137-517: Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker, actor, and pulp novelist. In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult classics , notably Glen or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), Bride of the Monster (1955), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and Night of the Ghouls (1959). In
274-470: A lost film , but distribution of the film was held up for 25 years because Wood had not paid the lab bill. Video producer Wade Williams paid the bill and released the film on videocassette in 1984, copyrighting the film in his own name. In 1958, Wood also wrote the screenplay for The Bride and the Beast (1958), which was directed by Adrian Weiss. Wood's screenplay was based on Weiss' plot. Wood also wrote
411-463: A newsreel , a short and/or serial , and a cartoon , followed by a double feature. The second feature, which actually screened before the main event, cost the exhibitor less per minute than the equivalent running time in shorts. The majors' "clearance" rules favoring their affiliated theaters prevented timely access to top-quality films for independent theaters; the second feature allowed them to promote quantity instead. The additional movie also gave
548-433: A "balanced" or entirely youth-oriented double feature as a matinee and then a single film for a more mature audience at night. In the words of one industry report, afternoon moviegoers, "composed largely of housewives and children, want quantity for their money while the evening crowds want 'something good and not too much of it. ' " Series films are often unquestioningly consigned to the B movie category, but even here there
685-406: A "programmer capable of occupying either half of a neighbourhood theatre's double-bill, [it was] budgeted at approximately $ 400,000. [Its] distributor, United Artists, released around twenty-five programmers with production budgets between $ 100,000 and $ 400,000 in 1955." The film's length, 106 minutes, is A level, but its star, Ralph Meeker , had previously appeared in only one major film. Its source
822-418: A $ 125,000 purchase price, Levine then spent $ 1.5 million on advertising and publicity, a virtually unprecedented amount. The New York Times was not impressed, claiming that the movie would have drawn "little more than yawns in the film market ... had it not been [launched] throughout the country with a deafening barrage of publicity". Levine counted on first-weekend box office for his profits, booking
959-399: A 'warning bell' so the sensitive can 'close their eyes. ' " That year, Roger Corman took AIP down a new road: "When they asked me to make two ten-day black-and-white horror films to play as a double feature, I convinced them instead to finance one horror film in color." The resulting House of Usher typifies the continuing ambiguities of B picture classification. It was clearly an A film by
1096-407: A 1953 RKO release, is the only film noir from the genre's classic period directed by a woman. That year, RKO released Split Second , which concludes in a nuclear test range, and is perhaps the first "atomic noir". The most famous such movie, the independently produced Kiss Me Deadly (1955), typifies the persistently murky middle ground between the A and B picture, as Richard Maltby describes:
1233-443: A Ride . Ten B noirs that year came from Poverty Row's big three: Republic, Monogram, and PRC/Eagle-Lion, and one came from tiny Screen Guild. Three majors beside RKO contributed a total of five more. Along with these eighteen unambiguous B noirs, an additional dozen or so noir programmers came out of Hollywood. Still, most of the majors' low-budget production remained the sort now largely ignored. RKO's representative output included
1370-468: A Row ), the first of two films produced by a Marine buddy, Joseph F. Robertson, with Wood portraying a photographer using his position to engage in sexual antics with his models. Wood had a smaller role in Robertson's second film, Mrs. Stone's Thing (1970), as a transvestite who spends his time at a party trying on lingerie in a bedroom. In 1969, Wood adapted his own novel Mama's Diary written under
1507-934: A Transvestite Hooker (1974). Forced Entry (1974), and TV Lust (1977). In 1965, Wood wrote the quasi- memoir Hollywood Rat Race , which was only published years later in 1998. In it, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better", and also recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret . Thirty-two short stories known to be written by Wood (he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms such as "Ann Gora" and "Dr. T.K. Peters") are collected in an anthology Blood Splatters Quickly , published by OR Books in 2014. Wood's list of unrealized film projects also included scripts called Piranhas (1957), Trial by Terror (1958), The Peeper (a proposed 1960 sequel to The Sinister Urge ), Silent Night (1961), Joaquin Murieta (a 1965 biopic about
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#17327834484281644-511: A Zombie (1943), and The Body Snatcher (1945), directed by Jacques Tourneur , Robert Wise , and others who became renowned only later in their careers or entirely in retrospect. The movie now widely described as the first classic film noir, Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), a 64-minute B, was produced at RKO, which released many additional melodramatic thrillers in a similarly stylish vein. The other major studios also turned out
1781-519: A child out of wedlock after World War II with a young woman he had dated while he was in the Marines. According to Conrad Brooks, Wood and his wife Kathy only met the woman (also named Kathy) in 1967 when she was already 21 years old. Born on May 23, 1946, she had been living in Lancaster, California, and had managed to trace her father's whereabouts. Wood's mother Lillian said she had been contacted by
1918-576: A considerable number of movies now identified as noir during the 1940s. Though many of the best-known film noirs were A-level productions, most 1940s pictures in the mode were either of the ambiguous programmer type or destined straight for the bottom of the bill. In the decades since, these cheap entertainments, generally dismissed at the time, have become some of the most treasured products of Hollywood's Golden Age. In one sample year, 1947, RKO produced along with several noir programmers and A pictures, two straight B noirs: Desperate and The Devil Thumbs
2055-489: A crime film, Jail Bait (1954, originally titled The Hidden Face ), along with his co-writer/roommate Alex Gordon, which starred Herbert Rawlinson (as the plastic surgeon), Lyle Talbot , Dolores Fuller , Timothy Farrell , Theodora Thurman and Steve Reeves (in one of his first acting jobs). Bela Lugosi was supposed to play the lead role of the plastic surgeon, but was busy with another project when filming started and had to bow out. His replacement, Herbert Rawlinson, died
2192-620: A few commercials for "Pie-Quick". In 1948, Wood wrote, produced, directed, and starred in The Casual Company , a play derived from his own unpublished novel which was based on his service in the United States Marine Corps . It opened at the Village Playhouse to negative reviews on October 25. That same year, he wrote and directed a low-budget western called Crossroads of Laredo with the aid of
2329-402: A few filmmakers began making nudies with greater attention to plot. Best known was Russ Meyer , who released his first successful narrative nudie, the comic Immoral Mr. Teas , in 1959. Five years later, Meyer came out with his breakthrough film, Lorna , which combined sex, violence, and a dramatic storyline. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), made for about $ 45,000, ultimately became
