Movie Review: Ed Wood

Over the years I have developed a liking for Johny Depp because of the roles he played. Among my friends, he is best known for fantasy roles he played but there’s this other side of him, not many know that he has also enacted a lot of biographical personalities also namely Donnie Brasco in Donnie Brasco, George Jung in Blow and the one I am today going to review, Edward Davis "Ed" Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood.

This 1994 biographical movie shows the struggle of Ed Wood in Hollywood. It also explores the friendship between Ed Wood and Bella Lugossi, the actor well known for playing the title role in 1931 movie Dracula. The film also shows Ed Wood’s relationship and breakup with actress Dolores Fuller who would later have a successfull songwriting career, his brief involvement with actress Loretta King and relationship with Kathy O Hara after his break up.

This Tim Burton directed flick not only explores Ed Wood’s vision and the cheap methods adopted by him for his screenplays but also explores his carefree attitude and friendly and lenient nature as a director having to take almost zero retakes during film shoots. With Orson Welles being his idol, Ed Wood remained a struggling producer, director, scriptwriter and actor throughout his life having had made movies which were critical as well as commercial failure. He had signed many stars of that time namely Bella Lugossi and Vampira to name a few. The film shows the making of three Ed Wood movies namely Glen and Glenda (which was a critical as well as commercial failure) ,Bride of the Monster (in whose premiere it was shown that Ed Wood, his girlfriend, Vampira and the rest of the cast attending the premiere were chased away by the angry mob to have watched such a silly flick)  and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

As a person, he had a good heart ,having had the tendency to keep everyone happy which his movies could not do, staying loyal to his friends and naturewise, he loved to wear women’s clothing, this was the reason why he claimed he was the perfect director for the movie I changed my sex  later renamed Glen or Glenda because in a way it was his own biography; as a businessman he had excellent convincing power, he had managed to convince B movies producer George Weiss to let him direct Glen or Glenda, he convinced Bella Lugossi to star in his movies Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster , he had persuaded meat packing industry tycoon Don McCoy to fund Bride of the Monster, McCoy’s son  Tony McCoy did the lead role in that film; he had also persuaded a church leader named Reynolds to fund his movie Grave leaders from outer space which would later be renamed Plan 9 from outer space.

As an admirer of biographical films which show the titular character’s rise and fall and then death, I really wish they could have shown the last years of Ed Wood, but then in a way they did that. After the climax which shows Ed Wood at the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space believing that this will be the film he will be remembered for and driving off to Nevada with Kathy to get married; the closing credits reveal that Ed Wood continued to struggle in Hollywood but could not achieve mainstream success, Kathy had been his loyal wife throughout supporting him in his ups and downs, he later made many monster nudie films and died, two years after his death he was posthumously given the accolade of ‘The Worst Director of all time’ earning him a new generation of fan following.  The aftermath of other actors like Bella Lugossi, Amazing Chriswell, Vampira etc were also revealed before closing credits.

Almost all of Tim Burton movies star Johny Depp, however his movies have title roles for which Johnny Depp is the perfect choice. This movie was a surprise to have been directed by Tim Burton, and that too so perfectly. Johny Depp was awesome as ever in this film too. The biggest plus point of this movie was the star cast, they were all supposed to play real life characters and I checked out the real pictures of the characters in internet, it was as if they all have come alive in this Tim Burton’s directorial venture. 

For people who love to know about the classic period of cinema, this movie is a must watch since Ed Wood is a director who deserves worth a mention in Hollywood’s history.

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