Joe Blevins's Blog, page 52

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "The Movies and Sex" (1971)

I think this picture is supposed to be a kinky version of "Little Red Riding Hood."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021), a collection of magazine articles originally published in the early 1970s.

The article: "The Movies and Sex." Originally published in Body & Soul (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 5, no. 3, October/November 1971. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr. 
Excerpt: "The camera, of the period, did as much as possible to reveal that something was happening. The couple got into the clinch, the kissing routine, then the camera dropped down to their legs as the girl's feet were lifted up off the floor. Or suddenly the lights went out and some moans of delight might have been heard. Then there was always the panning down of the camera to the side of one of the double beds, usually the girls, and her negligee slipped to the floor."
Reflections: Ed Wood must have been experiencing déjà vu in the early 1970s as he wrote the same basic article again and again, with only slight differences each time. "The Movies and Sex" is yet another quasi-historical essay about how the depiction of sex in the movies has changed over the years. It's basically interchangeable with the three previous articles in this collection and even uses some of the same examples. Once again, Eddie points to the forgotten David Niven movie The Four Poster (1952) as a milestone in cinema history because it depicted a married couple sharing a double bed.
Lana Turner: Ed Wood's type of gal.As with "Behind the Film Scene," Eddie again discusses the so-called "sweater girls" of the late 1930s and early '40s. These were simply attractive actresses such as Lana Turner who wore tight sweaters. For Ed Wood, sweaters were a lifelong obsession, so naturally he'd try to find some way to incorporate them into his writing whenever possible. In this article, he even gets to mention his beloved angora. This might be the first article in When the Topic is Sex to do so.
As before, Ed Wood sneers at conservative politician Will Hays (1874-1954), who used his position as chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America to keep salacious material off the big screen in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s with a set of rules informally known as the Hays Code. This time, however, Eddie also gives props to Eric Johnston (1896-1963), who succeeded Hays as chairman of the MPPDA and quietly attempted to undo much of what the prudish Hays had done to sanitize the movies. 
Another factor that sets "The Movies and Sex" apart is that Eddie uses plenty of real-world examples to make his case that sex—including kinky, deviant sex—has always been an integral part of the movies, no matter what the censors think. He points to both King Kong (1933) and Universal's The Wolf Man (1941) as examples of movies about bestiality. Another Universal horror film, The Mummy (1932), is cited as a story about necrophilia. And Eddie even name drops his idol Bela Lugosi while suggesting that Count Dracula was a hemophiliac. Here, the term "hemophilia" refers not to the blood-clotting disorder but rather to a lust for blood. I'd never seen the word used that way before this.
It's important to remember that Ed Wood was writing these articles decades before the internet existed. He did not have a world of information at his fingertips the way we do today. Some of Eddie's facts in "The Movies and Sex" are accurate, while others are dubious. Let's start with the accurate ones. Yes, the scene from King Kong in which the titular ape strips Fay Wray was censored. (It has since been restored .) And, yes, actress Hedy Lamarr did a celebrated nude scene in Ecstasy (1933), though Eddie mistakenly refers to her famous nude swim as a nude bath. 
Did All's Quiet on the Western Front (1930) or Hell's Angels (1930) originally contain nude scenes that were trimmed from later prints? Ed Wood contends they did, though I can find no evidence of this. (I'm willing to be refuted on this point.)
Likewise, I can find no corroboration for Eddie's story that actor John Barrymore (1882-1942) stuffed bananas and other phallic objects into his trousers. Maybe this is one of those urban legends that circulated for decades in Hollywood. If it's true, however, it would give new meaning to Barrymore's famous nickname, "The Great Profile."
What's really remarkable about "The Movies and Sex" is its defiant tone. Ed Wood contends that the efforts of the censors will always be futile because sex is a natural part of life and cannot be suppressed. You can cover up women's bodies and men's bodies—and the bluenoses have attempted to do both—but the face will always be the sexiest part of the human anatomy. At least, according to Ed:

The strangest part about the whole sexual censorship scene is the fact girls have been beautiful since the beginning of time and the movies would have to put bags over all their heads to keep the sight from the movie goers eyes. And the face is and always has been known to man as the greatest sexual "turn on" object. The face alone is the greatest of all sex symbols. If the face isn't pretty, few men will look any further. The rest is, as the movies have called their extra short subjects, the extra added attractions.

In a weird way, that's a beautiful thought.

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "What Would We Have Done Without Them?" (1972)

This illustration depicts some old-timey peep show machines.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021), a collection of magazine articles originally published in the early 1970s.

The article: "What Would We Have Done Without Them?" Originally published in Body & Soul (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 6, no. 2., July/August 1972. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Excerpt: "Any guy or girl old enough to enter one of those theatres knew what sex was all about . . . and it wasn't simply holding hands in the back seat of some car like a high school kid. They knew what the bed looked like, and they knew what went on under the sheets even if it did look like the producer didn't. The guy and the girl lock into a tight lip kiss without tongue action and they were laughed off the screen. The producers and the owners didn't do much laughing. They were crying when they read the box office receipts."

Reflections: This is Ed Wood's short history of the pornographic film industry, from the peep shows of the 1900s to the full-color X-rated feature films of the 1970s. His only real thesis seems to be: Boy, the porno film sure has changed over the years, huh? As with the previous two articles in this book, Eddie skimps on specifics. He doesn't mention any stars, directors, or producers. Not a single year is listed anywhere, only general time periods. 
Meanwhile, the only titles he supplies are those of nudist camp films: A Day in the Life of a Nudist, Nudist Fun, and Life at a Nudist Camp. I cannot conform the existence of any of these movies, so the titles may be fictitious. Perhaps they're moldering in the archives at Something Weird Video headquarters. Popular in the 1950s and '60s, the nudist camp movie has faded into obscurity, but it has an important place in the history of screen sex. I can never forget John Waters' description of these often-inane movies: "Happy, healthy idiots on pogo sticks with air-brushed crotches."
Like "That's Show Biz," this is an article I have already reviewed on this blog previously. Back in 2019, I offered  a fairly thorough summary  of this piece and gave my thoughts on it. Two and a half years later, my opinion of it has not really changed much. In retrospect, it's interesting how Eddie viewed the adult film business from a purely economic, almost mercenary standpoint. A lot of the article is about how theater owners have sought to maximize profits with greater and greater efficiency over the decades.

The cheaper the presentation that could be made the more for the producers and the house. This also brought on the quick-house-change-plan. There was no reason for giving the viewer, or the patron two hours of movies for his two to five bucks. Get them in, give them something, and get them out. There was always somebody else waiting for that seat. In the beginning there were lines of patrons waiting to see such films. The presentations were knocked down to fifty-eight minutes of running time. Two guys could occupy that same seat during a two hour period where previously there could only be one. . . . And that meant that seat would bring in four to ten dollars for the two hour period.

The popular image of Ed Wood (especially as he is depicted in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic) is that he was an unrealistic, starry-eyed dreamer who only wanted to express himself through his art. Perhaps, in the 1950s, this was true. But his article shows that Eddie was perfectly capable of thinking like an accountant when he had to.

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "Behind the Film Scene" (1972)

Phil Cambridge's clever, though hard-to-read logo for "Behind the Film Scene."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021), a collection of magazine articles originally published in the early 1970s.

The article: "Behind the Film Scene." Originally published in Blazing Films (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 6, no. 1, January/February 1972. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Excerpt: "I doubt very much if today that my old, and very dear friend, Bela Lugosi could carry a picture unless all the ladies he bit in the neck were completely naked and had some kind of a lavish sex scene with the handsome hero beforehand. . . . Or the old gentleman himself became lecherous enough to remove her clothing behind a fence and make her before sucking her blood."

