Ed Wood

Ed Wood traces the film-making exploits of Ed Wood. Lack of money, an unwillingness to conform to Hollywood conventions, and, let's face it, mainly boring and crap films, meant that his various projeds never seemed to go smoothly. But this in turn led to a certain charaderistic energy and flavour to Ed Wood's movies which for all their many faults have great charm.

It was a reminiscence of this charm which led Tim Burton to create a homage to Wood - and to Bela Lugosi, whose relationship with Ed Wood forms the central theme of the film. Many of the scenes not only reflect Wood's films, but actually copy scenes from them with a level of accuracy clearly borne out of deep affection.

While this film is an amusing, occasionally touching and well-made homage which is in itself far better than any of Ed Wood's own movies, it ultimately fails to analyse the character of the man in any serious way. There are a few autobiographical elements by Burton which draw parallels between the two men, but we find out little about what drove Ed Wood to make such enduringly charming pulp movies.

Review by Matthew Bull
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96