Mixed emotions about the ninth plan

Last week I watched Plan 9 from Outer Space for the first time. I’m not quite sure how I managed to escape the experience for 42 years. I’ve seen scenes from this classic in any number of “worst movie ever made” shows. And of course the behind-the-scenes story is extensively, lovingly re-created in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood biopic. But whole nine yards of the plan eluded me – or I eluded it – until now.

I was surprised at the range of emotions the movie inspired. The most obvious reaction to it is a sense of derisive mirth. It is, after all, one of the worst movies ever made. That’s a hard-earned distinction based on an impressive uniformity of terribleness. The script is as bad as the acting, which in turn is as bad as the editing and direction. Awfulness on this level can’t help but be funny.

But the joke gets old after awhile. I suppose 10 or 15 minutes of this kind of thing would have been hysterical, but after more than an hour of it the incompetence gag wears out its welcome like a late-in-the-show sketch on Saturday Night Live. Indeed, it becomes downright monotonous.

I suspect I’m not alone in my opinion about the short-lived nature of the amusement. I note that most of the quotes and clips I’ve seen elsewhere were taken from the first 20 minutes or so of the picture.

But more than anything else – even more than the hilarity of its awfulness – this is a sad movie. Most obviously, it’s sad that this was the end of Bela Lugosi’s career. The poor guy was legendary for playing Dracula in the Todd Browning production that set the standard for all Draculas to follow. But by this point in his career, all he can do is stumble around a bit. He died before Wood could get anything on film beyond a handful of shots of Lugosi leaving his house, going back into his house, and briefly strolling in a graveyard. Kids, don’t do heroin.

But more than that, it’s Wood’s sincerity that’s the real heart-breaker. He obviously means to make a good movie, yet has no idea how to go about it. He isn’t like the hundreds – no, thanks to digital production, make that thousands – of crap-slingers who blithely churn out the worst kind of garbage without the slightest regard for what they do. He obviously cares. Frankly, that takes most of the sport out of picking on him and his compatriots.

I think Ed Wood has something to teach us about ourselves, the way we’ve become in the 21st century. But that will need to wait until a future entry.

Review – Night Creatures

Hammer serves up a little non-supernatural drama for a change. Peter Cushing stars as the parson of a small English coastal town. The locals make their living smuggling liquor in from France without paying the high taxes on it, a practice that catches the attention of the authorities, and a ship full of arrogant British Navy men show up to investigate. The plot twists and turns a bit before it’s done, making this an entertaining little picture but not much else. Mildly amusing

Review – The Evil of Frankenstein

Actually, if we really want to lay the blame at the proper doorstep, this movie should be called The Evil of the Guy Who Hypnotizes Frankenstein’s Monster and Orders Him to Commit Crimes. Freddie Francis directs and Peter Cushing stars in this Hammer production. The Baron returns to his old haunts and resumes his old habits, a task made easier when his original monster turns up frozen in a glacier. When the creature proves unruly, the doctor enlists the aid of Zoltan the carnival hypnotist (Peter Woodthorpe) to rein him in. Unfortunately, Zoltan is more interested in theft and revenge than in advancing the cause of science. Though this isn’t the worst Frankenstein movie I’ve ever seen, it’s a fair distance from the best. The monster makeup in particular stands out, looking like a cheap copy of the box-headed look that made Karloff famous, only layered on thickly enough to disguise the fact that Kiwi Kingston – whoever he might be – isn’t Christopher Lee. Mildly amusing

Review – Black Friday

This has to be one of the all-time weirdest explanations for the Jekyl-Hyde dual personality plot: when a surgeon’s friend is mortally wounded in a car crash, the doctor saves the man’s life by giving him a partial brain transplant from the other crash victim, a notorious gangster. Thus a mild-mannered professor by day is transformed into a brutal, vengeance-bent thug at night. The result is more boring than it has any right to be. Boris Karloff stars as the mad doctor, and Bela Lugosi puts in a brief appearance as one of the mobster’s double-crossing ex-cronies. Mildly amusing

Review – Plan 9 from Outer Space

This both is and isn’t as bad as I’d heard it was. Of course it’s plenty awful, a badness beyond Glen or Glenda? In an exploitation documentary a certain amount of terribleness is to be expected. But in a narrative drama, well, this is just pure incompetent silliness. It’s also more than a little sad, especially as the last movie Bela Lugosi ever made (to the extent that he can even be said to be in it, as he died fairly early in the production). And worst of all, the humor of the whole mess gets old long before the running time expires. Overall this is plenty awful, but I’ll take an earnest dreadfulness over an uncaring hack job any day of the week. See if desperate

Review – Diplomatic Courier

Though I Tivo’d this on a whim, it actually turned out to be kinda good. Tyrone Power stars as a courier assigned to pick up a secret document from a spy in Eastern Europe. But when the spy is killed before making the hand-off, suddenly our hero finds himself neck-deep in deadly intrigue. Though not as classy as The Third Man, this movie has some of the same look and feel of Carol Reed’s masterpiece. However, you’ll need to pay close attention when you watch this. The plot occasionally hinges on blink-and-you-miss-it moments. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for small parts played by future stars. In addition to supporting roles by Patricia Neal and Karl Malden, we also get brief appearances by Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin. Though this isn’t one of the eight best spy movies ever made, it’s nonetheless worth a look. Mildly amusing

Review – Death and the Maiden

This is one of those productions that was obviously a stage play before it became a movie. Director Roman Polanski decided to preserve the stiff theatricality of the drama, keeping almost the entire story in one location, sticking with the play-it-for-the-back-row dialogue, and so on. Sigourney Weaver turns in a nuance-free performance as a former political prisoner in an unnamed South American country. Fate brings a man (Ben Kingsley) to the country house she shares with her husband. Claiming to recognize his voice, she identifies him as her torturer, ties him up at gunpoint and conducts a half-baked trial with hubby as counsel for the defense. The script is an uneven mix of artificial power-jockeying and graphic descriptions of torture. Though the unrealistic feel of the picture provides some safe distance between the audience and the difficult subject at hand, that buffer zone is a detriment as well as a benefit. In particular, it makes the end merely convenient rather than thought-provoking. Mildly amusing