2466-460: A few more years, but Republic Pictures, long associated with cheap sagebrush sagas, was out of the filmmaking business by decade's end. In other genres, Universal kept its Ma and Pa Kettle series going through 1957, while Allied Artists stuck with the Bowery Boys until 1958. RKO, weakened by years of mismanagement, exited the movie industry in 1957. Hollywood's A product was getting longer,
2603-399: A flat rate, they were rented out on a percentage basis, like A films. The success of I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) thus brought AIP a large return, made for about $ 100,000, it grossed more than $ 2 million . As the film's title suggests, the studio relied on both fantastic genre subjects and new, teen-oriented angles. When Hot Rod Gang (1958) turned a profit, hot rod horror was given
2740-500: A fully bared, unpainted breast, but flirts with nudity throughout. The Meyer and Corman lines were drawing closer. Betio Betio is the largest township of Kiribati 's capital city, South Tarawa , and the country's main port. The settlement is located on a separate islet at the extreme southwest of the atoll. Betio Post Office opened on 5 April 1957 and closed in 1964. In 1967, the Marine Training Centre
2877-580: A juvenile delinquency film called Rock and Roll Hell (a.k.a. Hellborn ) in 1956, but producer George Weiss pulled the plug on the project after only ten minutes of footage had been completed. Wood's friend Conrad Brooks purchased the footage from Weiss, and some scenes were later incorporated as stock footage into Wood's later Night of the Ghouls (1959). (The entire ten minutes of footage was later released complete on VHS in 1993, as Hellborn .) In late 1956, Wood co-produced, wrote, and directed his science fiction opus Plan 9 from Outer Space (his screenplay
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#17327834484283014-600: A machine gun post by the Japanese against the US forces that re-took Tarawa. The RCS Nimanoa was a wooden-hulled ketch, whereas Saidu Maru was a steel-hulled vessel, part of which is still visible on the reef off Red Beach. Unexploded artillery shells, mortar rounds, anti-aircraft shells and live machine gun bullets left over from the Second World War are littered throughout the island and surrounding reef, as well as
3151-533: A mad scientist who uses lightning to transform plants into man-eating monsters. Wood did not participate in the actual making of the movie. In 1970, Wood wrote and directed his own pornographic film, Take It Out in Trade , starring Duke Moore and Nona Carver. Wood played a transvestite named Alecia in the film. In 1970, Wood produced a 45 rpm record which featured Tor Johnson on one side, reading The Day The Mummy Returned , and Criswell reading The Final Curtain on
3288-400: A matter of course: for an A picture, along with the trailers , or screen previews, that presaged its arrival, "[t]he new film's title on the marquee and the listings for it in the local newspaper constituted all the advertising most movies got", writes Epstein. Aside from at the theater itself, B films might not be advertised at all. The introduction of sound had driven costs higher: by 1930,
3425-485: A new Monogram production house. Into the 1950s, most Republic and Monogram product was roughly on par with the low end of the majors' output. Less sturdy Poverty Row concerns, with a penchant for grand sobriquets like Conquest, Empire, Imperial, and Peerless, continued to churn out dirt-cheap quickies. Joel Finler has analyzed the average length of feature releases in 1938, indicating the studios' relative emphasis on B production ( United Artists produced little, focusing on
3562-468: A number of different pen names, including Ann Gora (in reference to Angora , his favorite textile) and Akdov Telmig (the backwards spelling of his favorite drink, the vodka gimlet ). In 1952, Wood was introduced to actor Bela Lugosi by friend and fellow writer-producer Alex Gordon (Wood's roommate at the time who was later involved in creating American International Pictures ). Lugosi's son, Bela Lugosi Jr. , has been among those who felt Wood exploited
3699-456: A pilot for a suspense-horror TV series called Portraits in Terror that ultimately failed to sell. The pilot, entitled Final Curtain , sees an old and world-weary actor wandering in an empty theatre, imagining ghosts and a living mannequin haunting the backstage area, until he realizes that he himself is dead. The episode has no dialogue, and Dudley Manlove narrates the thoughts of Duke Moore as
3836-482: A pink bra and panties under his uniform during the Battle of Tarawa. In 1947, Wood moved to Hollywood, California, where he wrote scripts and directed television pilots, commercials and several forgotten micro-budget westerns, most of which failed to sell. Wood biographer Rudolph Grey states that Ed Wood made approximately 125 commercials for Story-Ad films and approximately 30 commercials for Play-Ad Films, in addition to
3973-467: A profit through whatever bookings they could pick up in the gaps left by the larger concerns. With the widespread arrival of sound film in American theaters in 1929, many independent exhibitors began dropping the then-dominant presentation model, which involved live acts and a broad variety of shorts before a single featured film. A new programming scheme developed that soon became standard practice:
4110-417: A sheriff on the fugitive women's trail. In 1974, Wood was allegedly on the set of an ultra-low budget film called Meatcleaver Massacre (1977) and is said to have co-directed at least one scene in the film (uncredited), but his involvement is dubious. At the time of his death, Wood was working on a biographical screenplay based on the last years of actor Bela Lugosi to be called Lugosi Post Mortem , which
4247-583: A small, open launch, towing a lifeboat. They sailed to Nonouti, in the Southern Gilberts, where they were met by the Degei , commanded by Captain G. J. (Jack) Webster in which they returned from Nonouti to Fiji. News of the massacre was covered up by British authorities at the time to the extent that New Zealand and Fijian governments were prevented from informing the families of the men killed of their deaths. However, persistent rumours eventually reached
Ed Wood - Misplaced Pages Continue
4384-563: A studio's more important productions, while also breaking in new personnel. Studios in the minor leagues of the industry, such as Columbia Pictures and Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), focused on exactly those sorts of cheap productions. Their movies, with relatively short running times, targeted theaters that had to economize on rental and operating costs, particularly small-town and urban neighborhood venues, or "nabes". Even smaller production houses, known as Poverty Row studios, made films whose costs might run as low as $ 3,000, seeking
4521-463: A subsequent-run A film had largely disappeared from American theaters. The AIP-style dual genre package was the new model. In July 1960, the latest Joseph E. Levine sword-and-sandals import, Hercules Unchained , opened at neighborhood theaters in New York. A suspense film, Terror Is a Man , ran as a "co-feature" with a now familiar sort of exploitation gimmick: "The dénouement helpfully includes
4658-526: A successful songwriting career, writing for famous singers like Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole . Fuller died on May 9, 2011, at age 88. In 1956, soon after his breakup with Fuller, Wood married actress Norma McCarty. McCarty appeared as Edie, the airplane stewardess, in Plan 9 from Outer Space , and was recently divorced with two sons, Mike and John McCarty, from her earlier marriage. The marriage took Wood's friends by surprise; one night, Wood called everyone to
