Thank You Mr Wood

... and so He did. If you're an Ed Wood fan the above photo and caption not only make sense to you but you probably used that whiny female voice from the movie when you read it in your head. And of course, I don't have to tell you which movie. If you're not an Ed Wood fan, well, I hope after this blogathon you've been persuaded to at least give a couple of his films a look.

I've been blogging for a while and never held a blogathon until now for a couple of reasons. One, I could never think of a topic, and two, I feared no one would show up. The 50th anniversary of the release of Plan 9 from Outer Space (released in July of 1959) gave me the topic that had so long eluded me and my friends and fellow bloggers proved to me I had nothing to fear. With over 50 submissions (fitting given the anniversary) I think I can declare this blogathon a screaming success and I owe it all to Ed Wood. He's the one that actually brought everyone together and did so for a reason that makes me proud. I've heard time and again how we bloggers employ scorched Earth policies on a regular basis and don't enjoy writing about film so much as tearing it down. Of course, I know and you know and any sensible person knows that's not the case. Just look at the outpouring of love whenever a member of the film community falls ill or passes away. And 99 percent of blog content is about movies the blogger loves, not hates. And so it is with Wood.

Ed Wood has been called the worst director of all time but you wouldn't know it from this blogathon. I don't think one of the 50 plus submissions bought into that notion. Most of us are in agreement that Ed was not a very good writer and was certainly sloppy and rushed as a director but he was inspired and sincere and to a lot of people that counts for something. I know it does to me.

From the personal stories and remembrances to reviews of almost all of Wood's movies as well as movies by filmmakers other than Wood, I want to thank everyone who participated from the bottom of my heart. I have had a busy weekend and it continues with a birthday for the youngest son today and the return of the oldest daughter from work on a water filtration project in El Salvador tonight. I may not have time to read and comment on every entry today (although I will certainly try) but know that I appreciate it sincerely.

And now I'd like to take a break for a day or two, well until Tuesday morning at least, and relax. Running a blogathon was quite frankly more work than I thought it would be but I enjoyed every second of it. Monday I think I'll finally set up a Facebook account so prepare to be hit with friend requests from me (and behold my handsome visage). Until yesterday, as I told Bill in an e-mail, he and I were the only two bloggers left on Earth who weren't on Facebook, then the bastard e-mailed me that he had just joined. Son of a bitch beat me to it. Oh well, I'll see Bill and all of you there on Monday.

In the meantime, please - PLEASE - read each and every post in the blogathon if you haven't already. It's one hell of a list of entries and I plan on keeping a permanent link to it in the sidebar, as a sort of repository of all things Wood so that future generations may come here to study the legacy of Edward D Wood, Jr. and stare in gaping awe.

And once more, THANK YOU, each and every one of you who participated either with a post, a suggestion or engagement in the comment section. Thanks to all of you for making it all worthwhile. And thanks in advance to anyone posting today as well.

And now I'm off, like Eros and Tanna surfing the skies in a blazing saucer headed into the unknown of the future, where each of us will spend the rest of our lives. Thanks again everyone!

The Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon

Blogathon Updates:

POST SUBMISSIONS

Thank you Mr. Wood - Greg at Cinema Styles

A Hurried Feeling Encased in his Groin - Bill at The Kind of Face You Hate

One is always considered MAD... - Professor Brian O'Blivion at The Cathode Ray Mission

Screwy Details in Night of the Ghouls - Erich at Bright Lights After Dark

Orgy - Neil at The Bleeding Tree

Dracula vs. Frankenstein - Pierre at Frankensteinia

Ed Wood, Postmortem - Arbogast at Arbogast on Film

Weiss and Wood: When Fetishes Collide - W.B. at Micro-Brewed Reviews

Robot Monster - Mykal at Radiation Cinema

The Raven/The Invisible Ray - Ed at Only the Cinema

An Artist Trapped in a Hack's Body - Ryan at Medfly Quarantine

José Mojica Marins Meets the Spirit of Ed Wood in the World of Coffin Joe - C. Jerry at Bright Lights After Dark

Mesa of Lost Women - Erich at Acidemic Film

Plan 9 at 50 - Richard Harland Smith at TCM's Movie Morlocks

The Beast of Yucca Flats - Mykal at Radiation Cinema

The Deadly Mantis/The Leech Woman - Ed at Only the Cinema

Ed Wood's Town (L.A. in the fifties - A pictorial tour) - Greg at Cinema Styles

In Defense of Robot Monster - Darrell at Rancid Popcorn

Oh my... - Bill at The Kind of Face You Hate

Larry Cohen's Original Gangstas - Fox at Tractor Facts

Daughter of Horror - Erich at Acidemic Film

She-Demons - Mykal at Radiation Cinema

Domo Arigato Mr. Dennis-O - Greg at Cinema Styles

The Space Amoeba - Bob at Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind

Tod Browning Double Feature: Mark of the Vampire/The Devil Doll - Ed at Only the Cinema

This may be scientific, but it's pretty horrible - weepingsam at The Listening Ear

