Ed Wood (film): Difference between revisions

Ed Wood
File:Ed Wood.jpg IMDB 8.0/10 (31,051 votes)
Directed by	Tim Burton
Written by	Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Produced by	Tim Burton Denise Di Novi
Starring	Johnny Depp Martin Landau Sarah Jessica Parker Patricia Arquette Bill Murray Jeffrey Jones Lisa Marie George "The Animal" Steele Mike Starr
Distributed by	Buena Vista
Release dates	September 28, 1994 (USA)
Running time	127 min.
Language	English
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.

• Johnny Depp – Ed Wood, Jr.
• Martin Landau – Bela Lugosi
• Sarah Jessica Parker – Dolores Fuller
• Bill Murray – Bunny Breckinridge
• Patricia Arquette – Kathy O'Hara
• Jeffrey Jones – Criswell
• Lisa Marie – Vampira
• George "The Animal" Steele – Tor Johnson
• Juliet Landau – Loretta King
• Vincent D'Onofrio – Orson Welles

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.

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 has Tor Johnson being new to the idea of movies when Ed "discovers" him. In fact, Tor had actually been acting in films since 1934, and his work with Wood came only at the very end of a long acting career.
• 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. It was actually the son who secured the uniforms for Plan 9.
• In reality, the Baptists who sponsored the film 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 did not meet Ed Wood until the filming of Plan 9, through their mutual friend Paul Marco. Likewise, it was Criswell who introduced Paul Marco and Ed Wood.
• 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 such a glamorous premiere. (However, this may be a misinterpretation, as we don't see the people in the theater cheer, and they only stand outside and stare at Wood.)

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 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. 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.

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.

• Transgender in film and television
• Cross-dressing in film and television
• List of recent films in black-and-white

• Online Trailer
• Online Clip - features Johnny Depp and Martin Landau (1 min 52 sec)
• Ed Wood at IMDb
• The Tim Burton Collective: Ed Wood