4795-526: A try: Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959). David Cook credits AIP with leading the way "in demographic exploitation , target marketing , and saturation booking, all of which became standard procedure for the majors in planning and releasing their mass-market 'event' films" by the late 1970s. In terms of content, the majors were already there, with films about juvenile delinquency such as Warner Bros.' Untamed Youth (1957) and MGM's High School Confidential (1958), both starring Mamie Van Doren . In 1954,
4932-453: A way of controlling his debilitating sciatica over the years, and was in a poor mental state caused by his recent divorce. In 1953, Wood wrote and directed the semi-documentary film Glen or Glenda (originally titled I Changed My Sex! ) with producer George Weiss . The film starred Wood (under the alias "Daniel Davis") as a transvestite , his girlfriend Dolores Fuller , Timothy Farrell , Lyle Talbot , Conrad Brooks and Bela Lugosi as
5069-476: A young filmmaker named Roger Corman received his first screen credits as writer and associate producer of Allied Artists' Highway Dragnet . Corman soon independently produced his first movie, Monster from the Ocean Floor , on a $ 12,000 budget and a six-day shooting schedule. Among the six films he worked on in 1955, Corman produced and directed the first official ARC release, Apache Woman , and Day
5206-602: A young producer he met named Crawford John Thomas. The film was shot silent and was not completed during Wood's lifetime. In 1949, Wood and Thomas acted together in a play called The Blackguard Returns at the Gateway Theatre (Wood played the Sheriff and Thomas was the villain). Wood joined the Screen Actors Guild in 1951, and worked very briefly as a stuntman among other things. When writing, Wood used
5343-927: Is also now used loosely to refer to some higher-budget, mainstream films with exploitation-style content, usually in genres traditionally associated with the B movie. From their beginnings to the present day, B movies have provided opportunities both for those coming up in the profession and others whose careers are waning. Celebrated filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Jonathan Demme learned their craft in B movies. They are where actors such as John Wayne and Jack Nicholson first became established, and they have provided work for former A movie actors and actresses, such as Vincent Price and Karen Black . Some actors and actresses, such as Bela Lugosi , Eddie Constantine , Bruce Campbell , and Pam Grier , worked in B movies for most of their careers. The terms "B actor and actress" are sometimes used to refer to performers who find work primarily or exclusively in B pictures. In 1927–28, at
5480-596: Is ambiguity: at MGM, for example, popular series like the Andy Hardy and the Dr. Kildare – Dr. Gillespie chronicles had leading stars and budgets that would have been A-level at most of the lesser studios. For many series, even a lesser major's standard B budget was far out of reach: Poverty Row's Consolidated Pictures featured Tarzan, the Police Dog in a series with the proud name of Melodramatic Dog Features. By 1940,
5617-534: Is pure pulp , one of Mickey Spillane 's Mike Hammer novels, but Robert Aldrich 's direction is self-consciously aestheticized. The result is a brutal genre picture that also evokes contemporary anxieties about what was often spoken of simply as the Bomb. The fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, along with less expressible qualms about radioactive fallout from America's own atomic tests, energized many of
Ed Wood - Misplaced Pages Continue
5754-643: The Mexican Spitfire and Lum and Abner comedy series, thrillers featuring the Saint and the Falcon , Westerns starring Tim Holt , and Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller . Jean Hersholt played Dr. Christian in six films between 1939 and 1941. The Courageous Dr. Christian (1940) was a standard entry: "In the course of an hour or so of screen time, the saintly physician managed to cure an epidemic of spinal meningitis, demonstrate benevolence towards
5891-511: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre ). Wood was in a long-term relationship with actress and songwriter Dolores Fuller , whom he met in late 1952. She was in the process of divorcing her first husband Donald Fuller, with whom she had had two sons. Wood and Fuller shared an apartment for three years, and Wood cast her in three of his films: Glen or Glenda , Jail Bait and, in a very brief cameo, in Bride of
6028-564: The "Premiere" rubric. In 1947 as well, PRC was subsumed by Eagle-Lion , a British company seeking entry to the American market. Warners' former "Keeper of the Bs", Brian Foy, was installed as production chief. In the 1940s, RKO stood out among the industry's Big Five for its focus on B pictures. From a latter-day perspective, the most famous of the major studios' Golden Age B units is Val Lewton 's horror unit at RKO. Lewton produced such moody, mysterious films as Cat People (1942), I Walked with
6165-542: The 1930s, the average U.S. feature production cost had essentially doubled over the 1940s, reaching $ 1 million by the turn of the decade—a 93% rise after adjusting for inflation. The first prominent victim of the changing market was Eagle-Lion, which released its last films in 1951. By 1953, the old Monogram brand had disappeared, the company having adopted the identity of its higher-end subsidiary, Allied Artists. The following year, Allied released Hollywood's last B series Westerns. Non-series B Westerns continued to appear for
6302-467: The 1950s. Early B movies were often part of series in which the star repeatedly played the same character. Almost always shorter than the top-billed feature films, many had running times of 70 minutes or less. The term connoted a general perception that B movies were inferior to the more lavishly budgeted headliners; individual B films were often ignored by critics. Latter-day B movies still sometimes inspire multiple sequels , but series are less common. As
6439-520: The 1960s and 1970s, he moved towards sexploitation and pornographic films such as The Sinister Urge (1960), Orgy of the Dead (1965) and Necromania (1971), and wrote over 80 lurid pulp crime and sex novels. Notable for their campy aesthetics, technical errors, unsophisticated special effects , use of poorly-matched stock footage , eccentric casts, idiosyncratic stories and non sequitur dialogue, Wood's films remained largely obscure until he
6576-418: The 1960s saw a major expansion in the commercial viability of a variety of B movie subgenres that became known collectively as exploitation films . The combination of intensive and gimmick-laden publicity with movies featuring vulgar subject matter and often outrageous imagery dated back decades. The term had originally defined truly fringe productions, made at the lowest depths of Poverty Row or entirely outside
6713-484: The 1970s, Wood worked with his friend Stephen C. Apostolof, usually co-writing scripts with him, but also serving as an assistant director and an associate producer. (Together they had made Wood's Orgy of the Dead back in 1965.) Wood's last known on-screen appearance (a dual role) was in Apostolof's 1974 film Fugitive Girls (a.k.a. Five Loose Women ), in which he played both a gas station attendant called "Pops" and
6850-617: The 1978 Stephen Apostolof film Hot Ice . Ed Wood played a janitor in the film, but his scene was cut out at the last minute due to his drunkenness on the set. Wood died soon after this film was made in 1978, at age 54. Apostolof himself stopped making films as well at this time. Beginning in 1963 up until his death, Wood wrote at least 80 lurid crime and sex novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines and daily newspapers. His novels include Black Lace Drag (1963) (reissued in 1965 as Killer in Drag ), Orgy of
