Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 218: What motivates Bela Lugosi's character in Plan 9?

Never is a long time, as Bela Lugosi proves in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).

When I think about the movies I've seen the most times, a few titles come immediately to mind, including The Wizard of Oz (1939), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), This is Spinal Tap (1984), and The Big Lebowski (1998). Among Ed Wood's movies, however, the clear winner is Plan 9 from Outer Space aka Graverobbers from Outer Space (1957). I first sat through this notorious sci-fi horror chiller in October 1992 as part of a four-film Ed Wood marathon in Flint, Michigan. Since then, I've probably seen Plan 9 theatrically about a half-dozen more times. At home—through VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming—I've screened it dozens of times in whole or in part, often while doing research for this series.

In short, I've spent many hours of my life with this odd little film. And yet, all these decades later, it may still have things to teach me. I'll give you an example.

Critic Harry Medved, who helped give both Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space some measure of immortality with his book The Golden Turkey Awards (1980), recently devoted an episode of his PBS documentary series Locationland to the making of Plan 9. Among the filming sites Medved visited was 15129 Lakewood St. in the Sylmar neighborhood of Los Angeles. Back in the 1950s, this charming domicile was the residence of actor-wrestler Tor Johnson, who played Inspector Daniel Clay in the film. Johnson allowed Ed Wood to use the site as the home of Bela Lugosi's unnamed character, generally referred to as Old Man or Ghoul Man. In Plan 9, we see a grief-stricken Lugosi—still reeling from the death of his young wife (Vampira)—smelling the roses outside the house before wandering into traffic and getting run over.

"Confused by his great loss," intones narrator Criswell, "the old man left that home, never to return again."

Except Lugosi totally returns again just 23 minutes later, as proven by that aforementioned episode of Locationland. When Harry Medved visited the house in Sylmar, the owner graciously let him film the outside. But Medved and his guest, comedian and writer Dana Gould, wanted to film the back porch of the house as well, because this is where Ed Wood shot the scene in which Bela's character, having been resurrected from the grave as a zombie, enters his former home, now owned by pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his wife Paula (Mona McKinnon). Jeff's away when Bela arrives, so Paula is all by herself and quite vulnerable when this strange figure suddenly appears in her bedroom.

Even though I've been watching Plan 9 for decades, it took Locationland to make me realize that the Trents are living in Lugosi's character's former home and must have moved into the place shortly after he died. Jeff's coworker, sassy stewardess Edie (Norma McCarty), comments that the house is too close to the local cemetery, "I tried to get you kids to not buy too near one of those things," she opines. "We get there soon enough as it is." She also says Jeff's house is "quiet alright, like a tomb." Jeff is rightfully concerned that the police keep showing up at the cemetery for unknown reasons. What exactly is going on there?

We soon find out what's happening at that cemetery, and it's more bizarre than we could have possibly guessed. Aliens from a faraway planet, represented by the arrogant Eros (Dudley Manlove) and the more pragmatic Tanna (Joanna Lee), are using their "electrode guns" to resurrect some recently deceased earthlings, including both Lugosi and Lugosi's wife. This is all part of a larger campaign to strike fear in the hearts of the human race and thus deter us from creating a weapon called "Solaronite" that will destroy the entire universe. Got all that? 

The aliens' plan is quite convoluted and doesn't come close to working. But they do manage to bring Lugosi back to "simulated life" for a short while. Once resurrected, he is more like a traditional obedient "voodoo zombie" rather than the cannibalistic, aggressive zombies we know from the George Romero films, starting with Night of the Living Dead (1968). Eros and Tanna can control the zombies to some extent, but Lugosi is apparently allowed to explore the world on his own for a while when he's revived. And where does he choose to go first? Right back to his old house.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 217: Some more info about Ed Wood's "TV" novels

Ed Wood wrote two very similar novels late in his career.

If you've been following this blog, you know that I recently reviewed two of Ed Wood's rather obscure gay porn novels from the 1970s: Diary of a Transvestite Hooker (1973) and TV Lust (1977), both credited to his "Dick Trent" pseudonym. Technically, Diary is one of Ed's "nonfiction" books, since it supposedly contains the true-life reminiscences of an actual gay prostitute in Hollywood. However, since the prostitute in question ("Randy") is totally imaginary and his memories utterly bogus, I consider the book just another of Ed's novels. Either way, Diary is mainly an opportunity for Ed to indulge in his love of women's clothing and describe various outfits in fetishistic detail. TV Lust contains much of the same.

A Wood twofer.

The reason I reviewed Diary of a Transvestite Hooker in the first place is that a reader named Leonard Johnson mailed me a bootleg reprint from Amazon that he no longer wanted in his collection. Somehow, having a physical copy in hand (rather than just another PDF on a screen) made me think about the book for the first time in quite a while and consider it as an individual work. Once I'd written extensively about Diary of a Transvestite Hooker, it only felt right to review its little sister, TV Lust, since those two books are so similar thematically. They were even published as a twofer in 2009 under the title Wood on TV by Ramble House. How could I break up such a perfect set?

Side note: When I first bought a copy of Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992) about 30 years ago, I was so unschooled in the ways of porn that I didn't even know "TV" was slang for "transvestite." I figured that TV Lust was about the proliferation of sex on television or something similar. Ed Wood was known to watch hours and hours of television, so it's not an entirely far-fetched notion.

Anyhow, in my review of Diary of a Transvestite Hooker, I noted that my bootleg edition contained the full text of the book as well as the photo captions but was missing the actual photographs from the original 1973 paperback Well, as usual, the ever-reliable James Pontolillo swooped in to rescue me. Not only did he have the pictures, he had some trivia to go along with them. Here are two pics from Diary, supposedly depicting the book's subject on the job.

Randy conducts a typical transaction. Note the john's plaid pants.

Due to the obvious signage, you can easily see that these photographs were taken on the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard, near the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More specifically, in the background, you'll spot a business called The London Shop. According to James, this was "housed in the ground level of the Roosevelt-Hollywood Hotel." The Roosevelt is still very much in business, but The London Shop has since gone the way of all flesh.

The world's ugliest?

As it happens, I do have the photos from TV Lust in my collection. I didn't comment on them in my review because I wanted to focus solely on the text of the book, which may well be the last Ed Wood novel published in the author's lifetime. In Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2001), David C. Hayes described the pictures thusly:

The novel is illustrated with photos of the world's ugliest transvestite in some really awful poses.

Ouch. I feel that Hayes may have been experiencing some burnout by the time he got to TV Lust, having worked his way through many Wood books in a row, and this may have clouded his judgment somewhat when it came time to write his review. Once again, James Pontolillo had some insights to offer on the book's mysterious cover model:

The model featured in TV Lust (1977) went variously by the names Dean Noel and Dena Noel and appeared in only one photoset, apparently originating in 1975. Contrary to the TV Lust cover banner proclaiming “Exclusive Photos,” all of the book's photos came from this photoset, portions of which were first published in Female Mimics magazine some two years earlier. Various pictures of Dean/Dena were published from 1975-1985 in a variety of East and West Coast adult fetish magazines (Female Mimics, Guys in Drag, Ladies by Choice, More She-Males, Transsexuals) and novels (Transvestite Bride, Transvestite Housewife – both by Star Distributors).

Thanks again to James for providing some interesting background information on these striking photographs.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Top 5 Episodes of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang"

Scenes from various episodes of the '80s animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Rather like Joanie Loves Chachi, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang occupies a place of infamy in the Fonzieverse. Why did we even need an animated version of Happy Days? Why does it feature a talking dog and a "future chick" with magic powers? Why are the characters traveling through time in a flying saucer? The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang seems like another example of the Happy Days franchise completely selling out and betraying its own origins as a sweet, simple show about 1950s nostalgia. File it alongside that time Fonzie jumped over a shark in Season 5.

But, over the course of doing These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast since 2018, I've learned a few surprising things. Joanie Loves Chachi, though totally disposable, is a competent, occasionally amusing sitcom. The "jump the shark" episode is actually a lot of fun if you don't take Happy Days seriously (and you shouldn't). And even The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang has its redeeming qualities.

This week, my cohost and I go over our respective picks for the Top 5 episodes of the animated series, and we talk about our overall impressions of the show and its characters. It'd be awfully nice if you would join us.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 216: TV Lust (1977)

For what might be his last novel, Ed Wood returned to familiar territory.

Fans can never agree which of Ed Wood's movies qualify as his "first" and "last." Admittedly, there are a lot of factors to weigh here. Do the films in question still have to be extant today? Does it matter if they were never completed or released in Ed's lifetime? Furthermore, are we only considering his directing jobs, or should we take Ed's numerous credits as a producer, actor, screenwriter, and assistant director into account as well? It all depends on your definitions and your parameters.

Was this the end for Ed Wood?

Similar confusion surrounds Ed Wood's "first" and "last" novels. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest surviving Wood novel we have today is Casual Company: The Laugh of the Marines (1948), but in interviews, Eddie alluded to a few early manuscripts, including The Sunset Murders and The Inconvenient Corpse, that have not yet resurfaced. If one of those is found, it may supplant Casual Company as Ed Wood's literary debut. As for his last novel, the bibliography in Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992) ends with TV Lust (1977), a gay porn paperback that Eddie wrote for Eros Goldstripe under his most-used pseudonym, Dick Trent. The guidebooks Muddled Mind: The Collected Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2001) and Ed Wood's Sleaze Paperbacks (2013) likewise end their lists of Wood novels with TV Lust.

I cannot say with 100% certainty that TV Lust is the final full-length literary effort of Edward D. Wood, Jr. But it certainly arrived very late in Eddie's life. The author was in the end stages of alcoholism by the time it came out, and his most productive years were behind him. I think, when we ask about the first and last works of any artist in any medium, what we really want to know is: Where were they at the beginning of their career and where were they at the end of it? By those standards, TV Lust is a fitting farewell to Eddie's writing career. While Casual Company gave us a snapshot of twentysomething Eddie at the outset of his career, TV Lust shows where that career had taken him in three decades: straight into the gutter.

At first glance, TV Lust feels like a mere rehash of Killer in Drag aka Black Lace Drag (1963), the lurid, violent novel that truly marked the beginning of Eddie's prolific career in adult paperbacks. (For what it's worth, the bibliography in Nightmare of Ecstasy starts with Killer in Drag.) Once again, in TV Lust, Ed tells the story of an androgynous, cross-dressing young man, in this case Chris/Christine, who becomes a hired killer and makes some good money before his luck inevitably runs out. In Muddled Mind, author David C. Hayes is offhandedly dismissive of the novel due to its perceived absence of originality and flair. He writes:

The rigors of writing smut were definitely telling on Wood at this point. The rehashed plot of the transvestite hitman certainly wasn’t original this time around, and the usual colorful characters are almost nonexistent. The flair that made some of his other novels and films bearable, even through a thin plot and the strange grammar, was noticeably absent from TV Lust. It seems as though Ed Wood had finally given up.

As I've made my way through the Wood novels over the course of the last decade, I've found myself agreeing with Hayes less and less, and this is definitely one of those times when I feel his review is not terribly accurate or helpful. Hayes' problem may be that he chose to read too many of Wood's books in too short a timeframe. I've been there myself. Once you get to TV Lust, you start to feel like a bloated contender in the final round of an eating contest, forcing yourself to take just one more bite but hardly being excited about doing so. 

While TV Lust will never be one of my favorite Wood novels, I see no evidence indicating that Ed Wood had "given up" on anything when he wrote it. It's the kind of story that he might have told at any point in his writing career, at least from the '60s onward. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing the author's remaining time on earth was short, we can see this book as Ed exploring his career-long obsessions—women's clothing, death, booze, prostitution, etc.—one last time. Along the way, the author even trots out some of his classic phrases, like "youthful boobs," "sweater girl," "swap spits," and "love object." It's like all these classic Woodian tropes are taking their curtain call. Besides, you can flip to pretty much any page in this novel and find examples of Ed Wood's beautifully tortured writing style. Here's an evocative passage from Chapter Five as the protagonist deals with his father's death:

He got up from the bed and crossed to a chair which was near the window. There wasn’t much to see beyond, but he stared into space … a starless space …the great black beyond. … that’s where his father was … out there somewhere in eternity … he’d never come back. … he’d never be able to tell what he had thought at that moment of recognition, that he had sired a pup which was neither boy or girl.

TV Lust is filled with passages like that, so I'm not sure what Hayes means when he says the book lacks "flair." From where I stand, it has plenty of Ed Wood's unmistakable style. No other author could (or would) have written this.

When I reviewed Diary of a Transvestite Hooker (1973) a couple of weeks ago, I noted that Ed Wood must have been more sober and coherent than usual when he wrote it, because the book largely tells the main character's story in a straightforward, linear fashion. TV Lust, in contrast, is one of Ed Wood's rambling, Proustian novels. Most of the book is taken up with flashbacks that Chris/Christine is having while preparing to carry out a hit. Through these detailed memories, we learn quite a bit about the character's previous life: how he started cross-dressing as an adolescent, how this habit led to a rift with his wealthy father, how he got involved with the sex film industry, and how he eventually became a hitman for the syndicate. Ultimately, because of these extensive flashbacks, Chris becomes one of the more well-rounded and fully-dimensional characters in the Wood canon.

A Station of the Cross.

Hayes complains that TV Lust lacks "the usual colorful characters" that we find in Ed Wood's other novels. Again, I'd point out that Chris himself is given a surprising amount of depth in the novel. We follow him from his early days in the small town of Grandview, where he has his first, fumbling sexual encounters. After a brief, traumatic stint in college, he transitions into the professional world, working as a secretary and living completely as a woman. It's the secretarial job that becomes the unlikely springboard to his criminal career. Above all, what seems to motivate him is his total obsession with women's clothing. When he schemes to get his hands on an angora sweater, it's like a junkie scheming how to get his next fix.

Along the way, as he races toward the inevitable, Chris encounters any number of memorable characters. Early on, for example, we meet Chris' fun-loving, hard-drinking older sister, Shirley—what, you thought we were getting through an Ed Wood novel without a Shirley?—who at first enables her brother's cross-dressing but then disowns him when he takes it too far. Then, there is Tiny, a vivacious and outgoing bisexual woman who takes a keen interest in Chris after they meet at work. Even more intriguing is Tiny's fashionable, mysterious, cross-dressing brother Richard aka Regina, who leads Chris into a life of crime, becomes his lover, then betrays him. Naturally, we have to have a few truly unsavory characters in every Ed Wood book, and TV Lust is no exception. Besides Richard, the heavies here include Talley, Richard's thuggish college roommate, and Solly, an overweight, cigar-chomping pornographer with possible mob connections.

More than anything, reading TV Lust took me back to those Catholic masses that my parents made me sit through, week after week, when I was a child. Along the walls of the church were displays showing the Stations of the Cross, and I spent hours studying these bas-relief vignettes of Christ's suffering and death: "Jesus Falls the First Time," "Jesus Falls a Second Time," "Jesus Speaks to the Holy Women," and so on. Well, TV Lust is like Ed Wood's Stations of the Cross. We get all the classic Woodian moments: "Chris Trades Clothes With an Adventurous Local Girl," "Chris Gets Caught in Drag by His Conservative Father," "Chris Becomes Estranged from His Entire Family," "Chris Dresses Like a French Maid While Being Whipped by His Favorite Prostitute," "Chris Makes His First Porno Film," and finally, "Chris Gets Killed in an Alley."

Come to think of it, maybe there's some special significance to the lead character's name: Chris/Christine. If TV Lust is meant to be Wood's twisted, degraded version of the Christ story, complete with its own cognates of Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene, that makes it one of the most intriguing novels he ever wrote.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 215: "Zeus and His Lovers" (1973)

Zeus was a horny bastard, as Ed Wood understood all too well.

I've covered dozens of Ed Wood's short stories and articles over the years, but I've never owned any of the vintage adult magazines in which they were originally published a half-century or more ago. Most of the short pieces that I've reviewed on this blog have come from the three marvelous Wood anthologies assembled by Bob Blackburn between 2014 and 2022. The magazines Ed Wood worked on during the 1960s and '70s have become very expensive on the secondary market—well out of my price range—and I'm grateful to Bob for buying dozens of them so that Ed's work can be reprinted and enjoyed by fans today.  A few more of Ed's articles have been sent my way by generous readers, typically as PDFs or JPGs. Those were much appreciated as well.

I now own this exact magazine.

Recently, though, reader and podcaster Rob Huffman let me know that a copy of the May/June 1973 issue of Gallery Press' Boy Play was available online for a stunningly low price, and I couldn't resist. The Nixon-era gay porn magazine contained one verified short story credited to Ed Wood, but based on past conversations with Greg Javer, I knew that Eddie probably wrote multiple pieces for that same issue. Sure enough, when the copy of Boy Play arrived in my mailbox a couple of weeks later, I found Ed's unmistakable writing style throughout the entire issue. My preliminary diagnosis is that Eddie wrote every last word in it, including the unsigned editorial at the beginning. Hell, he may have written the copy in the ads!

Would you believe it took me this long to realize that Boy Play is a mere reversal of Playboy, the most famous adult magazine ever published in America? Funny how swapping those two syllables makes all the difference in the world.

I'll probably end up writing multiple blog posts about this one magazine. For now, though, I'd like to concentrate on the one short story in this issue that Ed wrote under his own name. It's called "Zeus and His Lovers," and the title gives you a good indication of its contents.

The story: "Zeus and His Lovers" (aka "Zeus... and His Lovers"), originally published in Boy Play, vol. 2, no. 2, May/June 1973. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Synopsis: Zeus, king of the Greek gods, is happily married to Hera. They have an extremely active and mutually satisfying sex life. In addition, Zeus has numerous mistresses, a fact he does not hide from Hera. However, there is still something bothering him. He feels tremendous pressure to compete sexually with the other male gods, and it seems that all of them have taken young boys as lovers. Zeus is the only one who hasn't.

Zeus and Hera have a marathon lovemaking session. In the afterglow, the god and goddess discuss Zeus' sexual dilemma. The other gods have definitely noticed that he doesn't have a boy lover, and they're starting to talk. There's even a popular "epigram" about Zeus that's going around. Hera tells her husband that she supports him totally in whatever he does and would not be hurt if he took a young male lover. Zeus tells her he already has a boy picked out: a beautiful mortal named Ganymede, who will be the new cupbearer to the gods.

Wood trademarks: mythology (cf. "Thor and His Magic Hammer"); the word "lovely" (cf. Glen or Glenda, many others); heavy use of ellipses and italics; sheer material; supposedly "new" things that are not really new (cf. Glenda); references to characters' body temperatures; pink clouds; kaleidoscope; androgyny; ancient Greece (cf. "The Greeks Had a Word For It," "Sappho Revisited").

Excerpt:

"It is not for me to say what you should do, Zeus. It is only that I must serve you. You must do as you see fit. And if that is the fad, then you should most certainly investigate the cause for the fad and find out what enjoyment might be captured in the tender young bodies of boys."

Reflections: Back in 2022, the late, great Greg Javer and I reviewed an Ed Wood story from 1973 called "Thor and His Magic Hammer." As its title suggests, this strange little fable explores the sex life of the Norse god of thunder, specifically how a mortal woman named Andralia gives Thor a few pointers in the bedroom and makes him a better lover. "Magic Hammer" originally appeared in the May/June 1973 issue of Gallery Press' Goddess. That makes it an obvious counterpart to "Zeus and His Lovers": same publisher, same release date, similar subject matter. Eddie must've been going through a mythology phase in 1973. Or maybe the subject was always on his mind. Remember that Glen or Glenda (1953) makes an incongruous reference to Morpheus, god of sleep.

In hindsight, it's not difficult to see what attracted Ed to this strange, often disturbing material. Greek mythology is rife with loathsome and depraved behavior, much of it sexual in nature, including instances of adultery, rape, incest, and pedophilia. This is the stuff of trashy, exploitative fiction, exactly the kind that Ed Wood wrote. The fact that the Greek gods are capable of supernatural acts, such as turning into animals, only aids them in their debauchery. Their perversion truly knows no bounds.

While the story of Zeus and Ganymede inspired artists for centuries, it seems today like a textbook case of predatory sexual behavior.  According to the myth, Zeus was so taken with this beautiful adolescent boy that he took the form of an eagle, swooped down to earth, grabbed Ganymede, and carried him back to Mount Olympus. There, Ganymede indeed became the cupbearer to the gods, just as it says in this story, as well as Zeus' lover. It's never clear that Ganymede consented to any of this. Nevertheless, Zeus was so grateful for the boy's service that he granted Ganymede eternal youth and beauty. Is anyone else reminded of the real-life story of Liberace and Scott Thorson? While the famed pianist could not make his young lover immortal, he did pay for Thorson to have numerous plastic surgeries.

It's interesting to note that, in "Zeus and His Lovers," Ed Wood portrays Zeus' wife, Hera, as simpering and submissive. Greek mythology portrays her as anything but. In fact, Zeus' love affair with Ganymede angered Hera greatly. She was intensely jealous of her husband's new boy toy and made no secret of this. So why does Ed write her like the ultimate supportive wife, a woman who encourages her husband to have numerous lovers, even young boys? Perhaps this was Ed's commentary on marriage and how a wife "should" behave.

I'd also like to point out that the rest of Boy Play magazine is not about "playing" with actual boys. The magazine includes many explicit pornographic photos of men, and they're all very much of age. Some even look rather weather-beaten. Again, as with his story for Goddess magazine, Eddie may have taken the title of the publication too literally. Maybe even he didn't get the wordplay. 

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonz of the Baskervilles"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) meets Sherlock Holmes in Victorian London.

Contemporary critics may see the animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang as a disappointment or even an outright failure because it "only" lasted 24 episodes between 1980 and 1981. Apparently, to be successful by modern standards, a show has to accumulate many dozens of episodes spread out over numerous seasons. The live-action Happy Days, for instance, ran for 11 seasons and 255 episodes. Now that's an impressive run! Its cartoon counterpart didn't survive nearly so long.

What people overlook is that it was the norm at Hanna-Barbera from the 1960s to the 1980s to produce only a handful of episodes for each of its series and then rerun those same episodes over and over for years. Long-running series like The Flintstones and The Smurfs were the exception, not the rule. The original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? only ran 25 episodes from 1969 to 1970. Jabberjaw and Hong Kong Phooey ran 16 episodes apiece. Josie and the Pussycats ran 31 episodes, but that's only if you count Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Wacky Races only ran 17 episodes, and that got two spinoffs! By those standards, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang did respectably.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we arrive at the final episode of the animated series, entitled "Give Me a Hand, Something's Afoot." This time, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his friends travel to 1894 London and meet the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes (Henry Polic II). If you were hoping for an epic Sherlock/Fonzie team-up, however, this episode may be a bit of a letdown. The characters do meet, but they don't really work together for long. The famous detective's archenemy, Professor Moriarty, is here, but Holmes' sidekick, Dr. Watson, is mysteriously absent.

Does this mean "Something's Afoot" is a bad episode, though? Listen to the latest installment of the podcast to find out!