Saturday, February 28, 2015

Script review - "Ed Wood" by Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

A wonderful screenplay - a true valentine to an odd ball who loved making movies. It wasn't a hit - the general public found it too strange, or didn't simply didn't care, but I think it was probably the best version that could have been done of Woods life. They start with a problem - how do you create a bright climax out of the life of someone who died drunk, poor and obscure? By focusing on Plan Nine from Outer Space and working back, finishing with a made up meeting with Orson Welles (my main gripe in the film - Welles complaining the studio forced him to use Charlton Heston as a Mexican in Touch of Evil when it was Welles who decided to make the character Mexican after Heston's casting). Wood had made his super personal production already with Glen or Glenda? so instead Plan Nine is created as a valentine to Bela Lugosi and a determination to make a masterpiece.

It's a script with a big heart - the centerpoint is Wood's relationship with Bela Lugosi, which is touching, but it's also about Wood and his other friends, bringing them into the gang: Bunny Breckenridge, Tor Johnson, Criswell, even reluctant Vampira - and finding love himself with Kathy. One of the most loving depictions of movie making I can remember.

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