6987-586: The Big Five over to A-film production, making the smaller studios even more important as B movie suppliers. Genre pictures made at very low cost remained the backbone of Poverty Row, with even Republic's and Monogram's budgets rarely climbing over $ 200,000. Many smaller Poverty Row firms folded as the eight majors, with their proprietary distribution exchanges, now commanded about 95% of U.S. and Canadian box office receipts. In 1946, independent producer David O. Selznick brought his bloated-budget spectacle Duel in
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#17327834484287124-535: The Body Snatchers (1956), released by Allied Artists, treats conformist pressures and the evil of banality in haunting, allegorical fashion. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), directed by Bert I. Gordon , is both a monster movie that happens to depict the horrific effects of radiation exposure and "a ferocious cold-war fable [that] spins Korea , the army's obsessive secrecy, and America's post-war growth into one fantastic whole". The Amazing Colossal Man
7261-713: The Carlton Theatre in Hollywood, and later went into general release in July 1958 (retitled Plan Nine from Outer Space ) in Texas and a number of other Southern states. It was finally sold to late night television in 1961, thereby finding its audience over the years. It became Wood's best-known film and found a cult following in 1980 when Michael Medved declared this film " the worst film ever made " in his book The Golden Turkey Awards . In 1957, Wood wrote and directed
7398-526: The Dead (1965), Parisian Passions (1966), Watts the Difference (1966), Side-Show Siren (1966), Drag Trade (1967), Watts After (1967), Devil Girls (1967), It Takes One to Know One (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), Suburbia Confidential (1967), Night Time Lez (1968), The Perverts (1968), Bye Bye Broadie (1968), Raped in the Grass (1968), Sex, Shrouds and Caskets (1968), Love of
7535-423: The Dead (1968), The Sexecutives (1968), Young, Black and Gay (1968), Hell Chicks (1968), The Gay Underworld (1968), Carnival Piece (1969), Toni, Black Tigress (1969), Mama's Diary (1969), To Make a Homo (1969), Mary-Go-Round (1969), The Sexual Woman (1971), The Only House (1972), A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies (1973), Tales for a Sexy Night Part 1 and 2 (1973), Sex Star (1973), Death of
7672-533: The Ghouls (originally titled Revenge of the Dead ), starring Kenne Duncan, Tor Johnson (reprising his role as "Lobo" from Bride of the Monster ), Criswell, Duke Moore, and Valda Hansen. The film premiered at the Vista Theatre in Hollywood on a double bill with the Lana Turner movie Imitation of Life on March 17, 1959, and then promptly vanished from circulation. For many years, it was thought to be
7809-554: The Hollywood system. Many graphically depicted the wages of sin in the context of promoting prudent lifestyle choices, particularly " sexual hygiene ". Audiences might see explicit footage of anything from a live birth to a ritual circumcision. Such films were not generally booked as part of movie theaters' regular schedules but rather presented as special events by traveling roadshow promoters (they might also appear as fodder for " grindhouses ", which typically had no regular schedule at all). The most famous of those promoters, Kroger Babb ,
7946-678: The Lord of the Dead (Criswell) and his sexy consort, the Black Ghoul (a Vampira look-alike), preside over a series of macabre performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave (recruited by Wood from local strip clubs). Together, Wood and Apostolof went on to make a string of sexploitation films up to 1977. Wood co-wrote the screenplays with Apostolof and occasionally even acted in some of the films. In 1969, Wood appeared in The Photographer (a.k.a. Love Feast or Pretty Models All in
8083-534: The Monster . Fuller later said she initially had no idea that Wood was a crossdresser and was mortified when she saw Wood dressed as a woman for the first time in Glen or Glenda . The couple broke up in 1955 after Wood cast another actress for the lead role in Bride of the Monster (Wood originally wrote the part for Fuller but later reduced her part to a brief cameo appearance) and because of Wood's excessive drinking. Fuller relocated to New York City where she embarked on
8220-785: The Republic Westerns with John Wayne and the Three Mesquiteers achieved a uniquely American perfection of the well-made story." At the far end of the industry, Poverty Row's Ajax put out oaters starring Harry Carey , then in his fifties. The Weiss outfit had the Range Rider series, the American Rough Rider series, and the Morton of the Mounted "northwest action thrillers". One low-budget oater of
8357-457: The Sun to market with heavy nationwide promotion and wide release. The distribution strategy was a major success, despite what was widely perceived as the movie's poor quality. The Duel release anticipated practices that fueled the B movie industry in the late 1950s; when the top Hollywood studios made them standard two decades after that, the B movie was hard hit. Considerations beside cost made
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#17327834484288494-630: The World Ended , half of Arkoff and Nicholson's first twin-bill package. Corman directed over fifty feature films through 1990. As of 2007, he remained active as a producer, with more than 350 movies to his credit. Often referred to as the "King of the Bs", Corman has said that "to my way of thinking, I never made a 'B' movie in my life", as the traditional B movie was dying out when he began making pictures. He prefers to describe his metier as "low-budget exploitation films". In later years Corman, both with AIP and as head of his own companies, helped launch
8631-557: The actor. Lugosi would have starred in this short film had he lived. Parts of the unsold pilot were later recycled for use in Wood's Night of the Ghouls (1959). The episode was thought to be lost until a complete print was located c. 2010 . It was remastered and given its first ever cinema showing in a theater in February 2012. Today it is widely available online and on DVD. In 1958, Wood wrote, produced, and directed Night of
8768-406: The average U.S. feature film cost $ 375,000 to produce. A broad range of motion pictures occupied the B category. The leading studios made not only clear-cut A and B films, but also movies classifiable as "programmers" (also known as "in-betweeners" or "intermediates"). As Taves describes, "Depending on the prestige of the theater and the other material on the double bill, a programmer could show up at
8905-465: The average production cost of an American feature was $ 400,000, a negligible increase over ten years. A number of small Hollywood companies had folded around the turn of the decade, including the ambitious Grand National , but a new firm, Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), emerged as third in the Poverty Row hierarchy behind Republic and Monogram. The double feature, never universal, was still
9042-442: The average running time of top-of-the-line films increased, so did that of B pictures. In its current usage, the term has somewhat contradictory connotations: it may signal an opinion that a certain movie is (a) a "genre film" with minimal artistic ambitions or (b) a lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed on more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively serious independent film . The term
9179-511: The bottom line. Poverty Row studios, from modest outfits like Mascot Pictures , Tiffany Pictures , and Sono Art-World Wide Pictures , down to shoestring operations, made exclusively B movies, serials, and other shorts, and also distributed totally independent productions and imported films. In no position to directly block book, they mostly sold regional distribution exclusivity to " states rights " firms, which in turn peddled blocks of movies to exhibitors, typically six or more pictures featuring
