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Film: Ed Wood
Year: 1994
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau and Sarah Jessica Parker
Review:
This is a movie that I vaguely remember coming out. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have any interest in seeing it until I got older. Seeing that this was a Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team up that I hadn’t seen was intriguing to me. Learning more about who Ed Wood was in real life has helped. At the time of writing this, I had only seen two of his movies. As a director, I’ve seen Bride of the Monster. As a writer, I’ve seen most of Orgy of the Dead. Jaime and I watched this for our podcast, JwaC Presents Depp Dive: A Depper Look at Johnny’s Feature Filmography.
Synopsis: ambitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. (Depp) tries his best to fulfill his dreams despite his lack of talent.
I’m doing a full review of this due to this movie being listed in the Horror Show Guide Encyclopedia, considering this to be a ‘horror film’ due to the titular character mostly making movies in this genre. We start out seeing Ed as he is working for a small studio and is directing a play. What turns his life around is when George Weiss’ (Mike Starr) production company is looking to make an early exploitation film about a person getting a sex operation change. Ed applies to be the director, but he has no clout and is denied.
What turns things around for him is meeting Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau). He is down on his luck and we will learn about his drug addiction as this goes on. Ed wants to help him and sees an opportunity to get the director’s position for this film. His original pitch revealed that he’s a transvestite. Now he’s able to use Bela as a bargaining chip.
The movie he made there was Glen or Glenda and this strains the relationship with George. Ed now has momentum and we see as he goes about getting his next movie made. This is the one I’ve seen, Bride of the Monster, but during production it was called Bride of the Atom. Ed has a team he uses including his girlfriend Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker), Bunny Breckinridge (Bill Murray), Paul Marco (Max Casella), Conrad Brooks (Brent Hinkley), his cinematographer Bill (Norman Alden) and makeup guy Harry (Leonard Termo). Along the way he’ll meet Loretta King (Juliet Landau), who strains his relationship with Dolores. He also meets a wrestler, Tor Johnson (George ‘The Animal Steele) and even Vampira (Lisa Marie). Ed Wood has the dream and the drive, but as the synopsis says, he might be lacking the eye for talent.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that I feel bad piling on the real person of Ed Wood. He did something that I’ll never do. I know what he made was schlocky and he didn’t fully understand how to make a good movie, but credit to him for still doing what he could. Now everything that I’ll say from here is going to be looking at this as a fictional piece of work.
Since this is more of a character study of Ed, Bela and their relationship, that is where I want to delve. Depp does a great job at being this quirky guy. Now I’ve not read the biography that this is using as source material. I’ve also not seen interviews or anything of this real person. What I do know was that he was an oddball. His movies reflect the budget that they’re working with. Having now seen this, I’m intrigued more in seeing the movies that this is referencing being made now that I have insight behind the scenes. Depp was made for this role and from what I’ve read, Ed’s real wife agreed when visiting the set.
Shifting then over to Bela. He’s one of my most seen actors of all time. Landau transforms into him which is impressive. I knew that there was a feud between him and Boris Karloff in real life. I’m glad they played that up. I also knew that Bela was addicted to morphine and how it ruined his career, also contributing to his death. That is heartbreaking. It seems like Ed was taking advantage of this aged star, but I don’t think that was the case. He truly wanted to help him and give him work. Landau pays homage to this legend well from my point of view.
Since I’ve been leaning into the acting here, I want to say that we have a great cast here. I’m not the biggest fan of Parker, but I like the role she plays here. There’s friction as things go between her and Ed. It is also an intriguing dichotomy between her and the Patricia Arquette character that he meets later when Ed takes Bela to rehab. It is a bummer the decisions that Jones made, because he’s solid in this movie and never seemed to have a bad performance. G.D. Spradlin is solid as Reverend Lemon who works with Ed. His character gets upsets Ed with decisions to the film he’s making with their money. There’s good cameos by Vincent D’Onofrio, Murray, Starr, Cassella, Hinkley, Marie, Steele, Juliet Landau, Alden, Termo, Bellamy and the rest of the cast. It all works to bring these people to life.
All that I have left to go into is filmmaking. I thought it was a good stylistic choice to go black and white. That feels like it is paying homage to the era that Wood worked in. I thought this was lit well, which is a challenge when filming this way. The cinematography is great as well. How things are framed is great as well as capturing things that were in Wood’s movies. This is limited in the effects, but it also didn’t need them. The peek behind the curtain of what was used in Wood’s films was another great aspect to show the charm they carry. Other than that, the soundtrack fit what was needed. I like that they used music from the films that they’re showing so credit to that.
In conclusion, this is a fun movie that is capturing real history. There are things left out. There are also probably things that didn’t happen or were moved to another place in the timeline. Just knowing that a movie also needs to be entertaining, I’m forgiving. The acting here is great. Depp shows such range. Landau is great as Bela. There’s a strong cast behind them as well. I thought that this was well-made. Special credit there to the cinematography. I’m not sure how many fans are out there for Wood today. What I’ll say though is that this is an underseen Burton and Depp film, so if you’re fans of them, check this out.
My Rating: 8 out of 10