Reflections: This article is very much in the same spirit as "That's Show Biz." Again, Eddie is pontificating and free-associating about the many changes the movie industry has seen over the decades, particularly in regards to the depiction of onscreen sex and the increased demand for realism. What's different this time is that Eddie does mention a few specific film titles, including a few of his own. He talks about Crossroad Avenger (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), Jail Bait (1954), Revenge of the Dead (1959), and even Take it Out in Trade (1970), which he calls his "first film in the nudie market."
A significant film, according to Ed.In fact, besides plugging his own movies, the only other title Ed directly references in this article is Irving Reis' The Four Poster (1952), a rather obscure comedy-drama starring David Niven and Lilli Palmer. According to Ed, this movie was significant for its use of a double bed. Previous to this, thanks to the overly-strict Hays Code, directors could only show twin beds onscreen to maintain the fiction that husbands and wives slept separately. Oddly, that aspect of the movie seems to be forgotten today. To the extent that The Four Poster is remembered at all, it is for the animated sequences directed by John Hubley.
People who read a book like When the Topic is Sex probably became fans of Ed Wood through his movies, so they will relish the tidbits of information about those movies that Ed provides here. The director admits that, when he was first making films in the 1950s, he mistakenly thought that stars like Bela Lugosi and Tom Keene would be bigger box office draws than they actually were. He laments the end of the era when a big name on the marquee was enough to sell a movie. Wood further implies that, if Bela were alive in the 1970s, he'd have to make sexually-explicit movies in order to sell tickets. Perhaps it's for the best that this did not come to pass. 
Eddie's memory may have been a little shaky by 1972. In this article, he says that Bela Lugosi starred in Revenge of the Dead (Ed's preferred title for Night of the Ghouls), which is absolutely untrue. The role of Dr. Acula in that film was intended for Bela, but the great Hungarian actor was several years dead by the time the script went into production. Western baddie Kenne Duncan stepped into the role instead and gave one of his most memorable performances as a phony psychic medium who gets his much-deserved comeuppance.
Can we trust Eddie's story about how he was prevented by the censors from showing a gun with a silencer in Jail Bait? How about his recollection of hiring someone just to clean up the horse droppings on Crossroad Avenger? These could well be figments of Eddie's imagination. 
Honestly, it's difficult to summarize "Behind the Film Scene" because Eddie flits from one topic to another without a thought toward coherence. At one point, he discusses the so-called "sweater girls," i.e. the 1940s actresses like Lana Turner and Ann Sheridan who became notorious for their clingy, curve-enhancing cardigans and pullovers. According to Ed, the censors objected to the sweater girls, especially when their movies were shown to members of the military:

The Hays office decided the girls should no longer be dressed in the tight knitted garments because it turned so many of the boys in the service on. And that was one thing which shouldn't happen to them. After all they were in the business of battle. And if the powers that be gave them a little time off to see movies, they most certainly shouldn't see any girls sticking so far out in front. What would happen if they got turned on under such circumstances? Why there might be a whole generation of homosexuals who would come out of the war.

This is dubious reasoning, Eddie. I doubt that the Hays office thought Lana Turner was somehow going to turn a "whole generation" of soldiers into homosexuals. This seems like an out-there idea, even for Ed Wood. 
By the way, this article mentions an infamous blooper from The Red Skelton Hour involving a cow that defecates on the stage during a sketch. "Wonderful cow!" Red enthuses. "Not only does she give milk, but she gives  Pet-Ritz pies ." For the curious, this classic TV moment is  available online . It comes from a 1960 episode entitled "Clem and the Beanstalk." As you might guess from the title, this is a parody of "Jack and the Beanstalk" featuring Red's dimwitted character, Clem Kadiddlehopper. Actor Jack Albertson also appears in the scene as a character named J.B. Throckmorton, which is the kind of name you'd give a businessman back then.

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "That's Show Biz" (1972)

Ed Wood gives us his unique take on film history in "That's Show Biz."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021), a collection of magazine articles originally published in the early 1970s.

