Movies
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE Screening at Schlafly Bottleworks October 1st
“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives!”
Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE screens Thursday September 3rd at 7:00pm at Schlafly Bottleworks
Ed Wood’s 1959 masterwork PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is nowhere near the worst movie ever made, as anyone who’s seen it might testify. What can be said about it? It defies any traditional movie-making conventions and does it without any shame whatsoever. Wood had to have the cast baptized in order to make this bizarre film, and that’s the least strange thing about it. The original title Grave Robbers from Outer Space was later ditched, but Criswell mentions it during the intro nevertheless.
PLAN 9 is promoted as “almost starring Bela Lugosi” because he died before the film could even get finished, and the footage of Lugosi from this film was originally filmed by Wood to be included as a part of his movie THE GHOUL ON THE MOON, which never got made, so Wood just shoehorned those scenes (which just involve Lugosi walking around by his house and later by a cemetery) in PLAN 9. Wood’s wife’s chiropractor Tom Mason substituted Lugosi (despite looking nothing like him).
Ed Wood tried to send and anti-war message in PLAN 9, and while some of the themes he brings up do sound interesting, they ended up being so hilariously mishandled that you just can’t help but laugh at them. From the technical side, nothing in this movie works. The wobbly, cheap sets ft. cardboard gravestones and beat-up fences, the super-fake flying saucers held by visible wires, the awkward transitions between the daytime and nighttime shots (and some other poor uses of day-for- night photography), the lousy editing, the bad interspersion of stock footage of soldiers and actual scenes that were shot for the film, the visible equipment, etc. etc.
The acting is, of course, atrocious as well. Most of the actors sound wooden and uninterested (Mona McKinnon as Paula Trent), some completely ham it up (Dudley Manlove as Eros), and some are barely intelligible (Tor Johnson as Dan Clay). The dialogues are absolutely nonsensical and just further emphasise the film’s anti-logic (“We contacted government officials. They refused our existence.”). In Ed Wood’s universe, outer space has an atmosphere and flying saucers are described as resembling cigars. Not only that, but Criswell’s narration is overly dramatic without any real sense of measure (” The beautiful flowers she had once planted, with her own hands, became nothing more than the lost roses of her cheeks.” – WTF does that even mean???) However, the library music actually works.
PLAN 9 is such a beautiful disaster of a film that one just can’t love it enough. So far it’s been colorized, there’s been talk of a remake, and it also spawned a series of popular Halloween masks based on Tor Johnson’s face. I mean, what’s not to love…?
“Perhaps, on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it… For they will be from OUTER SPACE!”
Read Sam Moffitt’s article about Vampira, one of the stars of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE HERE
Don’t miss this screening Thursday October 1st at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue Maplewood, MO 63143). The show begins at 7pm.
Brought to you by A Film Series, Schlafly Bottleworks, AUDP and Real Living Gateway Real Estate.
Doors open at 6:30pm.
$6 suggested for the screening. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed suds.
“Culture Shock” is the name of a film series here in St. Louis that is the cornerstone project of a social enterprise that is an ongoing source of support for Helping Kids Together(http://www.helpingkidstogether.com/) a St. Louis based social enterprise dedicated to building cultural diversity and social awareness among young people through the arts and active living.
The films featured for “Culture Shock” demonstrate an artistic representation of culture shock materialized through mixed genre and budgets spanning music, film and theater. Through ‘A Film Series’ working relationship with Schlafly Bottleworks, they seek to provide film lovers with an offbeat mix of dinner and a movie opportunities.
The facebook invite for the event can be found HERE
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