9316-482: The careers of Francis Ford Coppola , Jonathan Demme , Robert Towne , and Robert De Niro , among many others. In the late 1950s, William Castle became known as the great innovator of the B movie publicity gimmick. Audiences of Macabre (1958), an $ 86,000 production distributed by Allied Artists, were invited to take out insurance policies to cover potential death from fright. The 1959 creature feature The Tingler featured Castle's most famous gimmick, Percepto: at
9453-506: The causeway, Bikeman Island , northeast of Betio, has been submerged since the early 1990s. The island was the scene of the Battle of Tarawa during World War II . Relics of the Japanese invasion, and the subsequent American assault on the islet in 1943, remain there. After the battle the airstrip was renamed Hawkins Field . The airstrip no longer exists, but its effect can be seen in
9590-420: The classic double feature vanished from many American theaters during the 1950s. The major studios promoted the benefits of recycling, offering former headlining movies as second features in the place of traditional B films. With television airing many classic Westerns as well as producing its own original Western series, the cinematic market for B oaters in particular was drying up. After barely inching forward in
9727-523: The day after he filmed his scenes. Distributor Ron Ormond changed the title from The Hidden Face to Jail Bait just before releasing it. Wood produced and directed the horror film Bride of the Monster (1955, originally titled Bride of the Atom or The Monster of the Marshes ), based on an original story idea by Alex Gordon which he had originally called The Atomic Monster . It starred Bela Lugosi as
9864-591: The decade, more than four thousand pictures, are classifiable as Bs. The Western was by far the predominant B genre in both the 1930s and, to a lesser degree, the 1940s. Film historian Jon Tuska has argued that "the 'B' product of the Thirties—the Universal films with [Tom] Mix , [Ken] Maynard , and [Buck] Jones , the Columbia features with Buck Jones and Tim McCoy , the RKO George O'Brien series,
10001-446: The disenfranchised, set an example for wayward youth, and calm the passions of an amorous old maid." Down in Poverty Row, low budgets led to less palliative fare. Republic aspired to major-league respectability while making many cheap and modestly budgeted Westerns, but there was not much from the bigger studios that compared with Monogram " exploitation pictures " like juvenile delinquency exposé Where Are Your Children? (1943) and
10138-416: The distribution of prestigious films from independent outfits; Grand National , active 1936–40, occupied an analogous niche on Poverty Row, releasing mostly independent productions ): Taves estimates that half of the films produced by the eight majors in the 1930s were B movies. Calculating in the three hundred or so films made annually by the many Poverty Row firms, approximately 75% of Hollywood movies from
10275-512: The double feature prevailed. At the larger local venues controlled by the majors, movies might turn over on a weekly basis. At the thousands of smaller, independent theaters, programs often changed two or three times a week. To meet the constant demand for new B product, the low end of Poverty Row turned out a stream of micro-budget movies rarely much more than sixty minutes long; these were known as "quickies" for their tight production schedules—as short as four days. As Azam Patel describes, "Many of
10412-414: The double feature remained a popular exhibition mode. It was standard policy at 25% of theaters and used part-time at an additional 36%. The leading Poverty Row firms began to broaden their scope; in 1947, Monogram established a subsidiary, Allied Artists , to develop and distribute relatively expensive films, mostly from independent producers. Around the same time, Republic launched a similar effort under
10549-435: The drive-in movie became one of the defining symbols of American popular culture in the 1950s. At the same time, many local television stations began showing B genre films in late-night slots, popularizing the notion of the midnight movie . Increasingly, American-made genre films were joined by foreign movies acquired at low cost and, where necessary, dubbed for the U.S. market. In 1956, distributor Joseph E. Levine financed
10686-432: The end of the silent era , the production cost of an average feature from a major Hollywood studio ranged from $ 190,000 at Fox to $ 275,000 at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . That average reflected both "specials" that might cost as much as $ 1 million and films made quickly for around $ 50,000. These cheaper films (not yet called B movies ) allowed the studios to derive maximum value from facilities and contracted staff in between
10823-417: The end of the year, Ulmer had also made the teen-themed musical Jive Junction as well as Isle of Forgotten Sins , a South Seas adventure set around a brothel. In 1948, a Supreme Court ruling in a federal antitrust suit against the majors outlawed block booking and led to the Big Five divesting their theater chains. With audiences draining away to television and studios scaling back production schedules,
10960-776: The era's genre films. Science fiction, horror, and various hybrids of the two were now of central economic importance to the low-budget end of the business. Most down-market films of the type—like many of those produced by William Alland at Universal (such as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)) and Sam Katzman at Columbia (including It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955))—provided little more than thrills, though their special effects could be impressive. But these were genres whose fantastic nature could also be used as cover for mordant cultural observations often difficult to make in mainstream movies. Director Don Siegel 's Invasion of
11097-411: The era, made totally outside the studio system, profited from an outrageous concept: a Western with a cast consisting of only little people , The Terror of Tiny Town (1938) was such a success in its independent bookings that Columbia picked it up for distribution. Series of various genres, featuring recurrent, title-worthy characters or name actors in familiar roles, were particularly popular during
11234-435: The expanding second-feature market. Block booking became standard practice: to get access to a studio's attractive A pictures, many theaters were obliged to rent the company's entire output for a season. With the B films rented at a flat fee (rather than the box office percentage basis of A films), rates could be set virtually guaranteeing the profitability of every B movie. The parallel practice of blind bidding largely freed
11371-455: The fact that his first marriage had not been legally annulled. Wood and O'Hara remained together until Wood's death in December 1978. O'Hara never got along with his mother Lillian, calling her "a strict disciplinarian" who damaged Wood psychologically from early childhood. Wood occasionally sent money to his mom in the mail without O'Hara's knowledge. Wood was shocked to learn he had fathered
11508-542: The families, and it is believed that the shooting of Japanese prisoners held in a New Zealand POW camp was done in retaliation for this massacre. The New Zealand camp guard who fired on the Japanese prisoners during the prison riot was the brother of one of the coastwatchers executed on Betio. The partly submerged hulk of the Saidu Maru , a Japanese merchant ship often mistaken for the Nimanoa , would later be used as
11645-502: The film "into as many cinemas as he could for a week's run, then withdrawing it before poor word-of-mouth withdrew it for him". Hercules opened at a remarkable 600 theaters, and the strategy was a smashing success: the film earned $ 4.7 million in domestic rentals. Just as valuable to the bottom line, it was even more successful overseas. Within a few decades, Hollywood was dominated by both movies and an exploitation philosophy very much like Levine's. Also playing rounds during this time
