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138 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 1957
This book, to me, definitely has a voice that I associate strongly with Ed Wood (apart from Tim Burton’s/Johnny Depp’s interpretation of the man; I still love that movie tho’). The prose style is bland and straightforward with an increasing level of hyperbole which never quite reaches its height with a sudden almost anticlimactic summation at the end of the current thought or personal anecdote.
The first half of the book is thin and kind of boring save for the offbeat style which adds a level of palpable quitch to the reading. At about the direct center of the book come tales of accidents on Western movie sets which I found a high point. After that, the second half is full of interesting anecdotes, including one about Bela Lugosi coming out of a long career hiatus in the West Coast Theater in San Bernardino (my old hometown) on New Year’s Eve 1953 that I was never aware of. He also seems to have a penchant for describing what the women are wearing in any given anecdote, not a single scrap of clothing described for the men. Also, if the woman, often a girl, is hypothetical, then she’s wearing a white Angora sweater. He also has a habit of name-dropping all throughout the book although when he starts listing names, it is droll fortunately landing just above tedious. Somehow it matches his voice.
The book seemed to hit a natural conclusion at the end of chapter 10 and then went on to Chapter 13. These last three chapters feel tacked on and the last feels very cynical in its final tidbit of advice, the book's last line. Now, the advice found in this book is typically vague and often just plain bad advice. It seems it was pretty much useless when the book was written and is utterly incoherent today (if it ever was coherent in the first place). Here’s an example:
Everyone who wants to be a writer, no matter how successful he might be in other fields – even allied fields – doesn’t necessarily make it. It’s a tough row to hoe at best. Come to think of it, why don’t you give it up before you get started? And that’s not sour grapes! That’s good, sound advice, which few of you will take… but sound advice all the same. [pg.131]
Most of the advice found within this book takes this form though is not as discouraging as the last line of the book.
When the writer tries to give an honest view of Hollywood show business it’s somewhat boring and more indicative of Ed Wood’s personal experience (the only interesting thing about the first half besides its odd style). This got to me a little when he started talking about bill collectors coming to seize “your” assets for several pages. When the book becomes a string of his own recollections in the second half it gets so much better. By better I mean that the book throws off the thin premise of how-to-get-into-show-business and becomes more of a memoir and the collected opinions-of-the-day of Ed Wood Jr.
In addition, the author’s mood is palpable as the book moves from Chapter 1 to the last, Chapter 13. It starts with a cheery though bland voice, very much like those of the old black and white educational films screened in elementary classrooms in the 1950s, then into a lament as the book moves into memories professing love for everything past and a peculiar disdain for the current day (of its writing), to utter despair in chapters 12 and 13. The last sentence of the book is: “Believe it or not, your life is more real than the Hollywood scene.” The Hollywood scene which, if the earlier chapters are to be believed, was Ed Wood Jr.’s passion.
I did enjoy this book and would recommend it to those interested in the man or those seeking a very cheesy and seedy (and maybe a little dubious) portrait of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Hollywood machine as viewed from its fringe. Otherwise, the only things here materially are a handful of interesting Hollywood stories (only a few seem dubious but then again, I’m not reading Ed Wood's autobiographical material for cold hard facts) and the personal experience of Ed Wood disguised (badly) as a how-to-guide for aspiring young actors.
I’ll leave you with a favorite quote from the book:
Sex! It becomes all important. Sex! It becomes more important than any possible talent. [pg. 79]