039 I don't know if I ever told you this before, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.880 but when my wife Rachel and I were very first 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.360 hanging out when we were in high school. This was 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.959 before we were technically dating. I don't know what the 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:45.480 term in your high school time and place was. It 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.360 was going out for us before we were going out. 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.480 One of the first times we ever got together was 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.160 to watch Plan nine from Outer Space in the basement 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:55.040 of my parents' house. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:56.760 Oh well, that's sweet. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.360 Yeah, So we already knew each other, we had some 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.800 friends in common, and for some reason we decided we 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.320 needed to see this movie. And I still remember vividly 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.600 a bunch of failed attempts to acquire a copy, like 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:13.200 we went to Blockbuster Video, thinking, oh, yeah, okay, it's Blockbuster, 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.040 surely they will have Plan nine from Outer Space, and 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.360 what a shock they did not. This would have been 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.960 I think of around two thousand and two, so they 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.600 could have hooked us up with thirty seven copies of 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.200 mister Deed's if we wanted, but they did not have 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.639 any Edwood movies in stock and Eventually we figured out 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.919 that one of Rachel's friends had a bootleg VHS tape 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.000 of it. We finally got our hands on it, and wow, 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.600 it was so perfect, like the aliens wearing the costumes, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.920 with the medieval sigils, like you know, Bunny Breckenridge with 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.280 the axe, and the constant switching between night and day, 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:53.440 the floppy tombstones, the line delivery but I'll be in there, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.640 and it was. It was just a magical experience. And 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.639 now in our house, right next to one of our 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.079 wedding photos, we have a framed portrait of Tor Johnson 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.000 and Vampira from Plan nine. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.800 That's sweet. And I have to say, this is probably 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.000 the perfect movie to watch on a bootleg VHS in 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:14.080 a basement somewhere. 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.280 It's this is a great date movie in general. I mean, yeah, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.280 oh yeah, yeah. 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.359 I've watched this with my wife before and it's it's 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.320 just it is. It is NonStop, it is relentlessly what 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.920 it is, and it's I was having trouble coming up 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.120 with the perfect adjective for what this film is because 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.920 you can say it's cheesy, or it's bad, or it's amateur, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.440 or it's outsider art. You know, and it's and it 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.040 is all those things, and yet it it it kind 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.960 of expands beyond easy definition. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.600 Oh yeah, And I also just want to point out 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.800 that this is another nineteen fifty seven sci fi horror movie, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.840 which you know, I was trying to think of it. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.360 I have a feeling about this. It's kind of ineffable. 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:57.960 I was trying to find the best way to put 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.560 it into words. But I think I think it's that 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.680 I have a sense that, like nineteen fifty seven to 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.200 fifty eight was a two year period that was a 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.960 renaissance for sci fi monster trash, like just to stick 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.000 to movies that we've talked about on Weird House, fifty 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.320 seven was the same year as Attack of the Crab 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.400 Monsters and Not of This Earth. Fifty eight was The 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.520 Brain Eaters and Fiend Without a Face. I feel like 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.760 something happened during this two year period. There was a 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.200 shift in the veldtgeist, and it gave rise to all 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.080 these emanations, emanations in the gnostic sense, from a kind 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.799 of primeval spirit of B movie weirdness, and the world 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.440 has never been the same. We live in the culture 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.599 that was built by the clumsy brow furrowing Demiurge that 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.440 descended from those emanations. It's fifty seven to fifty eight, 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.440 and it's been monsters ever since. This is the air 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:53.000 we breathe. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.960 Yeah, I think it's a great point. And yeah, thinking 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.720 about my own history with ed Wood and Plan nine 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.000 from Outer Space, I'm reminded that I think I saw 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.039 my first clips from a number of these movies in 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.560 nineteen eighty two's it came from Hollywood, which somebody in 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.800 my family had taped off of HBO onto VHS, and 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:16.479 for some reason I was allowed to watch this over 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.000 and over again, even though you know, it's mostly like 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.640 a lot of fun monster clips, but also some risk 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.880 humor and also some disturbing content from Hollywood of yesteryear. 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.839 But still there's a whole section on there's that is 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.960 celebrating Edwood and talking about like how great and how fun. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.080 You know, So much of this content was so many 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.000 of these films, and I guess I kind of took 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.360 all that for granted. And it wasn't until I was 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:45.520 digging in and researching a little bit for this picture 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:50.240 that I realized before, like before the early eighties when 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.039 this came out and some other things were going on 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.599 with film festivals, like ed Wood had already drifted into obscurity, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.839 and it was it was the memory of these films 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.320 that ended up resurrecting his spirit. 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.200 Oh yeah, the weirdness of Plan nine. I get the 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.960 impression that this was not recognized at the time as 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:15.119 anything great or worthwhile, and it was not celebrated even 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.520 in an ironic sense, for a long time until like 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.880 decades after it was made. I think the initial reaction was, well, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:24.360 that was weird. Okay, never see that again. 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:26.320 But to come back to what you said, like the 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:28.640 classic era, you know, I mean they are different classic 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.280 eras and cinema, but he had that late nineteen fifties 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.720 era seemed to have produced a number of these ideas, 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.960 these tropes that would continue to resonate throughout our film 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.479 culture as different creators then grew up with those images 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.880 in their heads and then created their own things. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.400 I sort of feel like this is the era where 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.159 like the Corman machine is finally humming at full output 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:59.159 like it has it's going, and other parallel production machines 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.480 for drive in monster movies are sort of at their 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:03.239 peak output. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.839 Yeah, but before we get too. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.880 Wrapped up in how Plan nine from Outer Space is, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.920 you know, cranking the gears of history and of our 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.400 personal lives before we get caught in the wheels of progress. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.760 We should also describe what this movie is in a 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.600 literal sense, so I have a few categories I think 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.600 it should fit into. One is that it's a fifties 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.000 flying saucer movie. The plot concerns aliens who fly around 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.000 in saucers that are described both as saucers and as 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.960 quote cigar shaped. That's mutually exclusive, dude. I don't know 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.080 why you say that in the movie, but that's what 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.440 they say. But at their saucers, they come to Earth 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:46.040 to do something something vaguely hostile. It seems their main 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:52.400 objectives are to make sure that humans acknowledge their existence 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.040 and to keep humans from finding out about them. 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.560 And we find out more about their missions as we'll 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:58.120 get into. 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.680 But yeah, so what is their Well, this entails the 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.000 second thing. It's also a zombie movie. The aliens plan 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.360 involves resurrecting the dead from a cemetery and making these 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:14.040 revenants wander around and scare people. It is also an 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.600 ed Wood movie. Now, more about that when we discuss 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.120 Edwood directly. But this means a film made with an 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:29.400 absolutely irresistible blend of overwhelming ineptitude and awe inspiring self confidence. 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.160 And it's a combination I can't really think of in 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.880 any other filmmaker. It's a movie that is so bad 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.360 it's unbelievable, and yet it doesn't feel like just check 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.000 cashing hackwork. It feels like it was made by someone 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.000 who thought this was a brilliant masterpiece and it might 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:48.400 even change the world. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:54.000 Yeah, there's an audacity to Edwood movies for sure. Yeah, 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.360 so we'll get it into that in a bed, But yeah, 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.040 there's nothing quite like an ed Wood film. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.079 Also, tying into the cast, which we'll discuss more in 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.000 a minute, I think it's important to say this is 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:08.080 sort of a bizarro ensemble movie. Like, despite the fact 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.880 that this is a very low budget movie, the cast 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.679 includes a surprising bill of strange but familiar faces or 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.560 what would have been strange but familiar faces at the time. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:23.400 You've got Bella Lagosi, the legend himself, but also Tor Johnson, Vampira, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.120 the amazing Chriswell. It's really kind of unusual when you 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.840 stop to appreciate how many sort of names ended up 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:32.520 in this thing. 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.360 At least names that would have resonated on television in 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.679 LA at the time. Yeah, and beyond that to some extent. 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:46.120 And who might not necessarily be known for acting, but 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.120 who make a very striking screen presence. I mean, are 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.760 Vampira and Tor Johnson actors? Not really, but I mean 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:55.640 when they're on screen, it looks great. 