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Ed Wood (film)

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Ed Wood
File:Ed Wood.jpg
Theatrical release poster.
Directed byTim Burton
Written byScott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Produced byTim Burton
Denise Di Novi
StarringJohnny Depp
Martin Landau
Sarah Jessica Parker
Patricia Arquette
Bill Murray
Jeffrey Jones
Lisa Marie
George "The Animal" Steele
Mike Starr
Distributed byBuena Vista
Release dates
September 28, 1994 (USA)
Running time
127 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$18,000,000 (est.)

Ed Wood is a biopic directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp as the cross-dressing cult movie maker Edward D. Wood Jr. The film, shot in black and white, was made in 1994 and based in large part on Rudolph Grey's biography Nightmare of Ecstasy. The film focuses on the period in Ed's life when he made his best-known films, and also his relationship with Bela Lugosi (Oscar winner Martin Landau), the down-on-his luck actor who had starred as Dracula in the film of the same name. Though a box office failure at the time of its release, it was critically hailed[1] and has subsequently been voted onto IMDB's "top 250" by its users. It also resulted in a 1994 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award win for Martin Landau.

Characters, cast and crew

The film includes cameo appearances from actors who had worked with Wood on Plan 9 From Outer Space. Conrad Brooks (who played one of the comic policemen) appears as a bartender, and Gregory Walcott (who played the hero) appears as one of the potential financiers of Bride of the Monster. In addition, Paul Marco, the other comic policeman, can be spotted in the background. The two men are played by Max Casella and Brett Hinkley.

Juliet Landau, who plays Loretta King, is Martin Landau's daughter.

This is the only Tim Burton film to date that does not have a music score by Danny Elfman; the soundtrack for Ed Wood was by Howard Shore.

Factual inaccuracies

Although the film is avowedly stylized and heightened for comic effect, most of the events it depicts are fairly close to reality, despite their oddness (such as Bela Lugosi's death during production and his replacement by a shrouded extra). Still, there are some departures from truth.

  • In Burton's film, Dolores Fuller learns of Wood's transvestitism after reading the screenplay for Glen or Glenda. In reality, she remained unaware until the film was finished.
  • In the film, the famous footage of Lugosi picking a flower takes place outside Lugosi's house. In reality, the house belonged to Tor Johnson.
  • Lugosi was not asked to leave the hospital prematurely, he made a full recovery and newsreel footage exist of him leaving under his own power.
  • In the movie, Lugosi's funeral is attended only by Ed Wood and his acolytes. In reality, Lugosi's funeral was well-attended by his family and numerous fellow film stars, including Boris Karloff.
  • Burton depicts Tor Johnson as a newcomer to the movies when "discovered" by Ed. In fact, Johnson had acted in films since 1934.
  • Tor Johnson is seen at the premiere of Plan 9 with two young children who are as plump as he is. In reality, Johnson's children were grown up by that time (his son secured the police uniforms for Plan 9).
  • Contrary to Burton's film, the Baptists who sponsored Plan 9 were not opposed to the title Graverobbers From Outer Space. The exact circumstances are unknown, but the film, which took three years to release, was distributed as Plan 9 From Outer Space without any acknowledgement of the congregation. It is possible that Wood, or his distributor, were trying to avoid paying royalties. (See The Haunted World Of Edward D. Wood, Jr. for more details.)
  • Bunny Breckinridge is depicted as an old friend of Ed Wood's, but in fact he did not meet him until the filming of Plan 9, after being introduced through their mutual friend Paul Marco. Similarly, Marco was in fact introduced to Wood by Criswell.
  • Lugosi never hated Karloff, though, supposedly, towards the end of his life he had some drug-addled fantasies that Karloff was a monster out to get him.
  • In order to give the film a somewhat uplifting ending, the script takes its most serious licenses at the end. Wood never met Orson Welles, nor did Plan 9 have a glamorous premiere (it was not released until 3 years after completion).

Origin

File:EdWood-00.jpg

Tim Burton was due to direct the Jekyll and Hyde adaptation movie, Mary Reilly and was staying in Poughkeepsie, New York when he was approached with an offer to produce Ed Wood. There were a number of administrative and artistic problems with Mary Reilly, and so Burton decided to abandon the project and to direct Ed Wood instead, on the provision that a script could be written quickly. The script was written in true Ed Wood style. According to Burton, a comparatively large script (of 140 pages) was delivered in record time by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the writers of the critically derided Problem Child movie series. Alexander and Karaszewski had been fans of Wood since they were students and so it was written with an enthusiasm not unlike that of Ed Wood himself.

According to Burton (in the book, Burton on Burton), there was some karmic significance of his directing Ed Wood in that he was staying in Wood's birthplace at the time of being offered the production rights and Ed Wood's transvestitism parallelled the duality of Mary Reilly's Jekyll and Hyde.

The background research for Ed Wood relied heavily on Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey (ISBN 0922915245), a full-length biography, which draws on interviews from Wood's family and colleagues.

Burton and Wood

Burton admits to having always been a fan of Ed Wood, which is why the biopic is filmed with a certain sympathy and admiration rather than derision of Wood's work. Similarly, Burton acknowledged that he probably portrayed Wood and his crew in an exagerately sympathetic way, stating he did not want to ridicule people who had already been ridiculed for a good deal of their life. Burton's respect for Wood is also hinted at in his film Edward Scissorhands - the director has stated that he named the lead character in the film "Edward" because of its similarity to the name "Ed Wood." The relationship between Wood and Lugosi in the script echoes closely Tim Burton's relationship with his own idol and two-time colleague, Vincent Price.

DVD

The DVD edition of Ed Wood initially had difficulty reaching store shelves in North America due to unspecified legal issues. In February 2004, a DVD was shipped to stores, only to be recalled again without explanation—though some copies quickly found their way to collectors' venues such as eBay. The DVD was finally released on October 19, 2004, minus the transvetitism-themed featurette "When Carol Met Larry", which is highly speculated was the reason for the legal woes. However, on the Dutch edition of the DVD (and probably the entire German 2-region) this featurette is present.

Another theory states that the producers did not have the legal right to release a film including the song "Que Será Será" on DVD. The song barely plays in the background of one scene, but is featured prominently in the cut sequences included.

Yet another theory is that it was due to a deleted scene where Lugosi refers to 'those bastards at Universal'. This is supported in that this scene can only be found as an Easter Egg on the final DVD release.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ed Wood (film).
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