Kelly WandNight of the Ghouls
August 18th 2006 04:47
Ed Wood is frequently described as the worst director of all time. Having sat through the "Lost in Space" movie, I find this claim difficult to substantiate even within the narrower constraints of genre. Ed Wood’s films may be bad in the traditional sense but somehow they manage to defy not only description and disbelief but also criticism. They appear fully formed from an alternate universe where many of the regular conventions do not apply. Eddie's films have quirks. They have so many quirks that there is little room left for anything that isn't quirky. When you hear that much overused expression "a quirky comedy" do not listen. Once you have seen an Ed Wood film, only then will you know the true meaning of the word quirky.
Let's talk quirks. There's that angora fetish. Anyone who has seen "Glen or Glenda" knows what I'm talking about. Ed liked to dress up. He believed clothes not only made the man but the woman also! If an opportunity arose to product place his favourite fetish object then he leapt at the chance like a true auteur. Ford had Monument Valley. Hawks had the comradery of real men. Wood had angora sweaters. If Ed had one cinematic regret, it was not being able to find an angora sweater large enough to place upon a rubber octopus.
Then there are the voiceovers (supplied in the case of "Night of the Ghouls" by "renowned" television psychic Kriswell). Seldom have such serious tones been employed to such poorly written material. Most film makers are delighted by the opportunity presented by simple wordless actions. A man emerges from a house and plucks a flower. That would be enough for most film makers. He or she would leave that image open so as to let the audience invent an emotional response and in that way make connections to the character. Not Eddie. Eddie has to tell us what the man is doing, what he's feeling and what he had for breakfast last Tuesday. He must tell us all of these things and more and he must tell us all of these things with the authority of a god and the grammatical skills of an over stimulated eight year old.
Plots are constructed out of whatever stock footage is available. If you have footage of a giant squid then the mad professor must perish in the tentacles of said ocean dwelling beast no matter how land locked the locale. Stampeding buffalo? Man, that looks cool. We'll fit that in somewhere. Probably next to the 8mm footage of Bela Lugosi romping through the cemetery in his Dracula drag.
I won't go into the standard of dialogue or sets. See an Ed Wood movie and you'll see for yourself. Budgetary constraints often lead not so much to yawning gaps in continuity but often to terrifying black holes from which no logical explanation can escape. It will be night in studio shots and daylight on location. When the two are interwoven, the effect is - to put it mildly - disconcerting.
Back in the early 1950s, Wood's first feature was the transvestite travesty "Glen or Glenda". Some, perhaps with their own particular axes to grind, call it a camp classic whilst others call it crap. Although this film is not short of failings, it's reputation is made far worse by the actions of producer George Weiss who added an entire reel of unrelated footage to bring the film up to something close to feature length. This other film arrives unexplained, like someone has sat on the remote control and leaves in much the same fashion some twelve minutes later. Viewed with out this inserted reel, the film certainly runs a whole lot better. It even makes sense, for Christ’s sake. Still, even with this unwarranted intrusion, its allegedly lurid subject matter would accord it cult status regardless and who am I to argue that. Any film featuring a demented Lugosi repeatedly screaming "Pull the Strings!" can't be all bad.
Wood followed up with "Jailbait" and "Bride of the Monster". You don't hear much about the first of these two films because it is not all that different from many other B (or is that Z) grade features of the time. Bad dialogue, corny stories - so what? Criminals? Plastic surgery. You know the story line already. Whilst it is fun, in the great bin of trash, it failed to stand out unless placed within the context of Wood's life work. Meanwhile, “Bride of the Monster” is quite splendid in its own strange way. Lugosi’s “hunted and despised” speech is delivered beautifully by an actor not renowned for his depth. Tor Johnson’s ability to make walls wobble with the slightest touch is also equally impressive though one would imagine this wasn’t intentional.
For Wood's true nadir, one does not have to wait long for his grandest turkey of them all; "Plan Nine from Outer Space". This is the film that proves every bad word said about his work true (and yet, every good word too). So many of its problems could have been resolved so easily. Trying to match your stock Lugosi footage with a physically dissimilar double is one thing but surely the shot could have been improved by shooting over the double's shoulder! At least then it wouldn't have been so glaringly obvious. If only someone had remembered to write “Exterior - Night” on the script!
Speaking of scripts, television ghoul girl Vampira was so appalled by Wood’s literary skills that she demanded to play her role mute. Strangely, if she is remembered at all these days, it is for this movie alone - though one suspects big chested clone Elvira watched her a lot on late night television as her character, shall we say, developed.
Lugosi's off screen death at the start of the movie ranks amongst the most toe curling moments in cinema. You are staggered by the audacity of even thinking you could get away with something so patently absurd. Even after multiple viewings, I personally cringe in embarrassment on Wood’s behalf. Few directors have drawn this reaction from their audience. Luckily, even before one can register just how pathetic Wood’s directional abominations actually are, he perpetrates another atrocity upon the screen. One is carried along on one wave of shock after another.
Strangely, these are also the very things that have allowed "Plan Nine" to weather time so well. Try finding copies of contemporary genre flicks like "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "The Thing from another World", "Tarantula" or "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”. Check out the incredibly high standards demonstrated by these studio pictures. The acting is no less wooden, the effects little better and the stories equally absurd. But let’s take it another step further. Those who ridicule Wood's work should perhaps take a look at classics like "Lawrence of Arabia" (Alec Guiness portrayal of an Arab from deep beneath a thick coating of shoe polish is preposterous). Check out John Wayne in "King of Kings" where you will discover that truly this man was the son of God. Check out Hollywood's caricatures of women and ethnic minorities in general during this period. If you really want to shock yourself, take a look at “A Streetcar named Desire” and watch the legendary Marlon Brando ham it up with his cries of “Stella!” Did anyone ever seriously think that this was as good as acting ever got? With just a cursory glance at the films of the time, you'll soon see how low the quality bar was set in the so called golden age of movies. Wood wasn't that far beneath his sneering Hollywood brethren even though he was spending most of his minute budget on booze and shoving what little was left up Lugosi’s arm..
But enough of Wood's work in general. Let us move on to his fifth feature and subject of this review, "Night of the Ghouls."
Again, this is not regarded as a stand out work. There are hints that it is some kind of sequel to Bride of the Monster in that it occurs in a house rebuilt over the ruins of the old Monster house. Criswell emerges from his coffin to talk a lot whilst saying nothing. Teenagers are shown fighting with each other for no obvious reason. To suggest that, if someone edited out the unnecessary voiceovers and unrelated stock footage of teenage delinquency, this movie would flow much better is to miss the point. Of course it would improve the picture no end - but then it wouldn't be an Ed Wood film, would it? One imagines that poor Ed, his opening cinematic salvo ruined by his producer, decided that he would adopt the insult as his own personal style - his own badge of honour. How many of us have turned our greatest defeats into triumphs through a little bit of spin?
Despite, or maybe because, of their many shortcomings, the films of Ed Wood remain entertaining. If I have friends over and I ask them to pick out a movie to watch, do they select John Ford's "The Searchers" or Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" or "Rashomon"? No. Hey, I’ve got “Citizen Kane” and “Touch of Evil”. Do they want to see that famous opening tracking shot? Absolutely not. They break out the beer and go straight to the work of Ed Wood or John Waters. "Oh, man! You've got this!" they squeal in delight. Maybe that says a lot about the company I keep or maybe it doesn't. This phenomenon is so universal that it defies simple laws of coincidence. After all, no matter how bad an Ed Wood film is, it is far less painful than watching something like "Kramer vrs Kramer", "Love Story", "Gone With The Wind" or one of those countless other "worthy" and Oscar winning yawnfests. Come on. Admit it. By the time that Clark Gable gets around to saying that he doesn't give a damn, neither do you. You gave up on giving a damn even before the intermission. It doesn’t matter how many people told you that it is a masterpiece, it simply bored the living crap out of you. Ed Wood, at least, delivers the goods.
Besides, just as hearing the Sex Pistols or The Velvet Underground inspired ten thousand would be musicians, the films of Ed Wood must have inspired countless would be film makers. For a start, you know you can do better than that and, no matter how bad the film you make is, there must be an audience for it out there somewhere. Even if you have to pump drugs in through the ventilation system during the screening, you’ll find someone who’ll sit through it. They may even grow to like it.
When watching an Ed Wood film, the whole process of film making is exposed to you in the ineptitude of the production. You can see what works and what doesn't in a way that is hidden in the seamless perfection of a "Fargo", a "Casablanca" or a "Once upon a time in the West".
After watching "Night of the Ghouls", the idea of making a movie suddenly seems strangely feasible. You look at the cast and you realise that your friends could perform at least to that kind of a standard. Hell, your friend’s will look like Guilguds. If what you have just viewed had something akin to a screenplay then surely any idiot can write one. As for camera work, well you just point the damn thing in the general direction of the action and turn it on. Your framing couldn't be that much worse than what was displayed there even if you left the camera rolling while you leapt out and acted in front of it. You don't need cranes or dollies. Your house and garden will provide any set you're ever likely to need. Heck, you could do it in a weekend.
An inspirational work? Well, maybe that's stating the case a little forcibly but in a strange, back handed kind of a way it's true. It was seeing David Cronenberg’s “Rabid” and John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13” that made me want to pick up a camera. But it was “Plan 9 from Outer Space” that made me actually do it.
There's little more I can say about "Night of the Ghouls". If, however, I’m going to maintain some kind of pretence that this article has something to do with the film it is named after, I should at least offer some kind of synopsis. All right. It's the tried, tired and true story of the occult conman receiving comeuppance via supernatural forces. There's a spirit medium called Dr Acula whose role, in the absence of Lugosi, provides veteran hardman actor Keanne Duncan a chance to strut his stuff. (Well, not all his stuff - his nickname was Horsecock for reasons not shown in this motion picture!). Wrestler, Tor Johnson gets to reprise his role of Lobo from "Bride of the Monster" with some added burn makeup. Yes! Somehow he survived the nuclear blast even though he was sitting there at ground zero! Paul Marco gets to reprise his idiot cop role from "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Valda Hansen makes you wish that she had made about a hundred other movies in spite of the material laid here at her feet. What more do you need to know except the word "Angora" appears nowhere in the script. However, in an early scene seemingly snipped from another unrelated film, a victim in the making runs past camera in a sweater made of said fibre. The police never notice her murder. The scene has no relevance to the film at all. Auteur theorists take note at the extent this man goes to just to include his tell tale signature!
Enjoy! I know I did.
| 65 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog