Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Bela Lugosi's Dead, 16 May 2014
From what I understand and from hints in the movie "Ed Wood" by Tim Burton, Ed Wood created this movie based on the last footage he ever shot of Bela Lugosi.
I recently just watched the colorized version, which adds a lot more dimension to the film. All I can say is the dialog in this film is superior to many recent films, especially Star Wars Episodes 1-III.
Basically Ed Wood's premise for this film was superior for 1953, he just lacked the resources to make it well. He blended in Stock Footage with his framing story well and his editing was actually rather good. The parts he shot himself have good audio and decent film grade, so it's not really that shoddy. And it is also LIT well. This is one of the earliest true Zombie movies ever made.
And when it comes right down to content, some of Ed Wood's "Science" - It's not really that implausible compared to other films where I had to stretch my imagination, I can suspend disbelief due to how the "Ruler of the Galaxy" and the other aliens explain the mechanism they are using to raise the great Tor Johnson from the dead and remote-control his body- And then "Waporise" him later.
Wood, like Hitchcock before him, knew how to not show something to get the same effect as showing it, and it works here- We don't see Bela Lugosi's Ghoul getting vaporized, but we easily see that it happened. The same trick was used in "Seven Men from now" by Bud Beotticher- in the light-speed gunfight between Lee Marvin and Randolph Scott, Randolph Scott is shown to have an amazing quick-draw speed, simply by not showing him drawing his gun. Wood uses that same Fakery in this film.
What is amazing is that I can see two guys in Pilots's uniform sitting in a obvious cardboard set, but you BELIEVE they are flying an Airplane.
I don't consider Wood as a great director, he was adequate. He was better than some directors of today that get handed billion dollar projects on a regular basis. If this film had been adequately funded, it would have been another "Forbidden Planet"- But only if Wood had stuck to writing and producing it, and not also directing.
I have to admire the gall of Wood, and in the movie "Ed Wood", he seems to have the same kind of friends I have, and that he befriended Bela when nobody in Hollywood would even talk to him, shows what kind of person he really was.
This film literally "Marries" Lugosi to 50's LA Horror host "Vampira", so from the time this film was released forward, the two have been synonymous.
This also marks the film with possibly the most lines spoken by Tor Johnson, who was a great Character actor in his own right. His "Inspector Clay" - Well, I believed him- It's not his usual kind of part, which was why it worked.
So, when people say "How can anyone rate this a 10/10", I don't think they really comprehend how difficult it is to get Films funded and produced, especially when you are handed a "reputation" by an industry that is not fair in how those reputations are meted out.
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