An issue of Blazing Films.The article: "That's Show Biz." Originally published in Blazing Films (Pendulum Publishing), vol. 6, no. 2, April 1972. Credited to Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Excerpt: "Total nudity, both male and female became standard motion picture fare and there was no doubt it was the boost the box office needed. The censors screamed at the top of their lungs and eventually most boards screamed themselves right out of existence . . . and the major boards which did remain started changing their outlook on what they would censor and what they would not censor."
Reflections: This is Ed Wood's capsule history of the American movie industry, mainly concentrating on the challenges that movie studios faced in the decades following World War II—rising production costs, dwindling attendance numbers, fierce competition from television, and outcry from censors over violent and sexually-explicit content. Eddie's basic thesis is that hardcore pornography is temporarily saving the film industry, since it's at least convincing people to leave their homes and travel to the local cineplex. But Eddie warns us that even this trend cannot last forever, since audiences will always demand something new from their entertainment.
"That's Show Biz" is a perfect example of Eddie writing a nonfiction article without doing even a tiny bit of research. He cites no specific dates and uses very few proper names, though he does work in a quick reference to his boyhood hero, cowboy star Buck Jones. Not a single specific movie title or movie studio is invoked here. Eddie only gets specific when it comes to money. He discusses, for instance, the increasing price of movie tickets: "The fifty cent houses climbed to two dollars and fifty cents." And he talks about movie budgets, too: "Three hundred thousand dollar films were starting to cost a million dollars."
This article feels like Ed Wood is pontificating about the movie industry off the top of his head, as if you approached him at a party (when he was already half-bombed) and asked, "Hey, Eddie, where do you think the picture business is headed these days?" And then, he proceeded to answer you in a very rambling fashion for the next 20 minutes or so. Wood's famed stylistic quirks are in full flower here, including his trademark use of ellipses and italics. Here, these elements add to the article's stream-of-conscious feel.
One particularly baffling passage occurs early in the article:

The early builders of the little black box would most certainly have bug-eyes at what has happened to their little invention. From Long Island to the world in seventy years . . . of course it didn't take seventy years for the world to witness the shadow plays up on the silver screen. But throughout the seventy years there has been an ever changing attitude to what is being seen.

I'm not exactly sure what Eddie means by the "little black box" from Long Island. I think he might be referring to wireless radio broadcasts. This article suggests that there were pioneering, historic radio transmissions conducted in Long Island circa 1901, so that would be about 70 years before this article was published. Maybe that's what he's talking about. Otherwise, I'm stumped.
Another interesting aspect of this article is that Ed Wood speculates about the future of home entertainment, well before the home video revolution of the 1980s. As we know, the pornographic loops Eddie made in the 1970s were intended for home use rather than theatrical exhibition, so perhaps that got him thinking about the issue. Obviously, watching an X-rated movie in one's own living room, basement, or rec room provides a degree of privacy that no theater could match. In "That's Show Biz," Ed points out some other advantages to watching movies at home rather than in a theater:

Jack-at-home could rent and view films in the privacy of his home if he didn't like the fare on TV. And he would not fall victim to the parking lot muggers who, about that time, crawled out of the decaying woodwork. Many times the patron found himself paying much more than the high box office demands.

We've all heard the stories of Eddie being mugged on his way to and from the liquor store. So it's natural that he would be wary of thieves wherever he went, even in movie theater parking lots!