Shocking Facts - Robert Cashill at Between Productions

The Father, the Son and the holy(?) spirit of Ed Wood - Ray at Flickhead

Ed Wood He Wood, or Wood he Woodn't "B" Caught Ed? - The Keeper at Temple of Schlock

Observations of an Ed Wood Ignoramus - Rick at Coosa Creek Cinema

Ghost Train: The Lost Pauline Kael Review of Plan 9 from Outer Space - Chris at The Exploding Kinetoscope

Cult of the Cobra - Ed at Only the Cinema

Ed Wood: How Tim Burton was made into Wood because of Batman and Helped Uncategorized Cinema - Alexander at Comment de Cine

Babes in Arms - Marilyn at Ferdy on Films

Jack Arnold Double Feature: Tarantula/Monster on the Campus - Ed at Only the Cinema

By Any Meager Means Necessary - Greg at Cinema Styles

The Unbroken Dream of Edward D Wood, Jr - Mykal at Radiation Cinema

TCM Underground: Plan 9 from Outer Space - Richard Harland Smith at TCM

Ed Wood: A Neighbor on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Doug at Boiling Sand

Ed's Hollywood: Trouble, Problems, Heartaches - Bill at The Kind of Face You Hate

Game On (An Orgy of the Dead picture post) - Arbogast at Arbogast on Film

Creature from the Black Lagoon series - Ed Howard at Only the Cinema

Plan 9 From Outer Space - Robert Ring at The Sci-Fi Block.

The Calamari Wrestler - Peter Nellhaus at Coffee, coffee and more coffee

Sporting Wood - Ray at Flickhead

The Spirit of Ed Wood - Pax Romano at Billy Loves Stu

Ed Wood related images all week by Pierre at Monster Crazy

Wood Before Cable - Erich at Acidemic Film

In Defense of Ed Wood - Greg at Cinema Styles

VIDEO SUBMISSIONS

The Heartwarming Arthropod of the Baskervilles

Changing the Name of the Turd

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Fever Night aka Band of Satanic Outsiders at the New Beverly Cinema, Friday July 24th, Midnight Showing.

Ed Wood's Town (L.A. in the Fifties - A Pictorial Tour)

Hollywood Boulevard, 1953. Do you know what's playing at the theatre?

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Groundbreaking for the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, 1953. Along with some questionable construction workers are Jack Carson, Connie Towers and Byron Palmer.

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The famous Capitol Records building, 1959.

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To the left is Grauman's Chinese Theater, in 1954. Sadly, Ed never had a premiere here.

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Hollywood and Vine, complete with little girl staring at the camera, 1953.

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Hollywood Savings and Loan. Maybe Ed had a bank account here. Maybe not.

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Hollywood Boulevard gets a million dollar facelift in 1956. Attending the ribbon cutting ceremonies are Peggy Castle, Chill Wills, Lori Nelson and a couple of red-tapers on the city's dole.

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The West Hollywood Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Maybe Ed did research here. Maybe not.

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Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetary, 1956, final resting place of the stars. And no, Bela isn't here, he's here. Criswell is here and Ed is nowhere. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

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Hollywood Freeway. Maybe Ed drove it to work. Maybe not.

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Finally, the photo I had to end with. It's an auto parade in 1958 and the lead car in this photo has been made to appear to be wearing, that's right, an Angora sweater. Now that's a car Ed would've loved.

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Please click on all the photos to enlarge.

*****

Domo Arigato Mr. Dennis-O

If there is any consensus to this blogathon thus far, from reading all the posts submitted, it is that Ed Wood was not the worst director of all time. No one who made films as entertaining and quickly paced could be completely awful. His films are filled with errors, mistakes and accidents. But the movies themselves are simply low-budget sci-fi/horror no better or worse than most else offered up in the fifties. The main thing is that Ed didn't do retakes to correct errors. If someone walked into a wall or the shadow of the microphone was seen or someone clearly forgot their line, Ed didn't reshoot it. This resulted in the effect that his movies are like watching feature length blooper reels. And that makes them very entertaining. So the consensus seems to be that the spirit of Ed Wood is one where the artist is sincerely making the effort to construct a worthwhile piece of entertainment but because of a lack of self-awareness to his own shortcomings the finished piece is entertaining but for all the wrong reasons.

If we trace the spirit of Ed Wood to other mediums where will it lead us? Who is the Ed Wood of other artistic expressions? Weepingsam at The Listening Ear has nominated Dr. John Button in the literature department. I would like to nominate Dennis DeYoung in the music department. Dennis DeYoung for the uninitiated is the founder and former lead songwriter singer/keyboardist for the rock group Styx.

In the seventies I had a fondness for the brazenly bombastic pyrotechnics of Styx. This was a band that knew not the meaning of subtlety. A refrain did not exist that could not be screeched. Witness their first hit, penned by DeYoung of course, Lady. It starts with a lone piano, some soft fanning on the drums, a line or two on a quiet guitar, all perfectly suitable to a ballad of love. And then comes the refrain - LaaaaaaaadEEEEE!!!! Let the screeching begin! It never mattered where a song started, by the time it got to the refrain caterwauling was the order of the day. Babe, The Best of Times, Come Sail Away, Show Me the Way, Don't Let it End - They all start out quiet and finish up shrill. The Rock and Roll Record Guide, a compilation of reviews from rock critics that has seen four editions since the late seventies, once famously said of Styx, referring to DeYoung's songwriting and Tommy Shaw's falsetto singing, that they could take any song, any melody, and "render it virtually unlistenable."

But none of this would put DeYoung on top as the Ed Wood of Rock with so many other contenders out there. No, no. It takes something really special to do that and I think we all know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Mr. Roboto.

Mr. Roboto is a song on the Styx album Kilroy was Here in which DeYoung envisioned a rock opera where the future sees a police state of moralists who have outlawed rock and roll. One rocker, Kilroy, disguises himself as a robot and brings rock and roll back. Uh huh. So, this idea seemed perfectly reasonable to Dennis and not cheesy at all. And then Dennis wrote a song specifically about Kilroy's plot and Mr. Roboto was born.

Now if you have ever had the pleasure of watching VH1's Behind the Music episode on Styx you will immediately recognize from their interviews that co-leader Tommy Shaw and guitarist James "JY" Young were as confused by this concept as anyone. Tommy and JY immediately smelled the overpowering scent of Limburger but could not convince Dennis otherwise. At a benefit concert in Texas featuring hard rock bands Dennis decided to have Styx perform Mr. Roboto complete with the five minute dramatic stage reading that he had written for he and Tommy to perform. Tommy and JY pleaded with him. "Just let us play Renegade and be done with it." Dennis wouldn't budge. They did the piece, were roundly booed and the seeds of dissent that would eventually lead to Tommy and JY kicking Dennis out of the group he had founded were planted.

And Dennis never saw it coming. He was too damn sincere. And likable in his sincerity. I like Dennis DeYoung and I'm not afraid to say it. In fact, if there is anyone in that VH1 special you come away with sympathy for it's him. Sincerity is quickly becoming a lost art form and Dennis DeYoung is one of the last folks in rock to possess it.

Watch that VH1 show if you have the time. DeYoung is Ed Wood through and through. And that's why his songs will always have entertainment value because he wasn't going for camp with Babe or Mr. Roboto. He was going for gold and even if he didn't achieve it he didn't know he didn't achieve it. And that's got Wood written all over it. All Hail Dennis DeYoung! May the Spirit of Ed Wood live in him forever.

Talk Amongst Yourselves...

...as Ed Wood, Tor and crew talk things over on the set of Night of the Ghouls (aka Revenge of the Dead), 1959. I have to take care of a few things this morning and won't be able to update with my own post or read the great posts of others until around 12 noon. See you then.

By Any Meager Means Necessary

It may seem obvious but often needs restating anyway: More money doesn't make a movie better. Often times the best movies of the year are those with the lowest budgets. Of course, by Hollywood standards that still means in the millions and these days budgets are out of control. And before anyone starts playing the familiar tune of "but that's because of inflation. Movies have always cost a lot" let me provide some important details. Movies do cost a lot but if you download an inflation index calculator from the Department of the Treasury, as I did a few years ago and have bored people with it ever since, you will quickly discover that budgets in Hollywood have grown far out of whack with inflation.

Here's how the calculator works: Put in a salary of $15K in 1970, about what my Dad was making then, and it translates to $52K today. That's about right for where he was professionally at the time for the same job today. So it works with that example. Almost anything you want to try works (car prices, food costs, etc.) Plug in the numbers for a specific date in the past and they come back roughly comparable to what you would expect today.

Except movie budgets.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - They have skyrocketed beyond all reason. Let's look at a few examples by going to IMDB where one can get estimated budgets (EB) for movies. For instance, Citizen Kane has an EB of 686,033. What does that come to in 2009 dollars? A little over six million. Nowhere near the average 35 million a lower budget(!) drama runs today. What about the bigger movies, the epics? Well, according to the "making-of "documentary on the special edition DVD of Bridge on the River Kwai, that movie cost a fortune to make. A fortune! So it's a good guideline for how much the big budget stuff went for. It's EB is 3 million in 1957. That comes to 15.8 million in 2009. That's how much Slumdog Millionaire cost to make and it's considered one of the lowest budget sleeper hits in years.

What about that 35 million dollar price tag for the average drama today? Well, let's use Star Wars - 13 million in 1977. Again, watching the documentary on any one of the Special Edition DVDs will alert you to the fact that the studio was ready to shut the production down due to time and cost overruns until they saw a rough cut and dollar signs began flashing in their eyes. What's that massive 13 million dollar budget that had the studio in an uproar come to today? 36 million. Three years later for The Empire Strikes Back Lucas was given unlimited budget to do the sequel - 18 million in 1980. Today that's 45 million. And we still haven't even reached the budget of Changeling released last year with Angelina Jolie and directed by Clint Eastwood, a period drama done for 55 million.

So what happened?

Somewhere in the late eighties Hollywood decided to start paying actors and directors tens of millions of dollars per film. Folks old enough to remember will recall the shock when it was revealed that Jim Carrey or Arnold Schwartznegger were going to be getting 20 million for their next movie. Previously stars had made a fraction of that per film. Killer agents had come in and changed the financial schemes. Also, like a hospital charging 8 dollars for each aspirin knowing that insurance will pay for it, the technicians in Hollywood and rental companies and cities themselves starting charging enormous amounts of money for their services knowing Hollywood, now in the throes of blockbuster bonanzas and massive star egos, would pay it. In the early to mid nineties budgets spiked, costing upwards of five times the amount of a comparable movie made just five years before, and they haven't looked back.

If we go back to Changeling we find that Jolie and Eastwood comprise almost forty million dollars of the 55 million dollar budget. The movie made 98 million worldwide. The profit would have nearly doubled if Jolie and Eastwood hadn't toppled the budget with their salaries but that's neither here nor there. The main point is that movies remain the same. There are great ones, good ones, mediocre ones and awful ones no matter what the cost. So why go crazy spending so much on them when you can get the same results for so much less?

Ed Wood of course didn't spend much but surprisingly, spent more, much more than some of the low-budget wonders we know today. Plan 9 from Outer Space had an EB of $60,000. That comes to $296,930 in today's dollars or roughly, 300,000. Once on the other hand cost $150,000 in 2007 which translates back to $33,000 in 1959. So Once, a movie praised and awarded the world over, was made for about half of what Plan 9 cost. Primer was also praised though received no Oscar noms or awards like Once. It was made for a mere $7,000 or about $1,500 in 1959 dollars.

Ed Wood would have been shocked by the budgets of today's Hollywood, a business that has figured out a way to make computer imagery, something that literally doesn't exist in the real world like an animation cel or a model, cost a fortune. Yes, CGI promised to provide movies with extraordinary special effects at a fraction of the costs since there would be no more stunts, miniatures or time consuming animation and yet Hollywood figured out a way to make it cost more. Ed would have been horrified.

So in these days of penny-pinching and thrifting and desperately trying to save every nickel for that next rainy day I salute those filmmakers currently working, or having done so in the past, on the Ed Wood model of low budget moviemaking. To John Carney, Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Shane Carruth, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Robert Townsend, Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez, George Romero, Herk Harvey, Marc Price and everyone else who's ever made a movie on financial fumes, thank you. Thank you for proving it can be done for less than the annual national budget of a small country. The range in quality isn't that much different than the range in quality for the bigger budget stuff but it pays off in hope at a much higher return because it gives hope to aspiring filmmakers, like me, that one day, maybe, we can do it too. Thanks Ed.

In Defense of Ed Wood

I feel it necessary to kick off this blogathon, this Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon, by first and foremost defending the man whose name it bears. Not only have I seen several Ed Wood films, and recently watched some of them again, but I have come to the conclusion that to call Ed Wood the worst director of all time is not only wrong but confused as well. Watching Ed Wood's films closely in the last two weeks I have noticed the obvious, that they're not very good, and noticed this has little to do with his direction and almost everything to do with his writing. Ed Wood the director could have used a little more patience for re-shoots, a little more money and a much, much better feel for coaching actors, especially given that he worked with some truly horrible actors, but as a technician he kept the action going and wasn't awful with his choices of camera setups and movements. So why the reputation? It's all in the writing.

Edward D. Wood, Jr quite simply had no ear whatsoever for how people spoke or sounded. In fact, had Wood written the previous sentence he would have written "for how humans spoke" because he did strange things like substitute the word "human" when a person would say a line that screamed for the word "person" or "man" as in this line from Glen or Glenda:

"Doctor, I'm hoping to learn something from you, and with that knowledge maybe save some human from the fate which I have just witnessed a few days ago."

He's referring to a suicide of a transvestite. He doesn't say "save some other person" or "save another man from the fate..." No, he says "human." Nothing grammatically wrong with that of course, it's just awkward. And it turns out, that's a good way to describe Wood's dialogue most of the time: Awkward. It's as if Wood wants to sound studied, formal but that formality sounds stilted, wrong. Also, he really likes the word "human." Later lines in Glen or Glenda include, "All those cars. All going someplace. All carrying humans..." and "Modern man is a hard-working human..."

As for examples of Wood dialogue gone bad there are so many it's almost pointless to quote them here. Look up any Wood movie on IMDB, click on "Memorable Quotes" and enjoy the show. It's the best part of any Wood movie listing on IMDB, the quotes page. That's because that's where Wood's infamy comes from, his barely written word. His direction was no great shakes, but it was his writing, his god-awful painfully awkward dialogue that did him in. Nothing can redeem the dialogue of Edward D Wood Jr. Had someone else written his films they still would have been fairly low-brow, low-budget films I suspect but they wouldn't be infamous.

As for his magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space, it contains enough downright wretched special effects that most people think that's the secret to its badness but again it's the dialogue. The poorly made flying saucers are hilarious to look at and the sadly pathetic attempts at constructing a realistic cockpit set or a flying saucer interior gives one fits of belly laughter but it's the lines - "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" - that keep humans laughing long after the movie's over. The thing is with Plan 9, like most Wood movies, it requires no clever commentary to make it entertaining.

In the nineties Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a popular show on Comedy Central in which the characters ridiculed bad movies that, without constant commentary, might be unbearable to watch. Case in point: Manos, The Hands of Fate. This is probably the most famous episode of the show and if you've ever seen Manos, The Hands of Fate you know it desperately needs commentary. It's not entertaining on its own. It's not "so bad it's good." It's bad, period. In fact, It. Is. Horrendous. It is a monumentally bad movie. It is incompetent from beginning to end. It is, finally, completely, utterly and absolutely atrocious. It truly is one of the worst, if not the worst, films ever made. Plan 9 is not.

Plan 9 is entertaining even if you're not laughing at it. For one thing Dudley Manlove, as extraterrestrial Eros, actually keeps you interested with the velvety rich intonations he gives each and every line. Gregory Walcott's stoicism as Jeff Trent is right in line with most low-budget sci-fi of the era and the recycled theme is just that, recycled. Starting with The Day the Earth Stood Still science fiction has loved to warn us humans that we're becoming too destructive for our own good. Make fun of Wood all you want but he was just using the same cliche that other directors had used and gotten praise for. Plus, his added plot point of raising the dead made it horror/sci-fi and actually moved it beyond plain old cliche but he squanders this opportunity. Instead of having the aliens raise the dead en masse, which may have really been effective, he has them raise only three, a giant man who can't walk straight, a very skinny woman and an hobbling old man. Not exactly menacing.

But that was Ed. That's how he rolled. He had ideas that others ran with while he stumbled. Ideas that beat others to the punch only to have him blow it. And no matter what the idea, the dialogue was wretched, simply wretched. But his movies weren't the worst and never will be. Neil Sarver said in the comment section here recently, concerning the claim that Wood is the worst director ever, that he was pretty sure the worst director ever, whoever that may be, made films that no one could watch. Like Manos, the Hands of Fate. You can't watch that movie on it's own without running commentary, either your own or someone elses. It's garbage. Wood's movies aren't gems but they're not worthless. They have honest entertainment value on their own. Without any snark. Given a bigger budget and a screenwriter Wood might have amounted to something more but would have most likely been forgotten. I'm glad he didn't have the bigger budget or the screenwriter because now he will be remembered always. As he should. Ed Wood: NOT the worst director of all time. And a pretty good human too.

Let the blogathon begin.

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Watch out Eros...

...because Monday, July 6th is the big day and it's almost here. And no matter what, this blogathon, centered around the 50th anniversary of Ed Wood's masterwork Plan 9 From Outer Space but focusing on all of Wood's work as well as the work of anyone else working with low-budgets and a can-do attitude, will happen. Why?

Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!

Allow me to explain.

Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is your blog. Now, you spread a thin line of blog posts concerning the can-do spirit of Ed Wood to a ball, representing my blog. Now, the gasoline represents the different blogs, the blog posts. Here we saturate the ball, my blog, with the gasoline, the blog posts. Then we put a flame, representing a link, to the ball, my blog. The flame, or link, will speedily travel around my blog, back along the line of blog posts to the can, or the originating blog itself, so that everyone can read it. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline, our blog posts, touches. Explode the blog posts here, gentlemen, you explode the blog-a-verse.

Yes, you read that right. I hope to destroy the internet with this blog-a-thon. Oh no, wait, I mean, save the internet by preventing you from blowing it up by providing a central repository of... no wait, that's wrong too. Okay I think I have it now. If you take a can of ethanol... no, that doesn't work either. Tanna, would you take over? People probably think I'm mad.

Tanna (to the readers): "Mad? Is it mad that you destroy other bloggers to save yourselves? You have done this. Is it mad that one blog must destroy another to save themselves? You have also done this. How then is it mad that one internet must destroy another who threatens the very existence-..."

Greg: That's enough! In my land, women are for ... hmmm... better not say that next part.

So anyway, show up all week and contribute in any way you can. Remember, it's the Spirit of Ed Wood we're celebrating so it can be about any filmmaker working with meager resources and a grandiose vision. Some may be genuinely good filmmakers, some mediocre, some downright bad. It's up to you. I hope to see you here in the future because that is where all of us are going to spend the rest of our lives!

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

The stars come out to celebrate I am an American Day in 1951. It's not the same as the Fourth of July but it was at the Hollywood Bowl and made for better pictures so I'm rolling with it. And - AND - as luck would have it, I AM an American, although I've never celebrated this holiday to my knowledge. But the stars came out to celebrate including Yvonne DeCarlo, Lana Turner (with George Richter) and Emcee Van Johnson (with Frank Fontaine).

Have a Happy Fourth to all you States dwellers out there and have a great weekend to everyone else around the world, and may peace be with you.

An Actor Named Malden

I don't often do obituaries here at Cinema Styles, a rare exception being Charles Bud Tingwell earlier this year because for reasons elaborated on in that post he felt like family. Karl is another member of my extended family. Most everyone reading this will be in the same position of having never met my father. That's okay because all you have to do is watch Patton if you want to meet him. He's the one they call Bradley, General Omar Bradley. Even my wife noticed it the first time she saw Patton after meeting my father. "He's just like your Dad!" Yep, he is, and was, and I'll miss him. I'm not joking about the Patton thing either. My Dad walks and talks like that and uses those mannerisms and has the same patience and demeanor and... and all of it. And Patton is one of the first movies, if not the first, I ever saw Malden in so he's always seemed slightly familiar to me.

However, don't think this familial similarity influences my next proclamation because it doesn't nor will it be written as a kind but empty gesture to a respected actor now deceased. I mean it. Sincerely: Karl Malden was, in my opinion, better than Marlon Brando and George C. Scott in On the Waterfront and Patton. I know, I know, that's crazy! It's insane! Those are two of the best performances in the history of cinema. They are, so maybe I should rephrase it. While Brando and Scott shone like fiery comets in their respective roles Malden had to play scenes with them as an ordinary Joe, a priest or a soldier's soldier, and NOT disappear into the woodworks. And he didn't. I'm impressed at how solidly good he was in the shadow of those two grand and BIG actors. He commanded attention in those roles and made them work to try and wrestle the scenes BACK from Malden. Pretty damn impressive.

Throughout his career, from A Streetcar Named Desire to his television series The Streets of San Francisco, Malden would turn in one reliable performance after another, a performance that made you believe not only in the character, but in the man. He had a strength about him that can't be faked. He was real, not studied, natural, not forced. He was a working actor, a character actor and a great actor and he'll be missed.

Karl Malden was 97.

And they had Jazzercise!

Were the eighties the worst decade for movies in... decades? The twenties saw the silents reach their apex, the thirties bore the fruits of a perfected studio system that ran well into the early fifties while the fifties themselves began to see Hollywood facing increasing competition from abroad until the sixties, which saw such an amazing output of quality work from Europe and Asia that it put the words "foreign film" in the vocabulary of even non-cinephiles which led right into the seventies which saw a Renaissance in American film.

And then came the eighties.

Nobody talks about the eighties. According to legend or myth, something is supposed to have happened that turned the eighties movies to mush. That something is usually some combination of Star Wars, an improved economy, yuppies, Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, Clara Peller, Walter Mondale, Jheri curl, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, MTV, Pac-Man and Jazzercise. Definitely Jazzercise.

So anyway, somehow, the theory goes, all these factors led to filmmakers deciding in unison that they would no longer make great movies. It didn't matter if the filmmaker in question was a great one, because of one or all of the factors above, their art would suffer regardless. And how can it not be true? So many cinephiles say it's true it has to be, right? I mean, so many people say it, people like... um... well, okay, people like me. If you're looking for one of the all time "eighties movies suck" offenders look no further than this blog. I've spouted this cinephile party line for years to the point where it's damn-near a mantra. But is it true? That's up to you I suppose since decreeing a decades worth of artistic output to be either "good" or "bad" is so completely cemented in the land of subjectivity that I couldn't possibly provide the right answer for anyone. For me, however, I can only ask another question: How can the arbitrary cordoning off of years into decades possibly affect the quality work of separate individual artists making films within that given period of time? To answer my question I went to movie sites like IMDB and Netflix and put together a list from a randomly chosen year, 1983. This list contains 30 movies that could reasonably be ranked in someone's top ten at the end of the year. Not mine necessarily (I can't even stomach some of these titles) but someone's list. Here it is:

Betrayal
Danton
El Norte
Fanny and Alexander
Local Hero
Return of the Jedi
Risky Business
Say Amen, Somebody
Scarface
Silkwood
Star 80
Terms of Endearment
Testament
Draughtsman's Contract
The Dresser
The Right Stuff
The Year of Living Dangerously
WarGames
Angelo My Love
Frances
Gorky Park
Rumble Fish
Th Dead Zone
The Grey Fox
Trading Places
Under Fire
Yentl
Christmas Story
Koyaanisqatsi
King of Comedy

That's a pretty good top thirty. The last one on the list is purposeful placement because that's probably the one I would give the top award too although Tender Mercies, Local Hero, The Right Stuff, The Draughtsman's Contract (released in the States in 1983 but made in 1982) and Fanny and Alexander could easily take it as well. So what's the problem with the eighties? If you go through the other years of that decade you can, as I found, compile similar lists. So is it the bad movies of the eighties? Is that the problem? Is it Porkys, Baby... The Secret of the Lost Legend, Stroker Ace and all those Police Academy movies? Maybe that's it. Maybe it's because the Stallone/Norris/Schwarzenegger action movies started in the eighties and people associate that kind of mindless violence with the total film output of that decade. Or maybe directors like Ron Howard started making movies that felt too slick, too assembly line. Oh no, wait, I mean MTV started making videos that produced directors who then made movies that were too slick. No, no wait, now I remember, it was Robert Zemeckis. It was his fault.

Ah hell, if you try, you can probably use anything as proof that the movies of the eighties sucked. The only thing you can't use as proof are the movies themselves. The second you start listing the bad stuff anyone else can start listing the bad stuff from any other decade to counter it. Which means you're left with the good stuff, and the good stuff from the eighties can hold its own with the good stuff from just about any other decade because let's face it, directors like Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese and David Lynch didn't exactly slouch off during that decade.

The fact is, the movies of the eighties aren't nearly as bad as they've been made out to be, or at least not as bad as I've made them out to be. As I revisit several and look forward to revisiting several more in the coming months I realize it was a pretty good decade for movies after all. So let's cut the eighties some slack, huh? They had their share of dreck but they also had, as evidenced by 1983 alone, some pretty solid fare as well. Where's the beef? It's in the movies, the good ones, and as it turns out, there were quite a few in that decade. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to figure out my Rubik's Cube before my Jazzercise class begins.

Jack and Jackie

Jack Webb and Jackie Loughery tie the knot on June 24th, 1958. Jackie is primarily known in beauty pageant circles (the kind Bill and Fox follow breathlessly) as the first Miss USA winner ever in 1952. Also, according to one of the most exemplary Wikipedia biographies I have ever read, she is also a woman. Really, treat yourself. Jack is primarily known for Dragnet of course.

In the photo above they appear to be celebrating their marriage but in reality they are celebrating Cinema Styles 300th banner, and who wouldn't? They're also celebrating Flickhead's Claude Chabrol Blogathon, the upcoming Ed Wood blogathon (no word yet on when the Ed Howard blogathon will take place) and I am assuming, the history of icing. Have a great holiday weekend everyone!*

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*For goodness sake though, eat your pudding responsibly. Also, don't forget to eat your meat. You remember what happens if you don't eat your meat, right?

Watch the Great Illusion Drown

It is tempting when writing about a film called The Bridesmaid to go with the easy post title of "Always a Bridesmaid" or "Never a Bride" or some other quick and easy take on that old saying. But when reviewing a film by Claude Chabrol why go with the obvious? In a piece on Chabrol in The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty accurately wrote (specifically of The Bridesmaid but it could apply to any number of his films) that Chabrol's film doesn't thrill but instead prefers "to unsettle, to disorient, to unnerve and to create the sort of apprehension that cannot finally be resolved." The Bridesmaid isn't a roller coaster ride. It doesn't hurtle down the tracks to a foregone conclusion. It creeps and crawls and finally surrenders to the impulses of madness.

It is also tempting to provide a plot summary for The Bridesmaid, to pull the reader into the twist and turns of the plot without revealing the ending, but then, what would that do? In a film that fools the viewer into believing it is a thriller before revealing itself to be an examination of two shared madnesses, one psychotic and the other obsessive, the plot summary would fool the reader as well. It would lead the reader down the path of misdirection in an attempt to lure them into watching it knowing that a film that does not provide the traditional payoff sometimes needs misdirection to gain an audience. But Chabrol doesn't care about that so why should I?

The characters of Phillipe and Senta, man and woman, lovers and neurotics, are both mad, it is true, but only one appears to be to the outside world. Phillipe hides his madness behind a veneer of societal responsibility, a responsibility to his job and his family. Underneath that veneer is a burning passion for an ideal woman, a woman that only exists in the stony form of a bust of a goddess named Flora, intended for display in a garden. Senta's madness is visible. She's "odd" and "a bit weird" and quite possibly lies any chance she gets. She believes taking someone's life for someone you love is the same as writing a poem for them. She has no veneer and doesn't see any reasons for one. Senta has no illusions propped up and on display for the world around her. She may tell lies but she presents herself as is, openly and without reservation.

It is this sense of the visible and invisible, of two shared madnesses coalescing as one that Chabrol observes with patience and reserve, building dread until the story reaches a point where both characters must reveal the full scope of their madness to the other, and accept it. The audience may want more but the attentive viewer will realize that's all there is to show. A climactic showdown or chase or confrontation between the law and the lovers, between society and the fringe, would be too obvious, too rote, too expected. Chabrol gives us instead a declaration of love that could or could not mean something else altogether. The Bridesmaid asks the viewer to study madness in the guise of a thriller. Some of the same cliches are there (the ominous questioning by the police, the final walk through the old abandoned house - or at least the upstairs portion of it) but in the end Chabrol doesn't want to thrill his viewer but to engage him in something richer, more full of life. As the credits roll and Flora gazes back on us, unquestioning and unblinking, we wonder, did we just watch a love story or a psychodrama? And then we laugh and realize, "What's the difference?"

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This review of The Bridesmaid is a part of Ten Days Wonder, the Claude Chabrol Blogathon hosted by Flickhead.

Dreams... or Nightmares?

