ED WOOD (1994) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Tim Burton
Johnny Depp. Martin Landau, Patricia Arquette,
Sarah Jessica Parker, George "The Animal" Steele,
Jeffrey Jones, Bill Murray, Vincent D'Onofrio,
G.D. Spradlin, Max Casella, Lisa Marie
A Tim Burton dream project, a fanciful, black-and-white account of Ed Wood's early years as a Hollywood auteur, from "Glen or Glenda?" in 1953 through the legendary "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Filmed in the style of a 1950s B movie, it's a loving, respectful, achingly funny tribute to the man universally recognized as the most inept filmmaker of all time. Depp plays the title role as if he were imitating Jon Lovitz, but it's a caricature that grows on you, as do the other performances. What gives the film its emotional resonance is Martin Landau's astonishing portrayal of Bela Lugosi, profane, crotchety and hooked on morphine, once the world's greatest horror star, reduced by the time he met Wood to poverty and self-parody, taking any bad part in any bad movie just to make his next fix. For the first few scenes he appears in, you keep looking for Landau under all that makeup. After that, you simply accept the fact that you're watching Lugosi. This is Ed Wood's life as Ed himself might have imagined it, or as he might have wanted to film it, if he'd ever had a real budget or a shred of talent. Lisa Marie (as Vampira) and George "The Animal" Steele (as Tor Johnson) are practically clones of their "Plan 9" counterparts, and Vincent D'Onofrio does a dead-on cameo as Orson Welles.
Martin Landau
(1928-2017)