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (2021): An introduction

When the Topic is Sex (2021). Cover illustration by Evan Quiring.
Well, it's that time again. A new compilation of Ed Wood's extensive magazine work is upon us, the third of its kind in recent years. This time, it's called When the Topic is Sex, and it is now  available from BearManor Media in hardcover or paperback editions . Like the two previous Wood compendiums, Blood Splatters Quickly (2014) and Angora Fever (2019), When the Topic is compiled and edited by Bob Blackburn, the Los Angeles resident who befriended Eddie's widow Kathy Wood in her later years and became co-heir of her estate. 
A new book to devour.It's nothing short of a small miracle that these volumes exist at all. Bob Blackburn curated these books by purchasing vintage adult magazines containing Eddie's work on the secondary market, sometimes at considerable expense. Ed Wood fanatics owe him a debt of gratitude for that. Simply put, Bob tracked these stories down so that we could enjoy them in the 21st century. Otherwise, a vast swath of Ed Wood's literary output might've been lost to time.
I've repeatedly said that fans who want to familiarize themselves with Ed Wood's writing style—and thus with the man himself—should pick up Blood Splatters Quickly or Angora Fever and read his short stories, most of them written in the early 1970s when Wood was a penniless alcoholic. From these sex-and-violence-strewn tales, you'll get a sense of Eddie's quirks as an author: his stilted syntax, his oddball approach to punctuation, his often surreal and meandering plots, and his love of particular words and phrases. Above all, those short stories demonstrate how Eddie could direct nearly any subject toward his three great muses: death, booze, and women's clothing.
It's true that Eddie churned out dozens of novels in the 1960s and '70s, but these are usually very expensive and difficult to find. Besides, many fans may find these books challenging to read because Ed Wood (he of the notorious "muddled mind") had trouble maintaining a coherent plot over the course of a couple hundred pages. His novels tend to get bogged down with flashbacks and digressions. The great thing about the short story form is that it forces Ed to stay at least somewhat focused on the task at hand. He knows he has to bring his plot to some kind of conclusion after a few pages, so he's more apt to get to the point. Having read many of Ed's novels, I can say with confidence that the short stories contain all of the author's idiosyncrasies, just in a more digestible form.
What sets When the Topic is Sex apart from Blood Splatters Quickly and Angora Fever is that those previous compilations focused on Eddie's short stories, i.e. his brief works of fiction, some of them supernatural. The articles anthologized in this new book, however, are examples of Ed Wood's plentiful but overlooked nonfiction. I use the term "nonfiction" with caveats. As Bob Blackburn points out in his explanatory foreword, some of Ed's supposedly "factual" articles were based on real-world research, while others were entirely concocted from the author's alcohol-soaked imagination. 
Bob further maintains that Eddie's nonfiction articles "more than his short fiction really show more of the real person of Ed Wood in them." I don't know if that's necessarily true—it doesn't gibe with my experience as a reader—but I will say that Wood's nonfiction has a tone of its own, distinct from his novels and short stories. He's slightly more stiff and formal when writing this material, but he's also more optimistic and even-handed. Think back to Glen or Glenda (1953) when kindly Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell) starts narrating in the style of a high school civics film:

Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even the lounging outfit he has on, and he's the happiest individual in the world. He can work better, think better. He can play better, and he can be more of a credit to his community and his government because he is happy.

That's the Ed Wood who emerges from the nonfiction. You can also see this side of Ed's personality in the unsigned editorials he wrote for Pendulum Publishing's adult magazines. Greg Dziawer recently wrote about how those "idealistic" articles differ in tone from Eddie's seedy, often downbeat fiction.
Author and publisher Bill Shute further sets the stage with an excellent essay called "Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Professional Writer," which serves as the introduction to When the Topic is Sex. In describing the nonfiction articles, Shute writes: "Wood comes off as thoughtful, measured, and wanting to consider and respect differing viewpoints." Shute also asserts that these allegedly fact-based articles allowed Eddie "to basically riff on a theme in a unified way." 
As you might guess from the compilation's title, many of the articles in this book are about sex (and changing sexual mores), but Eddie sounded off about a number of topics, including the film industry and even school busing. Shute warns us that "some of this material is extremely politically incorrect by today's standards." (Bob Blackburn gives a similar warning in his foreword, though the term he uses is "squirm inducing.") Longtime Wood fans should be able to handle it, though—especially those brave souls who have been willing to explore Eddie's pornographic work, both on screen and in print. Once you've seen Eddie strip down to his jockey shorts in Love Feast (1969) , very little should shock you.
Bob Blackburn has pieced When the Topic is Sex together from over 80 individual articles, originally published between 1971 and 1973 in various adult magazines. How do I, as a reviewer, approach a project as large and unwieldy as this? I think I have a solution. Bob has helpfully grouped these articles by theme into 11 chapters. The first chapter, for instance, is called "They're Gonna Put Me in the Movies" and contains Eddie's articles about film history and the motion picture industry. What I think makes most sense is to review each of the chapters individually. That's 11 articles altogether, plus this introduction. I'll release these periodically as I have time. Sound fair?
The two previous Wood compilation books provided many hours of entertainment for me, and I am confident that When the Topic is Sex will do the same. I hope you'll join me as I make my way through this volume and share my thoughts on it. Perhaps along the way, I'll come to agree with Bob Blackburn that these nonfiction articles bring us closer to the "real" Ed Wood.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Ed Wood Summit Podcast #23 and #23.5 by Greg Dziawer

It's been an eventful first year for The Ed Wood Summit Podcast.
As 2021 draws to a close, so, too, does the freshman year of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. I started these conversations about the life and work of Edward D. Wood, Jr. back in January and have kept the series going these past twelve months. Sometimes, I've had guests along for the ride; other times, it's just been me.
Today, as we rapidly approach the end of December, I reflect back on the first full year of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast and pose some subjects for 2022. Join me, won't you?

After finishing the podcast, I realized I had few more ideas to express, so I added this short addendum. Enjoy!

Thanks for watching! I'll see you all again in the new year! As a reminder, all episodes of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast are available right here!

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Magazine Orbit, Part 7 by Greg Dziawer

Two male models pose for the cover of Pendulum's The Boy Friends.
Christmas has arrived early this year! Instead of candy canes or sugar plums, I offer you a clutch of uncredited texts that could well be the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr.!
Ed's many adult paperbacks, along with the short stories and articles he wrote for magazines, remain the core of his known literary output. We've previously highlighted other forms of texts from his adult magazine work, however, including his editorials and the texts accompanying pictorials . There's a stark tonal difference between the short stories—pulpy and often violent, nihilistically wallowing in the worst aspects of human nature—and these other texts.
Nowhere is the plea for sexual freedom and tolerance voiced as earnestly as it is in the editorials . In Pendulum's all-male magazines (including those published under the Gallery Press and Calga imprints), the tone is idealistic and optimistic. The Boy Friends was one of the earliest of Pendulum's all-male titles, and each issue features a fresh but uncredited editorial.

Podcast Tuesday: "My Best Mom's Wedding"

Marion Ross and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.
Happy Days is rightfully thought of as a 1970s phenomenon, like leisure suits and disco, but the nostalgic sitcom ran well into the 1980s. It finally expired in 1984 after an incredible run of 11 seasons and 255 episodes. It's weird to think of a quaint, fairly corny show like Happy Days coexisting in the same pop culture landscape as video games, rap music, and Ghostbusters. But it did. 
I wonder if the cast and crew of Happy Days had any trepidations in December 1979 about what the new decade would bring. Big changes were soon coming to the ABC series. Ron Howard and Don Most left after the 1979-80 season, for instance. More broadly, America's TV-watching tastes changed in the early '80s, moving away from traditional family sitcoms and toward nighttime dramas (Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest) and action shows (The A-Team, Magnum PI, The Fall Guy). That was definitely bad news for the Fonz and his pals.
As it turned out, the last episode of Happy Days to premiere during the 1970s was Season 7's "Here Comes the Bride, Again." In my opinion, this is one of the highlights of the season. It tells a sweet story about Marion (Marion Ross) convincing her grouchy husband Howard (Tom Bosley) to have a second wedding, since their original wedding took place in a bus depot and was anything but romantic. Their son Richie (Ron Howard) wants to stage the event in the Cunninghams' back yard, but he has numerous obstacles to overcome, including a grouchy neighbor (played by Ron's father Rance Howard) and two incompetent caterers (played by radio comedy legends Bob and Ray).
You can hear everything we have to say about "Here Comes the Bride, Again" on the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . Hope to see you over there!

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 126: Is this Ed Wood's only Christmas novel?

Santa curls up with a copy of Ed Wood's 1968 novel Nighttime Lez.
We know Ed Wood celebrated Christmas. In the '50s, when he was still living with actress Dolores Fuller, he famously produced some 3D cards featuring himself dressed as Jesus. Those cards remain prized collectibles among Ed's fans even today. Later, according to Nightmare of Ecstasy, Eddie proudly gave out copies of his own paperbacks as Christmas presents. I like to think of him offering The Oralists (1969) or Purple Thighs (1968) to his bewildered landlord in lieu of rent.
The Yuletide season does not figure all that prominently in Ed's creative output, however. Offhand, I can't remember even a mention of the holiday in any of his movies, pornographic or otherwise. But what about his written work? Eddie churned out so many novels, nonfiction books, short stories, and magazine articles that the topic of Christmas must've come up at least a few times, right? Recently, I immersed myself in Eddie's literary work from the 1960s and '70s, mainlining one book after another. Since the holidays were approaching, I naturally started looking for mentions of Christmas in any of these sex-and-violence-drenched classics.
A later edition of the book.Eventually, I hit pay dirt. Nighttime Lez (sometimes printed as Night Time Lez) is yet another of Ed Wood's many salacious, adults-only novels. It was published in 1968 by a company called Columbia, which had previously released Eddie's debut novel Black Lace Drag. For whatever reason (authorial pride?), Eddie used his real name on this tale of Sapphic intrigue, eschewing any of his usual pseudonyms. 
Thematically and stylistically, Nighttime Lez is very standard Wood stuff. I'm sure he wrote it quickly and without a great deal of thought. The plot revolves around a beautiful young woman in Los Angeles named Paula Thomas. Dissatisfied with her heterosexual experiences, she tentatively visits a lesbian bar called The Iris Inn. There, she almost immediately becomes physically involved with two monstrously butch older women: owner Tommy and barfly Sam. But these two grotesques initiate her into the lesbian lifestyle, and soon Paula encounters some younger, more attractive women, including Jeni, Sin, Loretta, and Doris (who is Tommy's current paramour). All of these women, butch and femme alike, form a close community of friends with benefits. They spend their time drinking, partying, and hooking up. The only male member of the group is Henry/Henrietta, a cross-dressing bartender with an odd sense of humor.
The title vaguely suggests that Paula may be living a double life, and indeed she is. By day, she's a well-paid corporate secretary at the Tishman building on Wilshire Boulevard and is unapologetic about sleeping her way up the corporate ladder. This plot point allows Ed Wood to include a few heterosexual love scenes along with the many, many lesbian ones in Nighttime Lez. Paula's latest boss is mild-mannered Ralph Henderson, a married man so enamored of Paula that he wants to take her with him whenever he travels overseas. Some of the other female employees at the Tishman building are jealous of Paula, but it doesn't seem to bother her much.
To keep things interesting, Ed Wood throws a few soap opera-type plot complications at his characters. Sam contracts pneumonia. Tommy and Doris almost break up. Henry/Henrietta dates a troublemaking straight guy who tries to sexually assault Paula. And Paula? Well, let's say that our favorite secretary is not as careful about birth control as she should be. (In this book, Ed Wood opines that birth control should be a woman's responsibility, since men hate wearing those uncomfortable condoms.)

Podcast Tuesday: "A Truly Pointless Episode"

Henry Winkler (at left, holding exclamation point sign) on Happy Days.
Did your hometown have a place where teenagers would go to make out on dates? Maybe a scenic spot with a spectacular view? I don't think mine (Flushing, Michigan) did, but I would have had no need of such a place even if it had existed. A social pariah then as now, I went on just one passionless date during my high school years. But my classmates had dates, so did they have a place to go? Our town had a park, and I vaguely remember that kids would visit it on the weekends after lights out. It was just a flat expanse of lawn, nothing particularly scenic about it. Certainly no mountains, valleys, canyons, etc. Not even a lake or pond.
The kids on Happy Days certainly have a scenic place to go on dates. It's called Inspiration Point, and from what I can tell, it's a forested area that overlooks... something. Maybe a valley or canyon. We never do see what the kids are allegedly looking at, but we take it on faith that it provides sufficient inspiration for their furtive post-sock hop groping sessions. Obviously, the Fonz (Henry Winkler) is a habitué of Inspiration Point. But Richie (Ron Howard), Potsie (Anson William), and Ralph (Don Most) go there a lot, too. With their dates, that is, not with each other.
In fact, the characters on Happy Days mention Inspiration Point so often that it was only a matter of time before the Point got an episode of its own. That moment finally came with Season 7's "They're Closing Inspiration Point." As you might guess from the title, the Point is threatened by encroaching development, specifically a highway overpass. It's up to Richie and his pals to save the place by appealing directly to the local planning commission. Think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), only it's about horny teenagers.
What did we think of "They're Closing Inspiration Point"? Find out by listening to the latest and perhaps greatest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast .