Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (24 page)

How many times have you found yourself at a video store staring at the thousands of films you’ve never heard of, wondering which ones are worth watching? It happens to us all the time—so we decided to offer a few recommendations for relatively obscure, quirky videos you might like.

SOLDIER OF ORANGE
(1978)
Drama / Foreign

Review:
“Rutger Hauer became an international star as a result of his remarkable performance in this Dutch release, in which he plays one of four college buddies galvanized into action when the Nazis invade the Netherlands. This is an exceptional work; an exciting, suspenseful, and intelligent war adventure.” (
Video Movie Guide
)
Stars:
Rutger Hauer, Jeroen Krabbe, Edward Fox, Susan Penhaligon.
Director:
Paul Verhoeven.

MONA LISA
(1986)
Drama

A sort of noir mystery in the tradition of
Chinatown.

Review:
“A wonderful, sad, sensitive story of a romantic, small-time hood who gets personally involved with the welfare and bad company of the high-priced whore he’s been hired to chauffeur.” (
Video Hound’s Golden Movie Retriever
)
Stars:
Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine.
Director:
Neil Jordan.

COMFORT AND JOY
(1984)
Comedy

One of Uncle John’s favorite Christmas movies.

Review:
“Quirky, fun little comedy. When a mild-mannered Scottish disk jockey’s girl moves out on him, his world begins to fall apart. He decides to find more meaning in his life by throwing himself into a noble struggle to reconcile two groups battling over territorial rights for their ice cream trucks. Full of dry wit and subtle humor. Sophisticated viewers are more likely to find this good fun.” Music by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. (
Illustrated Guide To Video’s Best
)
Stars:
Bill Paterson, Eleanor David, C.P. Grogan, Alex Norton.
Director:
Bill Forsyth.

BABETTE’S FEAST
(1987)
Foreign / Drama

Review:
“Exquisite, delicately told tale of two beautiful young minister’s daughters who pass up love and fame to remain in their small
Dutch village. They grow old, using religion as a substitute for living life...and then take in Parisian refugee Audran, a woman with a very special secret. Subtle, funny and deeply felt, with several wonderful surprises, an instant masterpiece that deservedly earned a Best Foreign Film Academy Award. [Director] Axel wrote the screenplay, from an Isak Dinesen short story.” (
Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide
)
Stars:
Stephane Audran, Jean-Phillippe Lafont, Gudmar Wivesson, Jarl Kulle, Bibi Andersson, Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer.
Director:
Gabriel Axel.

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING
(1989)
Certifiably weird comedy.

Review:
“A cynical, energetic satire about a manic advertising idea man who becomes so disgusted with trying to sell pimple cream that he quits the business. Ultimately he grows a pimple of his own that talks and begins to take over his life. Acerbic and hilarious.” (
Video Hound’s Golden Movie Retriever
)
Stars:
Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard Wilson.
Director:
Bruce Robinson.

BAGDAD CAFE
(1988)
Comedy / Drama

Review:
“This delightfully off-beat comedy-drama concerns a German businesswoman who appears in the minuscule desert town in California called Bagdad. She and the highly strung owner of the town’s only diner-hotel have a major culture and personality clash. Jack Palance as a bandanna-wearing artist is so perfectly weird he practically walks off with the film.” (
Video Movie Guide
)
Stars:
Marianne Sagebrecht, C.C.H. Pounder, Jack Palance.
Director:
Percy Adlon.

HOUSE OF GAMES
(1987) Mystery

Review:
“A very unusual and fascinating thriller. An uptight pop psychiatrist and best-selling female author decides to rescue one of her clients from a charismatic con artist. Instead, she is nearly conned out of $6,000 of her own money and she has also become fascinated with this man. She is both drawn to him and challenged by him. And, she quickly gets in over her head....Quickly the twists and cons get so thick that she doesn’t know who is conning who. A slick thriller well worth watching, but pay attention.” (
Illustrated Guide To Video’s Best
)
Stars:
Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Lilia Skala, Mike Nussbaum, J.T. Walsh.
Director:
David Mamet.

Ask any film buff to name the worst directors of all-time, and you can be sure Ed Wood’s name will come up. He’s become a legend for films like
Plan 9 from Outer Space—
a movie so bad it needs to be seen just to be believed. This piece was written by someone who knew him—in fact, the reluctant star of
Plan 9,
Gregory Walcott.

T
he Connection

Early in our marriage, Barbara and I lived in a cottage just across the street from the First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills. Ed Reynolds, a chubby little man who attended the church, had come out to Hollywood from Alabama to make Biblical films. He talked to me occasionally, knowing I was in the movie industry, about his “calling” to produce religious movies with life-embracing themes. I tried not to encourage him, knowing he had no background in film production. Naive individuals like Reynolds are easy bait for Hollywood hucksters.

Reynolds’ Big Break

About a year later, Reynolds came to me and said he was going to finance a film starring Bela Lugosi. He wanted me to play the young romantic lead. I said to him, “But Ed, Bela Lugosi is DEAD!”

Reynolds said, “Well, that’s not a problem. There’s a very ingenious director, Ed Wood, who has some excellent footage of Lugosi, and he has written a very clever screenplay around that film.”

“But Ed, I thought you wanted to make Biblical pictures?”

“Yes! That’s the ultimate plan. But Biblical pictures with big sets, large casts and costumes are very expensive. This fellow, Wood, has convinced me that by making a few exploitation films, I can build up my bankroll to where I can then make big budget Biblical films.”

