THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410080037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
SO, YOU'RE ON A BUDGET. Ed Wood tells us that a slim wallet needn't stop us. It needn't even slow us down. Ed Wood was cheap because he had to be, but he still made movies. And he made them his way - with a style and a tastelessness all his own.
These were the kind of movies in which paper plates substituted for flying saucers and the only ``star'' was an ancient has-been named Bela Lugosi. Still, he made them.
In a telling scene from Tim Burton's new, wildly entertaining movie biography ``Ed Wood,'' Johnny Depp as the title character cheerfully yells ``Cut'' after every tawdry shot of his movies-within-the-movie. ``That was great,'' he exclaims. ``Perfect! Couldn't be better.'' Others, rooted in the realm of reality, must have realized that the scene was actually lousy, but not Ed. His exuberance could not be dampened.
In an early scene, Ed and his bizarre group of repertory players are sitting around reading a review of a flop play he has directed. The review is a pan, but Ed spots one line stating that ``the soldier's costumes looked authentic.'' ``Now, THAT'S positive!'' he exclaims. Ed was always going to spot that line.
Ed Wood may have been a transvestite and a kook, who, in real life, ended up drinking himself to death and making pornographic movies. No matter. Director Tim Burton, in a mood of gleeful defiance, sees him as the epitome of the independent soul who sticks to his agenda. ``Ed Wood'' is a hymn to striving artists everywhere.
From this somewhat tawdry material, Burton has made an unabashedly sweet and funny movie.
Don't let those money-hungry TV ads fool you. This isn't REALLY a movie about transvestites, or worse. It's a lovable, if mischievous, mainstream comedy laced with wonderful moments of poignancy.
Sure, Ed and his cast were a bit, shall we say, strange. Ed did wear his girlfriend's pink angora sweaters, and sometimes her skirts, but this angle is handled with a wink rather than a leer.
Depp turns in a witty and extroverted performance in the title role. It's the best thing he's yet done in a career that is turning out to be remarkably unpredictable. He suggests Wood's flair with a boyish disregard for the disappointments of real life.
The stand-out performance, though, is that of Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, a sad but unbowed old man who became a star in ``Dracula'' but was forgotten by the 1950s of this film.
Lugosi may have been down, but he wasn't out. His expensive suits, complete with capes, were threadbare, but he still retained elegance. Bela loved to bad-mouth his arch rival, Boris Karloff, whose Frankenstein he despised.
It is a flashy role but Landau makes it into much more. He effectively suggests the sadness of an old man who is overlooked and alone. The movie is, more than anything else, a love story between Bela and Ed. The removal of the generation gap, and a respect for past achievements, is a winning side theme of the movie.
Landau will, and should, win the Academy Award for this amazing characterization.
Patricia Arquette hardly registers as Wood's long-time wife, Kathy. Sarah Jessica Parker appears as his girlfriend, starlet Dolores Fuller. Bill Murray is Bunny Breckinridge, a flamboyant transvestite who preens on the sidelines. Lisa Marie is the full-figured horror show hostess Vampira. George ``The Animal'' Steele is the hulking wrestler Tor Johnson. Jeffery Jones (once the emperor of Austria in ``Amadeus'') is the charlatan forecaster Criswell. (The one who used to be on the Johnny Carson show regularly). And, yes, all these people actually did live.
In one of the funnier scenes, the group of oddballs are baptized after a Baptist church shows interest in backing one of Ed's movies, but won't sign the check until the title is changed from ``Grave Diggers,'' and all the cast is baptized. That movie became ``Plan 9 From Outer Space,'' which, with the cross-dressing ``Glen or Glenda?'' are the two most famous Wood flicks.
Burton is clearly a loner himself and only his success with ``Batman'' and other moneymakers has allowed him the budget to resurrect Ed and his cast. Of course, there are those who might point out that Ed Wood probably never really met his idol, Orson Welles (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) and that none of Ed's movies actually premiered at the prestigious Pantages Theater. But, as with ``Quiz Show,'' mere inaccuracies in ``fact'' need not get in our way.
There is a delightful defiance about the way Burton presents Ed's real life as an actual B-movie, filmed in luxurious black and white complete with melodramatic lines. Even the background score, a kind of jungle beat, suggests an era when people were willing to accept paper plates as being flying saucers, as long as they were up on that big drive-in theater screen.
``Ed Wood'' is one of the most hilarious and poignant movies of the year. A real surprise. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Jeffrey Jones plays Criswell, psychic to the stars, in ``Ed Wood.''
TOUCHSTONE PICTURES
Bill Murray plays Bunny Breckinridge, the highbrow transvestite.
Graphic
``ED WOOD''
Rated: R
Director: Tim Burton
Mal's rating: 4 stars
by CNB