"One is always considered mad when one perfects
something that others cannot grasp."
Edward D. Wood Jr.
I remember the first time I saw "Plan 9 From Outer Space". It was 1961 and I was in 8th grade and I remember going into school on a Monday, and all anybody could talk about, at least all the guys, was this movie we'd all seen on Channel 27 on Saturday night: "Grave Robbers From Outer Space". ("Grave Robbers From Outer Space" was the movie's original title.) We were all critics, at least when it came to the kinds of movies that turned up on Channel 27 on Saturday night. And even at 13 or 14, we knew we had viewed something that was both uniquely terrible and unlike anything else.
"Plan 9", as millions of former 14-year-olds know, was the creation of Edward D. Wood Jr., a World War Two veteran and cross-dressing auteur whose ambition to make great movies was matched only by his spectacular inability to do that. Wood had completed at least three ultra-low-budget features by the time he started shooting "Plan 9" in November of 1956. He had also befriended Bela Lugosi at a low point in Lugosi's life and career, and had shot a couple minutes of silent footage of Lugosi for a project called "The Vampire's Tomb". When Lugosi died not long after that, Wood decided to incorporate those two minutes into a whole other film that could then be promoted as Bela Lugosi's last movie. Which he did.
On the surface, at least, the movie's plot has some parallels to "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the Robert Wise sci-fi classic from 1951. Aliens in flying saucers touch down on Earth with a warning that humans are close to developing the solaronite, a bomb that could blow up the universe by igniting the rays of the sun. To prevent this, they have a plan (Plan 9), which involves resurrectiong the dead and unleashing a zombie army to destroy the human race. They start by reviving three recently deceased humans: an old man (the Lugosi character, played for most of the movie by an actor who looks nothing like him), the old man's wife (witchy TV horror star Vampira), and a police inspector (professional wrestler and lumbering giant Tor Johnson). Will Earth survive this deadly threat? Spoiler Alert: The suspense won't kill you.
For years, ever since the Golden Turkey Awards came out in 1980, the film's status has rested on its reputation as the worst movie ever made. It's not, but you can see how the case could be made. You've got Vampira and Tor Johnson skulking around a graveyard in which the grave markers visibly wobble when the actors walk too close to them. You've got the set for the cockpit of an airplane that's not much more than a few pieces of plywood and a plastic shower curtain. You've got the alien ruler (John "Bunny" Breckinridge) and the spaceship commander (Dudley Manlove) trying to outdo each other in the don't-ask-don't-tell sweepstakes. You've got flying saucers that look like little silver nipples dangling from invisible wires, and pyrotechnics that look like they were produced with matches and lighter fluid. You've got actors like Lyle Talbot and Gregory Walcott, who had long Hollywood careers, struggling to save themselves from Wood's hopelessly overwrought script. And more. And yet . . .
"Plan 9 From Outer Space" is never dull. You might watch it wondering how this thing ever got made, but you end up being glad it did. Because what stands out, apart from its colossal unplanned silliness, is its total (and painful) sincerity. Wood absolutely believed he could achieve something close to greatness. It's apparent in every awkward frame. And against prohibitive odds, he got the movie made, and got his cast and crew to go along with it.
For a double feature some night, try watching "Plan 9" together with "Ed Wood", Tim Burton's biopic starring Johnny Depp. And if day turns to night and back again at unexpected moments, or Tor Johnson almost falls back into the grave he's supposed to be climbing out of, try not to be too critical.
As Depp says, playing Wood in the Tim Burton movie, "Cut! Perfect! Print it!" Ed couldn't have said it any better himself.
