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Ed Wood
The mostly true story of the legendary "worst director of all time", who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.
1994 · Directed by Tim Burton · 127 min · Comedy · Drama · History · Screenplay in the scene database · 14 frames
Tagline
Movies were his passion. Women were his inspiration. Angora sweaters were his weakness.
Plot
In 1952, aspiring writer and director Ed Wood is struggling to break into the film industry. After learning that producer George Weiss is trying to purchase Christine Jorgensen's life story, Ed meets with Weiss to direct a now fictionalized film titled I Changed My Sex! but is rejected. Ed then meets his longtime idol, horror film actor Bela Lugosi, whom he befriends. Ed persuades Weiss to let him direct by arguing that having a star in the film would sell tickets, and they could sign the financially struggling Lugosi for a low price. Ed shows the film's completed script to his girlfriend, Dolores Fuller, and reveals that he is secretly a transvestite (having worn women's clothing for personal comfort since childhood), but Fuller struggles to accept this.
During production for Glen or Glenda, which is now about a transvestite, Ed takes to film production with an unusual approach, shooting only one take per scene, giving actors little direction, and using stock footage to fill in gaps. The film is released to critical and commercial failure, preventing Ed from getting work at Weiss' Screen Classics or making a partnership with Warner Bros. executive Feldman. On the advice of Fuller, Ed decides to finance his next film, Bride of the Atom, independently. He befriends Tor Johnson after a wrestling match and casts him, while also becoming friends with famous psychic The Amazing Criswell, who advises Ed on how to sell himself better. Meanwhile, Ed discovers that Lugosi has developed a morphine addiction.
Following a failed fundraising dinner at the Brown Derby, Ed meets Loretta King, whom he mistakes for a wealthy heiress; he asks her to fund the film and casts her as the lead instead of Fuller, who is relegated to a smaller role, infuriating her. Filming begins but is halted when it is revealed that Loretta is actually poor, so Ed convinces meat-packing industry tycoon Don McCoy to continue funding the film, who agrees as long as his son is cast as the lead. At the wrap party for the film, now retitled Bride of the Monster, Fuller breaks up with Ed due to his cross-dressing and the poor quality of his films.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander
- Cinematography: Stefan Czapsky
- Edited by: Chris Lebenzon
- Music: Howard Shore
- Production design: Tom Duffield
- Produced by: Denise Di Novi, Tim Burton
Cast
- Johnny Depp as Ed Wood
- Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi
- Sarah Jessica Parker as Dolores Fuller
- Patricia Arquette as Kathy O'Hara
- Jeffrey Jones as Criswell
- G.D. Spradlin as Reverend Lemon
- Vincent D'Onofrio as Orson Welles
- Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge
- Mike Starr as Georgie Weiss
- Max Casella as Paul Marco
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Touchstone Pictures, Tim Burton Productions, Di Novi Pictures
- Budget: $18,000,000
- Box office: $5,900,000
- Themes: individual, taxi, fortune teller, transsexuality, transvestite, movie business, drug addiction, boxer, oddball, celebrity
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