Book Review

Nightmare Of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr.

by Rudolph Grey

     Edward D. Wood Jr., the godfather of psychotronic and cult films, was a man who had it all. Well , had it all except money managements skills, control over his drinking impulses, and talent. So maybe he didn’t really have it all but what he did have was a nice house in Hollywood, a group of loyal friends, and a huge collection of angora sweaters. He also has a lasting influence on outsider art and counter-culturalism that has lasted to this day. What more could a man want? Rudolph Grey’s biography Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. examines this auteur and pulp sleaze author. By connecting all the dots presented in these pages, you might even be able to see why films like Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space have survived in popular and unpopular culture.

     Nightmare of Ecstasy is an oral biography. Grey interviewed people who knew Ed Wood personally and put their accounts together. It is not a linear narrative and is actually more like commentaries on different aspects of Wood’s life. Separate chapters focus on things like his military service in World War II, his transvestism, his friendships with Bela Lugosi and other stars of 1950s horror cinema, his alcoholism, his involvement with the porn industry, and the sad and unsettling end of his life. The book ends with a list and commentaries of the known books and movies he worked on. What was surprising about it all was that the chapters about his movie productions were the least interesting parts of the biography. The stories and descriptions of the man himself were what really made this a good read.

     What kind of a man was Ed Wood? By most accounts he was friendly, humorous, open minded, generous to a fault, charming and extremely good looking. People loved to be around him and his parties were popular. He worked in most aspects of the cinematic industry and his most famous films are just a small part of everything he did professionally. He did know some important people in Hollywood but he also made friends with a host of other eccentrics like Criswell, Tor Johnson, and Vampira. His identity as a heterosexual cross-dresser made him accepting of other people with unconventional ideas and even gained him entrance to a secret club of male celebrities who liked to dress up as women. As Ed Wood became more and more comfortable about cross-dressing in public, his drinking problem got worse. The chapters at the end are harrowing accounts of his descent into self-destruction. He may have only lived at the margins of the Hollywood in-crowd but he had a good life in his younger years and a lot of people loved and admired him. Reading about how Ed Wood lived in hell in the end was a little disturbing.

     Grey’s biography gives details about the life of Ed Wood but it could have benefited from a chapter examining his legacy. He is often laughed at for the being the world’s worst film director but that designation is neither fair nor accurate. Glen or Glenda can be seen as a groundbreaking film and one of the first to explicitly deal with a sexual behavior that was once considered a mental illness but is now considered harmless by most people. Even if few people saw it when initially released, you have to admit it took courage to produce and star in it it in the 1950s.

     While Plan 9 from Outer Space is not a good film by conventional standards, it was far better than even a lot of monster movies made in Ed Wood’s time. While those films may have had bigger budgets, higher production standards, and more professional acting, most of them were boring and formulaic with the same plot: a monster appears and threatens the world, inevitably followed by an hour of people talking about how to kill it. In the last fifteen minutes, they fight the monster and it dies. Only the end of movies like The Crawling Eye or It Conquered the World are worth watching. Plan 9 from Outer Space is actually fun to watch from beginning to end. His films have had an influence on not only trans people and punks but on indy film makers and underground artists as well. In a John Waters kind of sense, being called the world’s worst film maker is an honor, not an insult. Besides, Ed Wood’s films are far more entertaining than anything Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, or Sandra Bullock have ever done. I can’t even sit through half of a Quentin Tarantino movie without falling asleep and yet I’ve sat through Plan 9 from Outer Space at least ten times. His books are coveted by collectors too. A copy of the novelization of Orgy Of the Dead sold on Ebay for more than $400. It must be a strange book considering that that movie was little more than a feature length film of women dancing topless in a cemetery. But Grey’s book ends with Ed Wood’s death and does not explore the meaning or significance of what he accomplished.

     Nightmare of Ecstasy shows, maybe indirectly, what sets the films of Ed Wood apart from other b-movies and exploitation films. Ed Wood was a funny and charming guy to work with especially when directing movies in drag; he inspired a lot of people by just being courageous enough to be who he was. The casts and crews he worked with had fun during production times. They knew they weren’t making anything profound or artistically correct. They didn’t care either. This sense of playfulness and joy is what makes his movies interesting despite themselves. They are possessed of the same kind of naive spirit that animates so much of outsider art. Ed Wood and his friends did not take themselves too seriously and that is maybe why he is remembered to this day while other so-called “serious” films like the academy award winning Kramer Vs. Kramer was forgotten a long time ago. Maybe that’s what is missing in today’s world: people who aren’t afraid to be themselves, people who don’t take themselves too seriously, and people who just do what makes them happy. Maybe that is what is needed to revive the jaded film industry we have in the 21^st century.

     The people who knew or remembered Ed Wood are mostly dead now. Being the marginal figure he was, there was not a lot of documentation about him either. This will probably be the last and only biography about this good man. For this reason, Nightmare of Ecstasy should be cherished by fans of Ed Wood and connoisseurs of the unusual and obscure. 

Grey, Rudolph. Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. Feral House, Portland, OR: 1994.