Ed Wood is a celebration of movies and outcasts. It’s a love letter to the golden age of schlocky movies, and the hopeless dreamers who made them. It tells the story of the famed “worst director of all time” Edward D. Wood Jr., a man who made a series of low budget cheap films which were masterpieces of awfulness. However, as depicted by Johnny Depp, Wood comes off less a talentless hack, and more of an endlessly optimistic man in love with filmmaking. His blind optimism itself deludes him into knowing how miraculously inept he really was.
The film begins with Wood and his fellow misfits of actors putting on a play with a dismal attendance, which closes almost immediately after a bad critical review. When the troupe reads the review, Wood instead focuses on the positive which sites their costumes to be very realistic. This sense of eternal cheerfulness is Wood’s greatest attribute when it comes to fighting against the odds.
One day, Wood notices an ad in Variety, that a low budget producer is making a movie about Christine Jorgensen, the first widely known person to be transgender. However, under the circumstances of his production company, the producer turns her true story into an exploitation film entitled I Changed My Sex!
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Wood meets with the producer saying he can direct this story and give it an emotional core, since he himself likes to dress in women’s clothing. The film turns into one of Wood’s most notorious projects, Glen or Glenda about one man’s struggle to admit to his girlfriend that he is a cross dresser.
Around this time also, Wood strikes up a friendship with famed horror icon Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), who at this time was a washed up movie star with a drug addiction. The two form a bond, and their relationship in turn is mutually beneficial as Lugosi is broke, so Wood can help him out by putting him in his movies, thus giving the films a bit of star power.
Things don’t always work out, and despite pleading and begging with people who could back his films, he usually has to rely on conning, and fast talking his way to get them made. There is a genuine do it yourself spirit to his films, such as when he and his cronies must steal a giant rubber octopus to shoot his film Bride of the Atom (Later renamed Bride of the Monster). When they forget the motor for the octopus, Wood instructs Lugosi, who is supposed to be attacked by it, to flay his arms around and pretend the tentacles are moving by themselves.
There is another instance, where Wood can secure backers from a church, on the condition that everyone on the cast and crew get baptized. It’s quite amusing at the amount of hoops Wood and his cronies must go through in order to make his films. Making it a bit sad that he was delusional enough to think he was making great art.
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As Wood, Johnny Depp gives one of his more memorable eccentric characterizations, under the direction of frequent collaborator Tim Burton. Depp plays Wood as over the top and almost otherworldly. He doesn’t fit within the norms of society, making his unhinged performance seem perfect within a world of madcap outcasts. It’s a wonderful reminder for when Depp was an exciting actor with a non-conformist approach to his characters.
Burton no doubt flourished with his choices and the two combined could still make magic together. This of course was before the time when Burton and Depp were perhaps making too many films together and in danger of repeating themselves too often.
As Lugosi, Landau gives the performance of his career. Not only is it a loving send up of the famed Dracula actor, but it’s also tender and sad. I would argue it’s not too far off from Sunset BLVD’s Norma Desmond in how it depicts the treatment of fading stars and the tragedy that comes along when one is no longer remembered.
Side note: when I first saw Ed Wood in ’94, I was unaware of Lugosi’s work. Since then, I have watched many of his films, and he has become one of my absolute favorite classic film actors.
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Watching Landau’s performance now is like a knife in the gut, and I was almost moved to tears at how his final years were played out unfairly. Knowing Burton’s own fondness for old horror movie actors himself, along with casting his idol Vincent Price in Edward Scissorhands, there is no doubt a personal aspect to the bond between Wood and Lugosi.
Along with this, there is also a strong attachment Wood has with his band of ne’er do well misfits who help him make his movies. These were often people who were either ostracized for looking and speaking differently, such as wrestler Tor Johnson (George “The Animal” Steele), or members of the LGBTQ community like actor John Breckinridge (Bill Murray).
For them Wood’s films were like a haven where they could be accepted and not judged. Burton has often dealt with people who feel different in his films, but this has to be his most outward statement on the matter. These characters are not allegories, like in Burton’s fantasy films but were real people who actually lived and didn’t always have the best lives.
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Wood himself is able to find some happiness when after being shamed by his early girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker), for being a cross dresser, he does eventually find someone who accepts him with Kathy (Patricia Arquette). It is revealed that Kathy stayed with Wood for the rest of his life. This real need for acceptance drives much of the film to an emotional core. It is hardly brought up, but Burton always brings the wonderful eccentricities of this little community to the forefront.
The script was written by dynamic duo Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander who seem to have made a career from writing about iconoclastic misfits who don’t quite fit into normal society. They were also the pair behind the Andy Kauffman biopic Man on the Moon, as well as The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
They even made a spiritual companion to Ed Wood with their most recent comedy Dolemite is my Name about the comedian turned blaxploitation director Rudy Ray Moore. As with that film, they depict the same joy of filmmaking by someone who enters it with more enthusiasm than talent.
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The film is shot in glorious black and white, and is filled with wonderful, eccentric characters, it makes you feel as if you are immersed into an Ed Wood film yourself. The heavy stylized aesthetic is a perfect combination of parody as well as homage to the B-Movie feel his films had. For classic film fans, it is a sheer joy to watch.
Ed Wood never tries to go for realism, otherwise the real story would probably be sadder. We find out at the end of the film, Wood never gained the success he sought, and ended his career making softcore nudie films. However, his films attained a cult status for movie nerds and geeks alike. His films have stayed the test of time even if it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
Even when you do watch an Ed Wood film, you don’t notice the craft, but rather you see the love. The film never makes Wood a joke, which is why it works so well. It remains a loving portrait of a man and his dream, something he was actually able to accomplish despite being bad at it.
Ed Wood is available to stream right now on Amazon.