I had never heard of Ed Wood, so I asked to see the script. It was the most atrocious piece of writing I had ever seen. A child could’ve written better dialogue. I said, “Ed this is a terrible script, and I hate to see you get involved
in this project and lose your money.”

“No, no! I want you to meet the director,” he insisted. “I’ll arrange a luncheon.”

Reynolds was dazzled by Hollywood and couldn’t be dissuaded.

Before the meeting, I looked into Wood’s background, and discovered he had done a few cheesy low-budget pictures. It was incongruous that sweet, sincere Reynolds, who wanted to produce inspirational Biblical motion pictures, would be connected with Wood, whose movies could only be booked in fleabag theaters on back streets.

Meeting the Auteur

At the luncheon, I found Wood to be a charmingly handsome man, who gushed about how perfect I was for the role. He assured me I would be working with a top-notch Hollywood crew and a good cast.

Wood resembled Errol Flynn, and was clearly a smooth promoter. In fact, he started attending Reynolds’ church and showed an interest in becoming a convert to the faith. This pleased Reynolds, convincing him that Wood was sincere and a godsend. I was there the night Ed Wood was baptized. He stood in the pool, resplendent in a white robe. His boyish face had the look of an angel. As he was immersed into the baptismal waters of the church, Ed Reynolds beamed in satisfaction, and said stoutly, “Amen!”

Taking the Plunge

I reluctantly agreed to do the film,
Plan Nine From Outer Space
, as a favor to Ed Reynolds, working at scale wages on a four-day schedule.

The first day I reported to work on a tiny sound stage—behind a sleazy bar and a disreputable hotel. I knew right away I had made a mistake. The sets looked like something a 6th-grade class had hastily put together. The crew seemed fairly normal, but the cast members were a bizarre assemblage of Wood’s cronies: hopeful actors, former wives, an astrologer, an over-the-hill wrestler, a few cross-dressers, and his chiropractor.

The set had the ambiance of an old-time carny side-show, not a professional movie sound stage. I went home that first day, and I remember distinctly saying to my wife, “Honey, this has got to be the worst film
ever made.”

Unfortunately my assessment was prophetic, and the movie turned out to be a debacle. Poor Ed Reynolds could get no distributor to release the picture, and he lost his investment. A couple of years later he died, a broken man at the early age of 52.

A Cult Film

The film was eventually released to television and shown during late-night ghetto hours. Amazingly enough, it picked up an audience; it was so shockingly bad that it was actually funny.

A freaky Edward D. Wood phenomenon began. Even Tim Burton, director of the
Batman
mega hits was so fascinated by the quirky auteur that he made a movie of his life story in 1994. The film,
Ed Wood
, received favorable reviews but limited box office success. It did, however, add to Wood’s growing international fame.

But Why?

I am still puzzled as to why people are attracted to Ed Wood’s ghastly legacy and his ludicrously inept films. Perhaps it’s like the fascination one finds looking at a macabre auto wreck. Perhaps Wood appeals to people who feel lost, or who rebel against society’s stereotypes.

I think my son, Todd, may have hit upon the real reason: “It’s that thing we fear, in ourselves, that we, too, are not really talented, and in time that truth will be revealed.”

I do say, I have to admire Wood for his flint-faced determination to do the thing he loved the most, making movies, and his uncanny ability to complete the projects, no matter how tasteless and poorly made. Who knows, maybe effort should be recognized as well as art.

R.I.P.

In his later years, Wood dashed off dirty magazine stories to survive and drank heavily. Evicted from his rat-hole apartment, he moved in with a friend in whose bed the 54-year-old Wood died quietly and unexpectedly in December 1978. His ashes were scattered in the ocean off the coast of Southern California.

As a follow-up to Greg Walcott’s piece about Ed Wood (immediately preceding this), we thought we’d include a few comments from critics about
Plan 9 from Outer Space.

O
NLY HUBCAPS

“Some say [
Plan 9 from Outer Space
] is the worst movie anyone ever made. Certainly it’s the worst movie Ed Wood ever made. And nobody but Wood could have made it. The lunacy begins with a portentous introduction from our old friend Criswell, the clairvoyant. ‘Greetings my friends,’ Criswell reads from his cue card. ‘We are all interested in the future because that’s where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.’ While we’re still mulling over the meaning of that statement, Wood hits us with the heavy-duty special effects—UFOs flying over Hollywood Boulevard. Actually, they’re only hubcaps, superimposed on a pseudo-sky.”

—The Worst Movies of All
Time, by Michael Sauter

ATTACK OF THE UNDEAD

“God knows what the first eight “Plans” were, but Plan 9 is a doozy....Aliens Dudley Manlove and Janna Lee (today a successful scriptwriter) were sent by The Ruler to raise the dead so that they’d attack the living. That’s just about what Wood tried to do with his dead friend Bela Lugosi, billed as the star of the film although he died
prior
to production. Wood had a couple of minutes of footage of Lugosi from an aborted project, so he simply inserted the snippets into this film and repeated them over and over so that Lugosi had adequate screen time. Lugosi’s character—The Ghoul Man—was played in the rest of the movie by a chiropractor, an extremely tall fellow who spends his screen time with a cape covering his face so we won’t know he’s an impostor. The ruse doesn’t work, but I don’t think Wood really cared.”

—Guide for the Film Fanatic
, by Danny Peary

BEYOND RIDICULE

“Words such as amateurish, crude, tedious and aaarrrggghhhh can’t begin to describe this Edward D. Wood film with Bela Lugosi in graveyard scenes made shortly before his death....