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Tor Johnson returns from the dead in Ed Wood's film, "Plan Nine From Outer Space."
___ __ ^ ^ • i -« •
Flan Nine called true, twisted classic
The Glassy
Eye
By Dave
Msile
First lake a transvestite director
and a kooky TV psychic named
Criswell who once predicted that the
United States would fight World War
III in 1975.
Then add Bela Lugosi, former
horror star and recovered morphine
addict still attempting a comeback
while in his 70s, a wasp-waisted hor
ror-show hostess whose claim to fame
was that she was James Dean's lover,
a 350-pound Swedish wrestler named
Tor Johnson (whose knowledge of the
English language was sketchy at best)
playing a police inspector, the great
grandson of colonial Vice President
John Breckinridge (in a medieval
knight outfit) as an alien ruler, and,
somewhere in the equation, Paul
Marco, a small-time actor with a
pcncnant iorcnromc sen-promotion.
All were Hollywood nobodies, the
loony fringe: the cast of “Plan Nine
From Outer Space” a.k.a. “Grave
Robbers from Outer Space.”
“Plan Nine from Outer Space,” a
staple of latc-nightTV since the 1960s,
officially has been acult film since the
mid-1970s — since authors Harry and
Michael Medved rather confiden
tially declared it the worst film of all
lime in their book, “The Golden Tur
key Awards.”
Some have grown hostile to these
assertions, but few — particularly
those who have seen it 20 times, a la
“Rocky Horror”— will deny its cock
eyed charm, warped logic and almost
surreal look. It is one of the sci-fi
genre’s true twisted, low-budget clas
sics.
Eros and Tanna, two aliens from an
undesignalcd planet have been given
orders to use “Plan Nine,” a hideous
plot to resurrect Earth ’s dead people to
take over the world. Eros and Tanna
climb aboard their hubcap on wires
and boogie down to Earth where two
ghouls kill 350-pound wrestler Tor
Johnson and then revive him.
Further extrapolation is futile, as
“Plan Nine” grows progressively sur
real and nonsensical. Jim Morton, in
“Incredibly Strange Films,” says,
“Plan Nine borders on Dada, such as
when two men wearing pilot outfits sit
in front of a shower curtain and pre
tend it’s an airplane cockpit. All the
actors furiously run back and forth
over the same tiny graveyard set
living unsuccessfully to avoid top
pling spindly trees and plywood
gravestones. Tragic foolagc of the
aging Bela Lugosi in broad daylight
abruptly melds into foolagc of direc
tor Fd Wood’s chiropractor Tom
Mason stalking the dark cemetery
with a cape over his face. Yet despite
the skewered logic and the paltry
budget, it is Ed Wt>od Jr.’s dialogue
that is unmistakable.”
“i __ »»_ n n 11/_•
L.IIWIIWI IIV/l, Dili > ? tl I I V. I I III
“Keep Watching the Skies,” “Ed
W(Kxl was a real auteur.”
All of Wood’s films are marked by
a mind-boggling ignorance of how
normal people converse, but then
Wood wasn't working with normal
people either.
“Inspector Clay is dead . . . mur
dered . . . and somebody’s respon
sible!” says Detective Duke Moore as
he scratches his neck with a loaded
pistol.
“Flying saucers ... you mean the
kind from up there?” inquires Mona
McKinnon of broad-shouldered
hubby Gregory Walcott.
In Wood’s first film, “Glen or
Glenda” (1953), Glen tries to explain
his transvestism to his lover while the
narrator intones: “Glen decided to tell
Barbara of the night gowns, the negli
gees, the robes, the high-heeled shoes.
He spoke softly — hurriedly at first—
and then slowly he became more
technical.”
Documentations of “Plan Nine
from Outer Space” always arc loaded
with stories of the film’s equally bi
zarre director/writer/transvcstitc,
Edward D. Wood Jr., a man with
minimal talent, who, despite his
shabby productions, wanted nothing
more than to be a major Hollywood
director.
In 1953 he directed and starred in
“Glen or Glenda,” an autobiographi
cal film whose philosophy could be
summed up as: yeah, I’m a transves
tite; now get off my back! The
Medved brothers awarded him the
lifetime achievement award for worst
director and indulged in lengthy dis
sertations on his penchant for
women’s angora sweaters.
Fred Mol I in, co-founder of the
now-defunct Admit One video line,
which features almost all of Wood’s (
films (“Night of the Ghouls,” “Sinis
ter Urge,” “Jailbait,” “Bride of the
Monster” and “Orgy of the Dead"),
threatens to write an Ed Wood biogra
phy titled “Look Back in Angora and
ioiu rangona magazine:
“W(xxl fils in like a square peg in
around hole. I think it was Jim Hobei
man who called Wood’s works anti
masterpieces. In the same way that
there are anti-heroes, Wood was an
anti-genius. There was something so
incredibly terrible about what he did,
yet there was also this incredible
conviction that persevered so that he
was able to get through a film and get
it released. A sort of anti-Hitchcock,
who did everything wrong, like a real
life Wrong Way Corrigan.”
My own euphoria with “Plan
Nine” reached its peak when several
friends and I called “Plan Nine” co
star Paul Marco live as part of our
KZL'M radio program. The way the
guy stuttered and stammered, you’d
have thought he was discussing "Citi
zen Kane.” He told us all sorts of
invaluable information. Barely five
minutes into the interview, Marco
blurted out: “I’ll tell you scenes where
Ed was dressed as a woman! ” and then
See GLASSY on 12