"It's heavy. What is it?" - The Maltese Falcon, d. John Huston

"What is it? It's heavy." - The Bridesmaid, d. Claude Chabrol

It's also Day Three of the Claude Chabrol Blogathon taking place at Flickhead's. I plan to contribute a much better and bigger piece than this screengrab post but just wanted to point out the two shots anyway because whenever one movie makes me think of another movie and it isn't because it's churning out the same cliches over and over, it makes me feel good. Oh and in both cases, the answer to the question is it's the stuff dreams are made of, only the dreams in the second turn into nightmares. So just how far should you go for love? Tomorrow... the answer?

The Wanderers: James Edwards

Years ago I watched Bright Victory for the first time on cable. As I watched it I thought what most people probably think while watching it: "Arthur Kennedy is really great in this! Too bad he didn't get used more often in quality lead roles."

Then I thought the second thing most people probably think: "The guy playing his friend is great too!"

That actor was James Edwards. It took me a moment or two to realize it was the same actor who had played the paralyzed Private Peter Moss in Mark Robson's Home of the Brave (1949). In that film, as well as Bright Victory, Edwards plays the "black man." He's not a character who happens to be black, but rather a character whose skin color is of vital importance to the plot. In fact, in the play Home of the Brave, upon which the movie is based, the character is Jewish but thanks to the 1948 legislation that desegregated the Armed Forces the character was changed to a black soldier to keep up with the headlines, even if it meant being completely historically inaccurate by placing a black soldier in the same unit as white soldiers in World War II.

Edwards' characters in both films are noble black characters suffering under an oppressive system of inequality. Thanks to the time these movies were made the messages are a bit heavy-handed, falling more on the side of Clifford Odets' obviousness than subtle, nuanced psychological study. But that's what makes Edwards so good in both. When the blunt points have been made up front it's up to Edwards to provide the subtext with a look, a tremor in the voice or a simple body movement. His performance in Home of the Brave is justly celebrated but in Bright Victory too, he excels with very little to work from.

Bright Victory tells the story of a blinded war veteran, Larry Nevins (Arthur Kennedy), going through rehabilitation at an Army hospital. While there, he befriends another blinded veteran undergoing the same rehabilitation, Joe Morgan (James Edwards). Neither one knows the race of the other and at one point someone mentions that some new soldiers from a Negro unit will be showing up soon. Kennedy is surprised to hear this, thinking it's an all-white hospital and soon uses the word that quickly establishes his race to Morgan, and by Morgan's reaction, his to Kennedy. The friendship ends there and the rest of the film is concerned with Larry Nevins' guilt and changing attitudes as he returns home and finds he cannot be with his family and friends anymore who have racist beliefs. In the end, he meets up with Morgan and asks if they can be friends again. As in the rest of the film, Edwards uses subtlety in the face of an unsubtle (but still good) script. The pause, the look on his face, a look that can be interpreted a thousand different ways, the look that says, "Can I trust this guy again? Should I tell him to 'go to hell?'" Edwards isn't given much to work with in Bright Victory (it is, in the end, Kennedy's movie through and through) but what he is given he works with in ways a lesser actor never could.

Edwards never became a big star, working steadily in small and sometimes bit parts, always strong, always reliable. A wanderer, taking whatever work he could get to satisfy his need to perform, to hone his craft. In her excellent piece on him at TCM, Moira Finnie wonders about the fact that Edwards never became a star.

While Edwards and Poitier both entered movies at the same time, it is possible that Poitier’s disarming manner was easier for audiences to relate to in that period. Perhaps too, Poitier was the more natural star, as his timely performance in Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones would prove, while Edwards was simply a good, hardworking actor whose potential would find only fitful expression.

Or maybe, at the time, there was room for just one "black actor" in Hollywood. Oh sure, others could get roles, like Edwards and Harry Belafonte, but only one could be a star. Hollywood often figures out a way to sell one performer as the genuine article (Marilyn Monroe) and everyone else as the knock-offs(Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Diana Dors) and it would appear no different here. Besides, it was the fifties and there weren't exactly a lot of roles for black actors and parts in which a black actor could be cast where race didn't matter were small, so once the big roles were filled by Poitier there wasn't much left for Edwards. Too bad, because as much as I like Poitier, I like Edwards better. It's an impossible comparison of course since Poitier had so many more roles to analyze and Edwards so few. Still, Edwards subtle gifts as an actor portray a confident and skilled artist less inclined to some of the histrionics Poitier sometimes fell victim to (and Edwards command of speaking dialogue naturalistically far outshone Poitier's). Of course, in a perfect world they would have both been stars but Edwards worked steadily nonetheless. His final role was that of General George Patton's valet in Franklin Schaffner's Patton (1970). Shortly after completing his work on the film, and before it was released, he died of a heart attack.

I like to think had he lived the seventies and the type of independent movies being made then would have afforded him the opportunity to explore roles that had never been available to him before. Either way, he established himself early on a hard-working actor dedicated to his craft on both the stage and film. He was a wanderer, a pioneer, a journeyman, a professional and, above all else, a damn fine actor.