11782-622: The film received critical acclaim and various awards, including two Academy Awards . Wood's father worked for the United States Post Office as a custodian , and his family relocated numerous times around the United States. Eventually, they settled in Poughkeepsie, New York , where Wood was born in 1924. According to his second wife, Kathy O'Hara, Wood's mother Lillian would dress him in girl's clothing when he
11919-423: The film's climax, buzzers attached to select theater seats unexpectedly rattled a few audience members, prompting either appropriate screams or even more appropriate laughter. With such films, Castle "combine[d] the saturation advertising campaign perfected by Columbia and Universal in their Sam Katzman and William Alland packages with centralized and standardized publicity stunts and gimmicks that had previously been
12056-432: The first decade of sound film. Fox's many B series, for instance, included Charlie Chan mysteries, Ritz Brothers comedies, and musicals with child star Jane Withers . These series films are not to be confused with the short, cliffhanger -structured serials that sometimes appeared on the same program. As with serials, however, many series were intended to attract young people—a theater that twin-billed part-time might run
12193-502: The form of low-budget films and series. Today, the term "B movie" is used in a broader sense. In post-Golden Age usage, B movies can encompass a wide spectrum of films, ranging from sensationalistic exploitation films to independent arthouse productions. In either usage, most B movies represent a particular genre : the Western was a Golden Age B movie staple, while low-budget science-fiction and horror films became more popular in
12330-485: The girl back in 1963 when she sent his mother a photo and introduced herself to Lillian as her granddaughter. Lillian said she sent the girl a watch for her graduation in 1964, but never heard back from her. B movie A B movie , or B film , is a type of cheap, poorly made commercial motion picture . Originally, during the Golden Age of Hollywood , this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as
12467-403: The horror and sexploitation genres. Wood handled various production details while Stephen C. Apostolof directed under the pseudonym A. C. Stephen. The film begins with a recreation of the opening scene from Night of the Ghouls . Criswell, wearing one of Lugosi's old capes, rises from his coffin to deliver an introduction taken almost word-for-word from the previous film. Set in a misty graveyard,
12604-419: The industry's top product, the A films, premiered at a small number of select first-run houses in major cities. Double features were not the rule at these prestigious venues. As described by Edward Jay Epstein , "During these first runs, films got their reviews, garnered publicity, and generated the word of mouth that served as the principal form of advertising." Then it was off to the subsequent-run market where
12741-628: The infamous bandit of the Old West), Mice on a Cold Cellar Floor (1973), Epitaph for the Town Drunk (1973), To Kill a Saturday Night (1973, which was set to star John Carradine ), The Teachers (1973), The Basketballers (1973), The Airline Hostesses (1973), I Awoke Early the Day I Died (1974, a rewrite of Wood's 1961 Silent Night ), Heads, No Tails (1974, a take-off on Sweeney Todd ), and Shoot Seven (1977, Wood's proposed musical based on
12878-622: The late 1980s and was re-released later on DVD by Fleshbot Films in 2005. In the Rudolph Grey biography Nightmare of Ecstasy , Maila Nurmi ("Vampira") said she declined Wood's offer to do a nude scene sitting in a coffin for Necromania , claiming she was recovering from a stroke at the time. From 1971 to 1972, Wood directed an unknown number of short X-rated films produced by the Swedish Erotica film company. These were short 12-minute loops that were silent films with subtitles. Wood
13015-469: The lesser-known second half of a double feature , somewhat similar to B-sides in recorded music. However, the production of such films as "second features" in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in
13152-593: The line between A and B movies ambiguous. Films shot on B-level budgets were occasionally marketed as A pictures or emerged as sleeper hits : one of 1943's biggest films was Hitler's Children , an RKO thriller made for a fraction over $ 200,000. It earned more than $ 3 million in rentals, industry language for a distributor's share of gross box office receipts. Particularly in the realm of film noir , A pictures sometimes echoed visual styles generally associated with cheaper films. Programmers, with their flexible exhibition role, were ambiguous by definition. As late as 1948,
13289-575: The local movie theater, where stills from last week's films would often be thrown into the trash by theater staff, allowing Wood to salvage the images, and to add to his extensive collection. On his 12th birthday, in 1936, Wood received as a gift his first movie camera, a Kodak "Cine Special". One of his first pieces of footage showed the airship Hindenburg passing over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, shortly before its disastrous crash at Lakehurst, New Jersey . One of Wood's first paid jobs
13426-484: The lower end of the industry, "exploitation" became a way to refer to the entire field of low-budget genre films. The 1960s saw exploitation-style themes and imagery become increasingly central to the realm of the B. Exploitation movies in the original sense continued to appear: 1961's Damaged Goods , a cautionary tale about a young lady whose boyfriend's promiscuity leads to venereal disease , comes complete with enormous, grotesque closeups of VD's physical effects. At
13563-541: The mad scientist, Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson as mute manservant "Lobo", Paul Marco , Billy Benedict ("Whitey" of The Bowery Boys ), Harvey B. Dunn and Loretta King . Soon after the film was completed, Bela Lugosi committed himself to the Norwalk State Hospital for three months, to be treated for drug addiction. The film premiered on May 11, 1955, at the Paramount theater in Hollywood while Lugosi
13700-409: The majors from worrying about their Bs' quality; even when booking in less than seasonal blocks, exhibitors had to buy most pictures sight unseen. The five largest studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , Paramount Pictures , Fox Film Corporation ( 20th Century Fox as of 1935), Warner Bros. , and RKO Radio Pictures (descendant of FBO), also belonged to companies with sizable theater chains, further securing
13837-461: The marriage nor legally divorced . McCarty died on June 27, 2014, at age 93. Wood moved in with Paul Marco for a short while after McCarty left him. Later in 1956, Wood met Kathy O'Hara in a bar one night where he was drinking with Bela Lugosi . O'Hara fell in love with Wood immediately; they were married in Las Vegas a short while later, and Wood always considered O'Hara his legal wife despite
13974-479: The most famous of Meyer's sexploitation pictures. Crafted for constant titillation but containing no nudity, it was aimed at the same "passion pit" drive-in circuit that screened AIP teen movies with wink-wink titles like Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1966), starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon . Roger Corman's The Trip (1967) for American International, written by veteran AIP/Corman actor Jack Nicholson , never shows
14111-751: The narrator/scientist. Fuller was shocked when she learned soon afterward that Wood actually was a cross-dresser. In 1953, Wood wrote and directed a stage show for Lugosi called The Bela Lugosi Review (a take-off on Dracula ) that was put on at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas. When Lugosi appeared on the TV show You Asked For It that same year, he announced that Ed Wood was producing a Dr. Acula TV show for him, but it never materialized. Wood acted as Lugosi's dialogue coach when he guest-starred on The Red Skelton Show in 1954, alongside Lon Chaney Jr . and Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi ). Wood co-produced and directed
14248-439: The other. It has never been determined whether or not the record was actually released, but many of them were definitely produced. In 1971, Wood produced, wrote and directed Necromania (subtitled A Tale of Weird Love ) under the pseudonym "Don Miller". The film was an early entry to the new subgenre of hardcore pornographic films. Thought lost for years, it resurfaced in edited form on Mike Vraney's Something Weird imprint in
14385-445: The poorest theaters, such as the 'grind houses' in the larger cities, screened a continuous program emphasizing action with no specific schedule, sometimes offering six quickies for a nickel in an all-night show that changed daily." Many small theaters never saw a big-studio A film, getting their movies from the states rights concerns that handled almost exclusively Poverty Row product. Millions of Americans went to their local theaters as
14522-426: The prevailing exhibition model: in 1941, fifty percent of theaters were double-billing exclusively, and others employed the policy part-time. In the early 1940s, legal pressure forced the studios to replace seasonal block booking with packages generally limited to five pictures. Restrictions were also placed on the majors' ability to enforce blind bidding. These were crucial factors in the progressive shift by most of
14659-627: The prison film Women in Bondage (1943). In 1947, PRC's The Devil on Wheels brought together teenagers, hot rods , and death. The little studio had its own house auteur : with his own crew and relatively free rein, director Edgar G. Ulmer was known as "the Capra of PRC". Ulmer made films of every generic stripe: his Girls in Chains was released in May 1943, six months before Women in Bondage ; by
14796-438: The program "balance", the practice of pairing different sorts of features suggested to potential customers that they could count on something of interest no matter what specifically was on the bill. The low-budget picture of the 1920s thus evolved into the second feature, the B movie, of Hollywood's Golden Age. The major studios , at first resistant to the double feature, soon adapted; all established B units to provide films for
14933-424: The pseudonym Dick Trent into Operation Red Light for Jacques Descent Production. Over half the footage was destroyed in a film-processing accident and the film is considered lost. Venus Flytrap (1970) aka The Revenge of Dr. X , a US/Japanese co-production, was based on an unproduced Ed Wood screenplay from the 1950s. The film was produced and directed by Sci-Fi pulp writer Norman Earl Thomson. The film involves
15070-422: The purview of the local exhibitor". The postwar drive-in theater boom was vital to the expanding independent B movie industry. In January 1945, there were 96 drive-ins in the United States; a decade later, there were more than 3,700. Unpretentious pictures with simple, familiar plots and reliable shock effects were ideally suited for auto-based film viewing, with all its attendant distractions. The phenomenon of
15207-442: The remainder of his enlistment. His dental extractions were carried out over several months by Navy dentists, unconnected to any combat. Wood had false teeth that he would slip out from his mouth when he wanted to make his wife Kathy laugh, showing her a big toothless grin. Wood later claimed that he feared being wounded in battle more than he feared being killed, mainly because he was afraid a combat medic would discover him wearing
15344-409: The same star (a relative status on Poverty Row). Two "major-minors", Universal Studios and rising Columbia Pictures had production lines roughly similar to, though somewhat better endowed than, the top Poverty Row studios. In contrast to the Big Five majors, Universal and Columbia had few or no theaters, though they did have top-rank film distribution exchanges. In the standard Golden Age model,
15481-561: The same time, the concept of fringe exploitation was merging with a related, similarly venerable tradition: " nudie " films featuring nudist-camp footage or striptease artists like Bettie Page had simply been the softcore pornography of previous decades. As far back as 1933, This Nude World was "Guaranteed the Most Educational Film Ever Produced!" In the late 1950s, as more of the old grindhouse theaters devoted themselves specifically to "adult" product,
15618-484: The same time, the realm of the B movie was becoming increasingly fertile territory for experimentation, both serious and outlandish. Ida Lupino , a leading actress, established herself as Hollywood's sole female director of the era. In short, low-budget pictures made for her production company, The Filmakers, Lupino explored taboo subjects such as rape in 1950's Outrage and 1953's self-explanatory The Bigamist . Her best known directorial effort, The Hitch-Hiker ,
15755-651: The screenplay (as "Peter LaRoche") for a 1959 "nudie cutie" film called Revenge of the Virgins , which was directed by Peter Perry Jr. Wood wrote and directed the exploitation film The Sinister Urge (1960), starring Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Dino Fantini, Harvey B. Dunn and Carl Anthony. Filmed in just five days, this is the last mainstream film Wood directed, although it has exploitation elements. The film contains an "eerily prescient" scene, in which Carl Anthony's character states, "I look at this slush, and I try to remember, at one time, I made good movies". The scenes of
15892-455: The senior Lugosi's stardom, taking advantage of the fading actor when he could not afford to refuse any work. However, most documents and interviews with other Wood associates in Nightmare of Ecstasy suggest that Wood and Lugosi were genuine friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his clinical depression and drug addiction . Lugosi had become dependent on morphine as
16029-467: The shooting of new footage with American actor Raymond Burr that was edited into the Japanese sci-fi horror film Godzilla . The British Hammer Film Productions made the successful The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), major influences on future horror film style. In 1959, Levine's Embassy Pictures bought the worldwide rights to Hercules , a cheaply made Italian movie starring American-born bodybuilder Steve Reeves . On top of
16166-413: The sound stage for what they thought was a cast party, but when everyone was present, Wood brought out a huge wedding cake and a preacher, and announced he was getting married. The marriage ended approximately one month later after McCarty discovered that Wood was a crossdresser, and while it has been reported that their marriage was annulled , according to film archivist Wade Williams, they neither annulled
16303-493: The standards of both director and studio, with the longest shooting schedule and biggest budget Corman had ever enjoyed. But it is generally seen as a B movie: the schedule was still a mere fifteen days, the budget just $ 200,000 (one tenth the industry average), and its 85-minute running time close to an old thumbnail definition of the B: "Any movie that runs less than 80 minutes." With the loosening of industry censorship constraints ,
16440-412: The stunted growth of palms along its length. Many bunkers remain, as well as the remains of military equipment. It was also the scene of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand military and civilian coastwatchers by Japanese forces prior to the US landings. The massacre was in retaliation to an American air raid. Before the massacre, seamen and civil servants who were housed on the island escaped in
