Talk:Ed Wood

Page-Related discussion

Featured Article?

I think this qualifies for a nomination for Featured Article, no? --CancerOfJuly

Barnstar?

Someone award Angry Candy a barnstar for the work done on this article. Best Ed Wood content on the web.

I'm not going to argue with that. I'm great and I deserve it. :D (Rob 10:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC))

NPOV

On the one hand, the article as it is doesn't really seem to be NPOV, blatantly calling his movies "awful" and his abilities "lousy". On the other hand, these opinions are almost universally held. But you can't take a POV expression and tack on a word or two before it to make it NPOV. What to do? --Furrykef 09:32, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It'd probably be sufficiently fair to list what makes them thought of this way, and to note that they are generally considered so - David Gerard 11:30, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

I have been working on the NPOV problem, as have various bots and Wikipedians with an eye to NPOV errors. I think it's okay now, but peer review on this matter is very much encouraged. Angry Candy 13:21, July 28, 2005 (GMT)

Racism

I have a question/issue regarding the un-attributed statement, "Wood's dark side emerges in such sexual shockers as Raped in the Grass or The Perverts and in short stories such as "Toni: Black Tigress", which preyed on common racist fears. One might argue that Wood was writing for a specific market and that the content of these books are not personal opinion, but it is nonetheless true that most of his books did derive from Wood's own vices and views." (Emphasis mine.) This seems to be rather a bold thing to say, without any obvious evidence or attribution. In fact it seems to border on defamation, since it makes an absolutely factual claim: there's no uncertainty in how it's written, it flat-out calls Wood a racist. I think it should be toned down, or some sort of attribution should be added to justify the claim that he was, in fact, racist. I am going to comment out the above-bolded phrase in the article; if anyone can attribute the claim and wants to put it back in, it's fine with me. I have no love for the man, but I think the article is inappropriate currently. -- Kadin2048 18:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV in "Cult Status"

Re: section about pornography based on Wood's films. I believe there are word-choice problems with calling the porn films "paradoxical" (there is no paradox) and possibly with "ironic". The NPOV problem is with the phrase "sex scenes worked in around what little plot was in the original". Wood's films don't demonstrate a lack of plot in practice or reputation, and value judgment is implicit. In defense, it can easily be argued that Plan 9 and Bride of the Monster suffer from an excess of convoluted plot, and Glen or Glenda is as dense as any character study. These issues should be cleaned up, unless they can be defended. "Paradoxically", however, I am removing.--Chris Stangl

Critical Discourse on Wood

I understand this is a touchy page for NPOV, as Wood's reputation has been built on the popular belittlement of his films, and his place in history cemented by earning the Worst Director of All Time title by popular vote. An encyclopedia entry would be remiss not to acknowledge this, and I think the preamble amiably notes ("zeal and honest love of movies") other possible reactions to the films, but as early as Danny Peary's Cult Movies books, the films were being discussed as intentionally subversive, critical of government and social and gender constructs. Rudy Grey's biography is fairly impassive, but in interview has for years been exonerating Wood's talent. These minor anomalies don't need to be in the body of the article, but as it stands the article goes out of its way to say "his talent... so far not undergone any kind of critical re-appraisal", which is unequivocal. "Reappraisal", for that matter, needs no hyphen. Chris Stangl

Titles and formatting

Placing titles in two sets of single-quotes is wikimarkup for producing italics. Please stop switching titles to double quotes and/ or inserting punctuation into the marks. I know it looks proper on the editing screen, but it produces incorrect formatting in the article. Chris Stangl 18:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Does the title "Wood Pulp:..." seem unusual to anyone else?

Re Baptist Funding and Name of Plan 9 from Outer Space

Specifically: "They also changed the name of the movie from Grave Robbers from Outer Space... ". Both the Wiki entries for Plan 9 from Outer Space and Ed Wood (biopic) state that, unlike what is shown in the Tim Burton biopic, the Baptist funders did NOT force Eddie to change the title from Grave Robbers... to Plan 9. Which ever is correct it should at least be consistent across the various Wiki entries.

I agree. From the page, "in this case, the Baptists required a member of their church to have a lead role in the film and demanded that all castmembers (including Vampira, Tor, 'Bunny' and Criswell) be baptised prior to filming. They also changed the name of the movie from Grave Robbers from Outer Space and removed lines from the script which they considered profane." This is contradicted in "The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr." wherein the Reverend explicitly states that Wood was the one who suggested his cast be baptised, and that no one in the congregation was aware that the name of the movie had been changed. Ormaybemidgets 15:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

He was a notorious womanizer in his younger days, but in later life he respected women

This says more about the author's attitude to "womanizers" that it does about Ed Wood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.67.113 (talk) 09:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Ed Wood-related discussion

Question regarding Wood's funding

You know, what I have often wondered is just how he was able to make so many movies, since they were artistic and commercial flops right from the first. How did he get the money for the later ones?

His funding came from all manner of unconventional places. In Plan 9, for instance, he basically tricked money out of a bunch of Baptists and for other big films such as Bride he sweet-talked it out of various wealthy people who were naive to the ways of film production or were unfamiliar with his name and work. Much of his pornographic work was above board (since production companies weren't too bothered about quality in that sector) and people like George Weiss were able to produce things in the early days. Ed didn't have to drum up too much money don't forget - he was a master of economy! --Angry Candy 16:18, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Question regarding early footage

Ed was given his first movie camera on his 17th birthday: a Kodak 'City Special'. One of the first pieces of footage he shot was of a German plane crashing to the ground in his neighborhood, a piece he was endlessly proud of.

There were German planes making it to New York during World War II? I thought the USA shores were never compromised?

(Guess this is a long-winded way of saying 'source?') Vodex 10:42, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

The source of the German plane nugget was actually Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey. Admittedly, the book is almost completely anecdotal and filled with personal subjectivities (being part of the book's beauty). Grey's researh is pretty comprehensive though and he'd have mentioned it in the book if he doubted the information's validity. He also has a lot of original and rare Wood footage so he may even have a copy of said Kodak footage. --Angry Candy

Know it's kinda late to chime in, but it wasn't a German Plane, Ed Wood (supposedly) caught footage of the Hindenburg crashing.70.242.12.23 02:34, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Impossible, the Hindenburg crashed May 6, 1937. Ed Wood turned 17 October 10, 1941. If somebody has the actual text from Nightmare of Ecstasy, it would make more sense to use the words from the book. It's possible Ed Wood may have had a copy of the Hindenburg crash, but it's quite outlandish to suggest he was there with a camera at age twelve. --Barrel-rider 08:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• • How does that make it impossible? If he was 17 in October of 1941, 17-4=13, and the Hindenburg crashed in May, the year of Wood's 13th birthday. The math adds up.209.169.114.213 04:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If by some miracle he did have Hindenburg footage, shot by himself at age twelve, his name would be in every article about the Hindenburg. Barrel-rider 07:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

This should probably be cleaned up. Now it says that Ed, at age 12, filmed the crash of the Hindenburg with a camera that he got for his 17th birthday. Lordz (talk) 12:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I changed the date that he received his first camera to age 12 for now, because it is the only way possible he could have filmed the Hindenburg, also he does not show up in articles related to the Hindenburg because he filmed it before it crashed, but not the actually crash itself. Several hundred people filmed the Hindenburg moments before the crash. I could not find any verification for his age at the time so I am going to the library today to get the book: Grey, Rudolph Nightmare of Ecstasy. 1994. Feral House. ISBN-13: 978-0922915248. and check the age because I think it is most likly that originally it might have been misread as 17 instead of 12, or simply wrong in the book. There is also the third posibility that he did not record it with his camera. David Weatherspoon out.

Name

I think this article should go by either "Ed Wood" (no 'Jr.') or "Edward D. Wood, Jr.", as these are the names by which he is best known. "Ed Wood, Jr." is not commonly used and Ed himself mostly used it on novels.Rhindle The Red 01:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• This seems to have been resolved. Title of page now conforms to your latter suggestion. (Rob 10:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC))

RE: Transvestism

Dear editors,

Through this article, it states that Ed Woods was a transvestite. I am wondering if you have any clear citations of him saying so? I acknowledge that the quote RE Glen or Glenda is fairly indicative, but that too is uncited.

Am asking in reference to Mr. Wood's appearence on List of transgender people, which is currently being cleaned and cited. Cheers! Lauren^♫/∆ 07:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

considered for walk of fame

i know hes like the worst director ever but a min ago i found something about him being considered for the walk of fame. im just going to find the thing right now. DeadWood 16:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC) Found it!!! http://www.brixhamheritage.org.uk/services/data10.htm its near the bottom page. DeadWood 16:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Movies

The "Movies" section has gotten overlong and filled with information best found on the Edward D. Wood, Jr. filmography. It needs to be condensed and focused on Ed's filming methods and/or Ed's relevant involvement. Less trivia. Rhindle The Red (talk) 19:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Glenda.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Shooting speed

The article says "While most directors film only one scene per day (or just a fraction of one in more contemporary pictures), Wood might complete up to 30 scenes." How many scenes are filmed per day is generally an issue of how much luxury you have to film the movie. Roger Corman is notorious for not being as leisurely as Ed Wood on some of his movies (see The Little Shop of Horrors), and I suspect anyone shooting on that budget shoots quite a few scenes a day. It's not most directors vs. Wood, it's people with large shooting budgets vs. people with tiny shooting budgets.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Revered as the worst director of all time

The article currently says

Among connoisseurs of kitsch and bad cinema, Ed Wood is revered as the ultimate "bad" director of all time.

Apparently, we have some editors who want to amend it to say

Among connoisseurs of kitsch and bad cinema, Ed Wood is revered as the ultimate "bad" director of all time, even though that distinction is now held by Aaron Seltzer, Jason Friedberg and Uwe Boll.

The first sentence needs to be cited and clarified; there's no one director who gets the unquestioned claim of "ultimate "bad" director of all time". The second sentence deserves nothing more than the trash; Wood is not comparable to those directors, in any meaningful sense at all. Without cites, it completely violates WP:NPOV as well as WP:V and WP:NOBADJOKES.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:06, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Marriage Status

Surely Ed Wood remained legally married to his first wife until death, did he not? If so the second "Mrs Wood" ought not to be referred to as his wife.

Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FilmLawyer48 (talk • contribs) 11:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think he and his first wife never divorced? Kathy Wood's obituary refers to her as his widow, which means SHE was his wife when he died. If you are disputing that, tell us why... where did you hear otherwise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.54.250.11 (talk) 18:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Really in the marines?

There is a claim in the article that he was in the marines 42-46 but no link, no source. Shouldn't be too hard to ensure that he was there, plenty of official papers from that time still around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.95.109.196 (talk) 22:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Ancestry.com has put up the WWII USMC rosters online, an Edward D Wood Jr has 26 entries from 1942 through 1946 which seems to match the info that was already included in the paragraph. He is the only Edward D Wood Jr listed on the Rosters. I've included that info in reedited Marine paragraph including his service number and major units assigned to. I plan to order his service record from St Louis which should include a service photo of Wood in uniform. One item to note is that Ancestry also includes the US Navy, Marines and Coast Guard casualties and Ed Wood Jr is NOT listed on the roster which means he was not injured in combat although he could have been injured in other ways not related to combat. The Roster does note that he was at a hospital in late 1945 but not sure if he was a patient or a military assignment. Thank You Leonardo Flores — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.162.37.194 (talk) 17:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

---

Ed Wood → Ed Wood (someapproriatelabelhere) — To make way for a dab page. The current one at Edward Wood (disambiguation) is not good enough. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 00:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose The dab page contains this Ed Wood, a movie about him, and various other things which are either (like the lst Earl of Halifax, or the footballer Jackie Wood) never called "Ed Wood", or (like the leader of the Alberta Mormons) else hardly ever mentioned at all. The present arrangement is how we deal with such cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

  Agreed.
  — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 16:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This is by far the most well-known Ed Wood. faithless (^speak) 04:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

NPOV

The line "Wood's other vices included soft drugs, alcohol, and sex" smacks of conservative tut-tutting; I propose replacing it with a more neutral line.

"Summing-Up" --> "Inspirations" ?

I feel titling the final section in the 'Movies' area as "Summing-Up" is sort of clunky. I'd propose renaming it "Inspirations" since it talks explicitly about two main muses, of sorts, for Wood -- Welles and Lugosi. Thoughts? Evixir (talk) 02:16, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for source regarding Lugosi and "Bride of the Monster"

The article currently states "In the finale, the frail, elderly Lugosi was reduced to thrashing about in the mud with a large rubber octopus when the motor needed to turn it into a flailing beast could not be located." I believe part of this may be mistaken. The scene where the doctor is caught by the octopus at the end of the film clearly uses the stunt double, not Lugosi himself. While the book Nightmare of Ecstasy does indicate Lugosi shot one scene in the water, it doesn't specify which scene. Burton's biopic "Ed Wood" made the connection between the octopus scene and the scene referenced in NoE, but I can't find any specific confirmation. If someone has a source to back up the claim that it was Lugosi and not the stunt double, that would be a lot of help here, and thanks. Clockster (talk) 10:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

question: daughter Kathleen Emily Wood

No citation for the claim that he had a daughter -- has this been verified?Maejenn (talk) 06:18, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wording-->What he wore under his uniform

"Wood usually wore a women's bra and panties under his uniform throughout his years of service." Did he? Did he ever say so? 69.158.140.110 (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

deleting B.S.

I had a web conversation with Adam Parfrey of Feral House regarding this paragraph:

"In a December 2010 published article at Mondo Film & Video Guide, indie print publisher Feral House, who in the last few years had re-printed dozens of Wood's novels, ended sales on all Wood titles when Wood's estate requested a cease and desist due to uncertainty about whether Wood wrote all the novels published under his name or not."

I doubt very much that an entity that can be called "Ed Wood's estate" even exists at this point.

Adam Parfrey: "I never printed a book written by Wood, and never received a cease and desist order from anybody... crazy shit."

documentation, peep this: https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1395982_10201120043376377_1558230710_n.jpg

And scouring the web finds no trace of these "dozens" of nonexistent Ed Wood titles.

Bustter (talk) 03:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Further on this, I emailed the folks at Ramble House, a publisher that did have several Ed Wood reprints available...and learned that there was, in fact, static coming from the Ed Wood estate. Fender Tucker, high muck-a-muck at Ramble House writes, "What I heard from Bob Weinberg* is that there is dissension among the heirs and that it would cost $$$$$ in lawyer fees to get them to agree."

Of course, this is OR, so good luck finding an accurate RS.

Bob Weinberg is the entertainment lawyer who repped Kathy Wood to Disney for the Burton film, Someone might wish to work that tidbit into the article. Here's a source [which also offers some details about Kathy Wood] -- http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/bob-blackburn-ed-wood

Bustter (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Posthumous Golden Turkey during his lifetime?

The introductory paragraphs say that Wood died in 1978 and received a posthumous Golden Turkey award in 1975. Please fix this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.159.232.121 (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

False claim?

...and was shot several times in the leg by a machine gunner (shown false in The Unknown War of Edward D. Wood Jr.: 1942–1946 by James Pontolillo).

Strange wording. If the claim was 'shown false', it probably ought to be left out of the story altogether. Valetude (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Long term relationship?

"Wood had a long-term relationship with actress and songwriter Dolores Fuller, whom he met in late 1952... The couple broke up in 1955".

What does it mean "long-term" if they are 3 years?

82.113.26.235 (talk) 18:04, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

It means they lived together for three years like a married couple. That's long-term compared to a one-night stand.

Rewriting content reverted

I copy edited this article the other day only to have my edits largely reverted and labeled “vandalism” by user HerbLightfoot despite leaving an edit summary. I didn’t add or change the meaning of any information in the “Personal life” section, so claims that I added “unsourced” content is patently untrue. The sources are already there. I reworded much of the already sourced content in that section because it was informally and frankly poorly written. There were many usages of subject’s first names, inexplicable bolding of names and archaic wording. Much of it read like a tabloid. I have reverted back the version I edited because my edit was legit and not unexplained/unsourced vandalism. If anyone disagrees with my edits, it should be hashed out here and not wholesale reverted and falsely labeled vandalism. Thank you. 2600:387:A:3:0:0:0:72 (talk) 07:09, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You needlessly moved sentences around for no apparent reason and also changed Wood's daughter's name from Kathy to Kathleen a number of times without a reference source to back it up. When you change people's names in the article it obviously requires reference sources. By your own admission, you added nothing of value to the article other than messing up his daughter's name. If you see a fact that is incorrect, change it but don't erase everything that's been added to the page since last week. And please put a reference source next to the sentence you change? That's very important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HerbLightman (talk • contribs)

Yeah, I’ve reinstated the changes I made. The issues you claim to have with the changes have been corrected. I did in fact use “Kathleen” when the source only states her name being Kathy. Every other change is still verifiable in the source given. I will repeat myself - None of the changes I made are unsourced. They are ALL supported by the citations given in the article. I find it a little funny that you’re so concerned about sourcing when it’s clear there’s basically one source - using one page - to source the section I’ve edited. It’s almost like sourcing isn’t the issue. Also, the claim that “McCarty” was inexplicably changed to “McCarthy” isn’t entirely true. I found one instance of that being so due to autocorrect. That has been fixed. That said, it’s become quite clear that the real issue with the changes I’ve made isn’t that they were “unsourced”. It was that changes were made at all. Your wholesale reverts re-added things to the article that do not belong. Names should not be bolded in the article body. There was also many instances of incorrect punctuation (mostly a clear lack of understanding on how commas and parenthesis work), repeated usage of subjects’ first name, needless trivia (why is it important that Wood’s drinking buddy was mistaken for dead?) and unencyclopedic wording (calling someone’s home “cheap” is an opinion). This is the second time I’ve pointed out these issues. They shouldn’t be in the article at all. For any reason. If you still feel compelled to revert my changes, I’d like to know why you can’t be bothered to fix those things. Is this article not held to the same guidelines and standards as the rest of the article on Wikipedia are? Please explain why. Lastly, I’ve left this lengthy explanation for one reason - to show that I have repeatedly attempted to fix the article and make it more readable, explained my actions only to be reverted by one person who seems to think they own this page. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. If you don’t want “your” work tampered with, don’t release it. If these changes are reverted again, I’ll gladly open a dispute resolution to deal with it as I have through the proper steps already. There should not be this much pushback from one individual over legitimate edits on a fairly obscure article. One person doesn’t get to dictate what goes into an article and that seems to be what’s happening here.2600:387:A:7:0:0:0:63 (talk) 05:12, 2 March 2022 (UTC)