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:00.480 They are both individuals who had totally nailed what they 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:05.199 were doing outside of film, and in this movie though, 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.560 those skill sets are able to work well on film 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.680 in kind of an acting space, but I would not 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.320 say they are acting right. 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.079 One last thing I want to say is that it's 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.040 in a category of a category that doesn't exist as 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.559 much as it used to, and that is the thoroughly 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:31.160 technically incompetent film. Maybe we don't appreciate this distinction enough, 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.280 but here's my take. I'd be interested to hear from 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.920 people who actually work in the film industry to maybe 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.000 agree or disagree with this. But my feeling is that 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:44.199 in decades past, bad movies were packed with way way 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:49.000 more technical mistakes than bad movies of today. So you 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.319 have everything from you know, continuity failures between shots, obviously 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.240 phony sets. You might see a crew member who wasn't 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.600 supposed to be in the shot standing in the background, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.160 you know, you see the boom, my decnct audio, stuff 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.280 like that. But now the film industry has become much 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.959 more professionalized, and I think there are so many people 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.720 working in the film industry now who know how to 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.760 execute the technical aspects of a film properly. They're good 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.320 at their jobs. There are enough of those people that 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.640 even bad movies today are rarely full of actual technical incompetence. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.079 Even the bad movies of the twenty first century are 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.160 made with a pretty high baseline of technical professionalism. And 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.439 instead now I would say when a movie is bad today, 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.640 I would argue it's almost always bad because of the 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.760 creative elements rather than the technical ones. So, for example, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.200 in my personal opinion, hands down the most common problem 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.640 for bad movies made this year is going to be 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:53.040 a bad script, followed by other creative failures, you know, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.440 failure of like a cinematographer to establish an interesting or 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.960 pleasing visual style. But this will rarely extend to mismatching 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.760 day night, continuity between shots. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.240 Right right, or or one that is also frequently used 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.040 by Edward Jarring, use of stock footage. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.559 It's like not even of apparently the same film grain 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:16.400 or whatever. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.200 Right, right, different film, grain, different era, sometimes different continent. 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:21.080 It looks like. 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:22.960 There's a really good one in the other movie we 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.400 were thinking about doing Bride of the Monster, where a 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.400 character like looks at a tree and then we cut 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.080 to grainy stock footage of a snake and then she 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.160 screams and faints. It's really it's wonderful. 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.040 So, I mean, for the most part that's the pitch, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.280 but for just to throw out an elevator pitch, I'll 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.280 use one from that is from the trailer that we're 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.520 about to listen to, and that is a terrifying revelation 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.440 of things to come. We cannot overlook the fact that 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.720 this is a movie that is not just about something 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.160 that could happen. This is not a speculative work. This 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.600 is about things that have happened, are happening, or definitely 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.559 will happen in near future. Yeah, all right, well, let's 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.760 go ahead and listen to this trailer in full, because 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.280 on its own, like if this were a lost film 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.640 and all we had was the trailer, we would still 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.280 have a masterpiece on our hands. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.680 It is safe to state that the grandchildren of some 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.560 of the people in this dinner will not be born 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:48.000 on Earth. They come from the bowels of Hell, a 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:52.679 transformed race of walking dead zombies guided by a master 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:58.400 plan for complete domination of the Earth. Plan nine from 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:09.280 Outer Space, starring the most right Marrish past ever, Fella Legosi, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.720 the seductive Vampira, and poor Johnson as the walking dead. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:21.920 Turn your rector gun, No, no starting down, you can't 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:28.400 get it. Bullets bounce off their buddies, Rockets, missiles, jets 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:33.080 cannot stop their death shifts. What earthly power can stop 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.800 this terror? Or a glimpse of things to come? See 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:41.320 this blast of screen suspense, or it could be happening 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:43.160 right now? 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:50.920 All right, I absolutely love that it is safe to 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.360 state that the grandchildren of some of the people in 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.040 this theater will not be born on Earth. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.040 Can you prove the trailer wrong? I don't think you can. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:01.480 You don't even know who was in that theater. 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.680 All right, Well, let's get into the people a bit more. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.160 Of course, we're going to start at the top. We're 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.160 going to start with Edwood or as he is credited 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.160 on the film, Edward D. Wood Junior. He is the director, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.160 he is the writer. He is the producer, he is 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.520 the film editor, and he also has a cameo in 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:22.000 the picture. 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.200 You know, I realized that a lot of my thoughts 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.120 about the life of Edward actually are not like researched 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.400 for accuracy, but a lot of them come from the 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.040 nineties Tim Burton movie Edwood, which I think is it's 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.080 probably my favorite biography movie. It's fantastic. I don't know 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.640 how true it is to the reality of the events 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.360 it depicts, but it's incredibly fun and it has a 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.440 standout performance by Martin Landau as Bill a Lagosi. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:49.120 Yeah. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:54.320 Yeah, nineteen ninety four's ed Wood also pretty crazy, because 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.080 you know, we've talked about how already about how Wood 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:03.240 Edward was a Hollywood outsider. Through Tim Burton's ninety four picture, 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:08.080 it becomes an Academy Award winning property. Like Martin lan 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:12.200 Dallasbela Lagosi role wins an Academy Award. Also, Rick Baker's 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.760 makeup wins an Academy Award for that picture, and so 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.440 it's kind of like the Hollywood establishment finally has to 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:23.400 enshrine Wood's legacy, which is kind of interesting, but. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.720 Okay, putting the movie that movie aside, I don't know. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:28.800 How do you describe what Edwood was? 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.920 Yeah, again, it's difficult to sum up. You know, just 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:40.280 a low budget legend, counterculture icon, overconfident, amateur outsider artist. 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.600 Sometimes I think about that. I compare him to someone 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.240 like a Howard Finster in my mind, you know, someone 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.920 who doesn't have the training that other individuals working in 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.200 the field have, but there's something going on. There's this 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.320 spark that still manages to force its way into the. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:01.480 Medium inspiration in the classic sense, as in literally meaning 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:02.560 divine guidance. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.320 When I was looking around for some additional biographical information 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.840 on him, one of the mistakes I made was thinking, well, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.080 I'll look up see what the obits of the day said. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.080 And that's one of the things about his life is 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.600 that there weren't really any major obits about him when 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.520 he died, because he had drifted into such obscurity. But 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.760 I was looking at a review that Roger Ebert, the 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.480 late Roger Ebert, wrote for Tim Burton's ed Wood movie, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.720 and he included, like I thought, what was a nice 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.720 summary of who and what Edwood was? Quote, Edward D. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.240 Wood Junior must have been the Will Rogers of filmmaking. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.240 He never directed a shot he didn't like. It takes 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.080 a special weird genius to be voted the worst director 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:50.199 of all time, a title that Wood has earned by acclamation. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.200 He was so in love with every frame, of every 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.919 scene of every film he shot that he was blind 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:00.480 to hilarious blenders, stumbling, ineptitude, and acting so bad that 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.520 it achieved a kind of grandeur. But badness alone would 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.280 not have been enough to make him a legend. It 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.560 was his love of film sneaking through that pushes him 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:10.200 over the top. 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.920 You know, I think this is a phrase I recall 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.359 from Roger Ebert, though I don't remember the origin of it, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.280 but it was Roger Ebert talking about some bad movie 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.840 that he said was not just bad, but was awesomely bad. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.720 And I think that is a good descripture to apply 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:31.240 to the Edwood movies I've seen. There they transcended normal badness. 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.240 They even transcend the normal way that you appreciate bad 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.920 movies at an ironic level. They become, in some genuine sense, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.280 an awe inspiring spectacle. It's like it's you are observing 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.200 a work of sheer will. It's oh, I guess you know. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.080 To quote the title of another podcast, you wonder how 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.840 did this get made? Like how was this pushed through 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:57.560 to completion? 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.480 Yeah, and it's it's it's a rare enough thing just historically, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:03.480 but it's certainly rare now. You don't you don't really 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.680 find examples of this as much as one might like, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:08.320 and I feel like we're kind of starved for it 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.080 at times. There have been films that have come out 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:15.480 in recent years where I think people were expecting awesome badness, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.360 and unfortunately the cases you end up with something that's 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.639 just bad in the and the lackluster, lukewarm sense of 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:24.080 the word. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:30.479 Plan nine has such a kind of relentless, ludicrous unbelievability 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.879 while you're watching it that before we started recording, we 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:38.440 were talking off Mike about how when you're explaining this movie, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.880 you want to like quote the weird dialogue, but then 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.919 you can't really end up doing that because you end 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.240 up wanting to quote the entire script. Like every scene 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.960 is just filled with exchanges that that that clang and 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.560 sound wrong in the most awesomely weird way, and and 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:59.760 then it never stops. You think like, oh, I got 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:01.280 a make a note of that one, but then the 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:02.800 next one is exactly like it. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:09.280 Yeah, it is relentless, it is stupefying. So briefly on 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.480 the bio of Edward here he lived nineteen twenty four 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.760 through nineteen seventy eight. He was a film enthusiast. As 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:20.040 a child, he had a Kodak Sinis special. He was 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.240 an usher at a cinema. At one point, he served 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.120 in the Marines. In nineteen forty seventy moved to Hollywood 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.439 to pursue his cinematic dreams. He would become a legend, 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.280 true enough, but like we said, his star would rise 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.520 after his death in seventy eight. The end of his 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.560 life was one of obscurity. But then you had stuff 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.120 like eighty two's that came from Hollywood Come Out, which 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.280 again featured inn Edwood tribute section. You had a growing 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.800 cult following for films of this nature, including for instance, 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.680 Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Film Guide, which started up as a 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.359 magazine in nineteen seventy nine the year after his death. 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.520 Documentaries would follow film festivals, and then by the time 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.479 you get ninety four's ed Wood the picture by Tim Burton, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.720 like the legacy is assured, like it's cemented, and again 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.639 the Hollywood establishment itself kind of has to enshrine Wood's legacy. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.160 Towards the end of his life, Wood's output descended sharply 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.879 into erotic and adult territory. This would have been in 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.280 the seventies, but his work in the fifties gave us 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.520 a string of just memorably weird films, including the semiotographical 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.399 fifty three film Glenn or Glinda, in which Would himself 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:34.080 plays the titular lead character. He also gave us Bride 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.119 of the Monster in fifty five, The Violent Years in 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.680 fifty six, The Bride and the Beast in fifty eight, 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.600 Night of the Ghouls in fifty nine, and The Sinister 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:44.560 Urge in nineteen sixty. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.200 I would say he's most remembered. I think for Glenn 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.560 or Glinda and the two Big Bella to go see 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.920 Monster movies which were Bride of the Monster and play 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.119 nine from outer Space Bride of the Monster. We may 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.080 have to come back and also do on the show 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.119 in the future because it has more bella Legosi than 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.440 Plan nine does. In fact, Plan nine has almost no 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:07.840 bella legosi at all, and that's one of the real 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.960 core paradoxes of Plan nine. I would say that this 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.760 movie seems in a way to be kind of built 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.479 around Bella Lagosi. It might be in modern to use 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:21.600 a modern expression called a Legosi vehicle. And yet Bella 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.760 Legosi is almost entirely missing from the movie. He actually 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.600 appears in literally just a couple of shots. Legosi I 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.639 think died before most of the movie was filmed, so 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.000 in most scenes that feature his character, he's played by 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.399 a body double holding a cape over his face. And 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.600 even including the shots with the body double, Legosi's character 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.359 is not really central. He's just one of a number 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:47.080 of zombies. 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:49.879 Yeah, And it's just such a wood move right to 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:53.360 not let this stand in the way of not only 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.000 completing the film, but also not reshooting anything they already had, 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.520 Like we already have Bella in one scene to scenes, 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:03.520 why reshoot any of that. Let's just keep going and 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.879 we'll just have the cape over the face looks perfect, 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:09.719 no reason, no notes, no reason to change anything. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:11.760 It does not look perfect at all. The guy that 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.800 got to replace Bella Lagosi kind of looks like Jared Letto. 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.280 He's just like creeping around with slicked back hair and 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:20.480