16577-416: The teenagers at the pizzeria had been previously shot in 1956 for Wood's unfinished juvenile delinquency film, Rock and Roll Hell (a.k.a. Hellborn ). Also in 1960, Wood wrote the screenplay for The Peeper , which he intended as a direct sequel to his 1960 film The Sinister Urge , but it was never produced. Wood also contributed to the plot of Jane Mann's 1961 screenplay Anatomy of a Psycho . The film
16714-413: The top or bottom of the marquee." On Poverty Row, many Bs were made on budgets that would have barely covered petty cash on a major's A film, with costs at the bottom of the industry running as low as $ 5,000. By the mid-1930s, the double feature was the dominant U.S. exhibition model, and the majors responded. In 1935, B movie production at Warner Bros. was raised from 12 to 50% of studio output. The unit
16851-681: The top ten box-office releases of 1940 had averaged 112.5 minutes; the average length of 1955's top ten was 123.4. In their modest way, the Bs were following suit. The age of the hour-long feature film was past; 70 minutes was now roughly the minimum. While the Golden Age-style second feature was dying, B movie was still used to refer to any low-budget genre film featuring relatively unheralded performers (sometimes referred to as B actors ). The term retained its earlier suggestion that such movies relied on formulaic plots, "stock" character types, and simplistic action or unsophisticated comedy. At
16988-410: Was K. Gordon Murray , known for distributing international matinee fare like the 1959 Mexican kids' movie Santa Claus . Despite all the transformations in the industry, by 1961 the average production cost of an American feature film was still only $ 2 million —after adjusting for inflation, less than 10% more than it had been in 1950. The traditional twin bill of B film preceding and balancing
17125-546: Was a child because she had always wanted a daughter (Wood had one brother, several years younger than himself). For the rest of his life, Wood crossdressed , infatuated with the feel of angora on his skin. During his childhood, Wood was interested in the performing arts and pulp fiction. He collected comic books and pulp magazines , and adored movies, especially Westerns , serials, and the occult . Buck Jones and Bela Lugosi were two of his earliest childhood idols. He often skipped school in order to watch motion pictures at
17262-404: Was as a cinema usher, and he also sang and played drums in a band. Subsequently, he formed a quartet called "Eddie Wood's Little Splinters" in which he sang and played multiple stringed instruments. In 1942, Wood enlisted at age 17 in the United States Marine Corps , just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor . Assigned to the 2nd Defense Battalion , he reached the rank of corporal before he
17399-584: Was created by Hamburg Süd . John Hilary Smith , governor of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands created the Betio Town Council in 1972. Since the 1970s, the islet has become a major centre of economic activity in Kiribati, and a causeway to Bairiki was constructed in the early 1980s, leading to an increase in human contact with the island. Due to changing currents resulting from the construction of
17536-489: Was directed by Mann's husband Boris Petroff . In 1963, Wood wrote the screenplay for Shotgun Wedding (an exploitation film directed by Boris Petroff about hillbillies marrying child brides in the Ozarks). Wood wrote the screenplay from a story idea by Jane Mann. Wood's friend, cameraman William C. Thompson, died around this time. Wood's 1965 transitional film Orgy of the Dead (originally titled Nudie Ghoulies ) combined
17673-503: Was discharged in 1946 at age 21. Although Wood reportedly claimed to have faced strenuous combat, including having his front teeth knocked out by a Japanese soldier, his military records reveal that to be false, apart from recovering bodies on Betio following the Battle of Tarawa , and experiencing minor Japanese bombing raids on Betio and the Ellice Islands . A recurring filariasis infection left him performing clerical work for
17810-541: Was headed by Bryan Foy , known as the "Keeper of the Bs". At Fox, which also shifted half of its production line into B territory, Sol M. Wurtzel was similarly in charge of more than twenty movies a year during the late 1930s. A number of the top Poverty Row firms consolidated: Sono Art joined another company to create Monogram Pictures early in the decade. In 1935, Monogram, Mascot, and several smaller studios merged to establish Republic Pictures . The former heads of Monogram soon sold off their Republic shares and set up
17947-420: Was in the vanguard of marketing low-budget, sensationalistic films with a "100% saturation campaign", inundating the target audience with ads in almost any imaginable medium. In the era of the traditional double feature, no one would have characterized these graphic exploitation films as "B movies". With the majors having exited traditional B production and exploitation-style promotion becoming standard practice at
18084-407: Was institutionalized, but a special screening was arranged for him upon his release, pleasing him greatly. In 1956, Wood wrote the screenplay (uncredited) for the film The Violent Years (originally titled Teenage Girl Gang ), which was directed by William M. Morgan, starring Playboy model Jean Moorhead , Timothy Farrell, and serial star I. Stanford Jolley (as a judge). Wood began filming
18221-542: Was originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space ), which featured Bela Lugosi in a small role. (Although Lugosi died in August 1956 before production began, Wood used footage he had shot of Lugosi in 1955–1956.) The film also starred Tor Johnson, Vampira ( Maila Nurmi ), Tom Mason (who doubled for Lugosi in some scenes), and the Amazing Criswell as the film's narrator. Plan 9 premiered on March 15, 1957, at
18358-432: Was paid $ 100 for every ten loops he subtitled. Wood's friends Kenne Duncan and Tor Johnson both passed away during this period. (Wood was named executor of Kenne Duncan's estate, and following Duncan's death, Wood held a small memorial funeral for him with his wife and some friends in his backyard around the swimming pool where they eulogized the departed Western film star.) Wood's friend Duke Moore died in 1976. Throughout
18495-461: Was posthumously awarded a Golden Turkey Award for Worst Director of All Time in 1980, renewing public interest in his life and work. Following the publication of Rudolph Grey 's 1992 oral biography Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. , a biopic of his life, Ed Wood (1994), was directed by Tim Burton . Starring Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi ,
18632-479: Was released by a new company whose name was much bigger than its budgets. American International Pictures (AIP), founded in 1956 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff in a reorganization of their American Releasing Corporation (ARC), soon became the leading U.S. studio devoted entirely to B-cost productions. American International helped keep the original-release double bill alive through paired packages of its films: these movies were low-budget, but instead of
18769-401: Was supposed to star actor Peter Coe as Lugosi and Karl Johnson as his father Tor Johnson . The nearly completed script was left behind the last time Wood was evicted and is presumed to have been discarded in the trash. Wood was also working on a screenplay for a film called Venus De Milo , a mystery that would explain the famous statue's missing arms. Technically, Wood's last acting job was in
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