Ed Wood films anyone?

ALL OF YOU ON EARTH ARE IDIOTS!

hahaha the montage in Glen or Glenda with the devil in it...total WTF? genius

Read the oral history of Ed Wood, "Nightmare of Ecstasy," if you haven't already....

Glen or Glenda is not all that "hilarious". It is a well made movie. It is not boring.

It is also dull.

Tim Burton most def left out the sad depressing spiral, but that was essential to making Wood's life a comedy.

PAUL MARCO, RIP
HOLLYWOOD, Calif--Actor Paul Marco, who had aspirations of greatness in the movie business, but is primarily remembered for his association with grade-Z filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr., died at his home here May 13 after a long illness. His age seems to be a matter of some confusion, but most reports say he was 80. MSTies will remember him as the bumbling Kelton the Cop in the movie in episode 423- BRIDE OF THE MONSTER.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, the youngest of 13 children, Marco grew up expecting to be a Hollywood star, and doing everything he could to bring it about, including taking dancing, singing and drama lessons. He worked as a child actor in the "Meglin Kiddies," troupe, which also produced such legends as Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.

He graduated from Hollywood High School and served in the Navy during WWII, after which he returned to his quest for stardom, mostly appearing in local theater productions. That work got him some attention from scouts, and resulted in his screen debut in 1944's "Sweet And Lowdown." The appearance does not appear to have helped him much: His next film appearance didn't materialize for eight years (and it was a small, uncredited one at that).

Reports differ on how Marco first met Wood. Some claim it was his agent who introduced the actor to Wood, during preproduction of "Bride of the Monster," leading Wood to rewrite a character in the script so that Marco could get a role. Marco's agent also claims she thought up the name of the Kelton character.

Others say it was TV soothsayer Criswell (who appeared in Wood's infamous "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and saw star potential in Marco), who introduced the two. However it happened, Marco soon became a familiar of Wood's, and part of Wood's loosely-knit stable of ensemble players. In addition to "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan 9," he also appeared as Kelton in the awful "Night of the Ghouls" (1959). As Wood's film ambitions began to dissipate toward the end of his life, Marco found work elsewhere, including a role in 1965's "Rat Fink," but soon he retired from acting. The two remained friends until Wood's death in 1978.

Marco worked for many years as a props man at Paramount Studios.

In the 1980s, as the resurgence of interest in Wood's films began, Marco began appearing at autograph conventions and was interviewed for many documentaries and books about Wood. He founded his own fan club, through which he sold autographs and other memorabilia. In 1995 he recorded a song for Dionysus Records, reprising the Kelton character, called "Home on the Strange." In 2005 he again appeared as Kelton in a science fiction satire/tribute film called "The Naked Monster."

Most recently he was planning a three-part, made-for-DVD series of short films, again in the role of Kelton. Only the first, "Kelton's Dark Corner," was completed for his death.
Marco is survived by several nieces and a nephew. He was preceded in death by a son.

What a strange phrase.

Edward D. Wood, Jr.: [on phone with Mr. Feldman] Really? Worst film you ever saw. Well, my next one will be better. Hello. Hello.

Best Burton movie hands down.

Ed's muse Dolores Fuller dead at 88:

http://wearemoviegeeks.com/2011/05/dolores-fuller-ed-wood-star-and-elvis-songwriter-dead-at-88/

Rock a hula baby forever.

let's all sleep in our angora tonight.

This is a pretty good first sentence for a NYT obit:

"Dolores Fuller, the muse, girlfriend, leading lady and involuntary costumer of Ed Wood Jr., the cross-dressing writer and director of films so awful they have a stupefying, apocalyptic beauty, died on Monday at her home in Las Vegas."

NYC retro includes some of the later pr0n movies -- any standouts?:

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/43153

NYT:

The Anthology series is just one of several new projects devoted to Wood’s late-career sex-theme work. In July, Alpha Blue Archives released “The Lost Sex Films of Ed Wood Jr.,” four DVDs of his work from the early 1970s. They include the sexploitation biker tale “Nympho Cycler,” in which a bloated Wood appears in drag, and “Necromania,” a dimension-spanning sex romp that was released in soft and hard-core versions. (Anthology will show the soft one.) In November, the distributor Alternative Cinema plans to release “Ed Wood’s Dirty Movies,” a three-film DVD collection that features “The Young Marrieds,” an X-rated movie about a couple on a sexual adventure. And in October, OR Books in New York is to publish “Blood Splatters Quickly,” a collection of more than 30 short stories written by Wood, sometimes under the pseudonym Ann Gora, that appeared in 1970s girlie magazines like Gallery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/movies/ed-wood-b-movie-king-gets-a-film-retrospective.html

would've thought the rudolph grey-curated evening would be the one to go to, if you only had to pick one

true enough

revised bio coming out too!

So the two "lost" TV shows were, well, very Ed Wood.

Then we saw color home movies from the late '50s/early '60s, with EW cavorting in drag twice -- once at a party in pearls and a flowery dress, and then next to the Christmas tree (presumably alone w/ the wife) trying on assorted slips, undies, pink angora, etc. Rudolph Grey chimed in at this point, "He wouldn't have wanted anybody to be screening this." Yet, they were!

what a brave new world we live in

I love Glen or Glenda so much, but this wiki discovery was very disillusioning:

The erotic-themed vignettes were not created by Wood. They were reportedly added by producer George Weiss. He needed extra scenes to add to what he felt was an overtly -short film.

Overtly!

Oh now this looks pretty fucking great:

https://goldninjavideo.com/collections/releases/products/blu-ray-ed-woods-revenge-of-the-dead

Gold Ninja Video is honoured to present Ed Wood’s REVENGE OF THE DEAD (aka. NIGHT OF THE GHOULS) for the first time in HD with a coffin full of new extras destined to thrill and delight the bravest of souls that dare enter the domain of the deceased.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

*Two presentations of REVENGE OF THE DEAD: matted 1.85:1 widescreen and open matte full-screen

*Audio commentary by Will Sloan and Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club podcast

*Audio commentary by film historian Elizabeth Purchell and KJ Shepherd

*Ed Wood Apocrypha: A Video Discussion

*Kelton The Cop: An Appreciation of Actor Paul Marco by Justin Decloux and Will Sloan

*The complete KELTON’S DARK CORNER (2006-2015), featuring Paul Marco’s final appearance as “Kelton the Cop,” with a new introduction by director Vasily Shumov

*BONUS FEATURE: Ed Wood’s JAIL BAIT (1954) in SD with optional commentary by Will Sloan and Justin Decloux

*SUPER 8 presentation of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE: With Optional Commentary by Justin Decloux and Will Sloan

*TRICK SHOOTING WITH KENNE DUNCAN (1960), a short film by Ed Wood

*Archival interview with Paul Marco

*The 2K scan of FINAL CURTAIN (1957), an unsold TV pilot by Ed Wood, which was incorporated into Revenge of the Dead.

*Ed Wood trailers

*Liner notes by Ed Wood expert Greg Dziawer

Will Sloan has been doing the rounds promoting his critical study of Ed Wood, which promises to be a banger - lots of material on his lesser known writing and porn films. Dana Gould podcast probably the most high profile one he's been on for this:

https://www.danagould.com/hollywood-or-dont/

I went to a sold-out screening on Friday night of two films introduced by Will Sloan, Revenge of the Dead (aka Night of the Ghouls) and Take it Out in Trade. The first is kind of an Old Dark House thriller involving a phony swami and a real ghost, as well as a bit of footage about juvenile delinquency that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, but hey, might as well throw it in. The second is a recently discovered softcore porn comedy involving an extremely horny detective who gets hired to track down a missing girl by her parents. There are endless gags where the detective uses the family's money to take extravagant vacations, which are depicted via footage shot at the airport and scenes of someone sitting at a table next to a travel poster for Paris, Greece, Norway, Argentina, etc. Probably 25% of the movie is scenes of women in various states of undress walking up and down a shag-carpeted staircase to a basically atonal xylophone soundtrack. Wood also appears as a drag queen, and there is a scene with a married trans couple, who are depicted as having a pleasant domestic life; pretty much everyone else in the movie is a caricature or there to provide nudity. But the editing is genuinely wild and the humor is intentional and self-aware.

They also screened Wood's TV pilot Final Curtain, which is basically an actor walking around an empty theater scaring himself while nothing happens, with an increasingly hysterical voiceover. Concept described as "what if a room was scary?"