Plan 9 From Outer Space (Ed Wood, 1959)

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Mental Mike · #1 Post by **Mental Mike** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:31 am

There are times when I watch this dreck and I think this could be the worst film of all time...

...but then I remember what I thought of Plan Nine from Outer Space and the Beast of Yucca Flats and re-think "No, this could not be the worst film of all time"...

HerrSchreck · #2 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:47 am

You TRULY think PLAN 9 is the worst film of all time?

Been to the movies lately?

Gordon · #3 Post by **Gordon** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 8:24 am

Yeah, at least Plan 9 was made with passion and determination!

#4 Post by **Mr Sausage** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 11:12 am

Mental Mike wrote:There are times when I watch this dreck and I think this could be the worst film of all time...

...but then I remember what I thought of Plan Nine from Outer Space and the Beast of Yucca Flats and re-think "No, this could not be the worst film of all time"...

You've obviously never seen this or this.

jon · #5 Post by **jon** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 4:39 pm

A lot of people admire Wood and Plan 9, notably Burton. Though, he is mostly admired for his passion for filmmaking and love of cinema. Plan 9 is far from the worst film of all time, though production values might be a different story.

Not saying it isnt a bad film, but at least it is somewhat enjoyable.

The Criterion Thief, however, is painful to watch.

denti alligator · #6 Post by **denti alligator** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:08 pm

I find Plan 9 to be close to sublime. There's something about its pacing that is (intentionally or not) incredibly powerful. It's like a whole new kind of cinema. A good comparison (though with this one I may be shooting myself in the foot and stripping myself of all credibility) may be The Shaggs' music. At first one's reaction is to laugh at its ineptitude--but there's something about it that sucks you in and you (ok, so I'm talking about myself only, perhaps) find yourself unable to stop listening. Pretty soon you stop laughing and the music takes on a "normalcy" of its own, one that totally reprograms the way you listen to music. Wood's Plan 9 may not quite do that with cinema, but it's close.

portnoy · #7 Post by **portnoy** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:33 pm

I don't get the Plan 9 mystique - it's a bad movie, to be sure, with some hilariously bad production values and an unintentionally horrifying political project (we're rooting for the planet that will eventually destroy the universe with solarbenite?), but I just find it really boring for the most part - maybe it's because going into it, I knew what a lot of the 'bad' elements of the film were from Ed Wood?

Gregory · #8 Post by **Gregory** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 8:14 pm

As Mike Nelson observed, "It's been said that Plan 9 is the Citizen Kane of bad movies and that may be true. But others only go so far as to say it's the Caddyshack 2 of bad films."

HerrSchreck · #9 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:34 am

Beyond the silliness "so-bad-it's-good" aspect, there's an element in PLAN NINE which is only going to be teased out by minds receptive to it, the same way Ms Bondarchuk talks about the prolonged stretches of loaded silence in Tarkovsky-- some folks have it in them to interact with, other folks don't.

Not to say that thems who Do Get It have poetically participatory minds and therefore have aesthetically keyed in viscera versus the non-PLAN-NINE-ready duds. There may be niche pleasures that dudes who are left flat by NINE get into that I miss.

First off and on the most blatant surface, PLAN NINE is extraordinarily comforting film-- similar to but not equivalent to the comfort provided by say GHOST/HOUSE of FRANK/DRAC-- it's comforting on days in your life when all your efforts fell flat and basically you came out Asshole Numero Uno and just wanta crawl under the blankets and hit yourself over the head with a hammer to hurry unconsciousness to rush the new day in. You skip the hammer-- or it's chemical equivalent-- and pop on NINE and you've got an ally, you feel Wood there trying and trying and not doing what he wanted, not achieving success with what he set out to do... and yes on that blatantly surface level there is a comfort there...

...but then there is the fabulous aspect of the Something Entirely Unintentional and Salutary that came out of NINE that is inspiring to all failures everywhere. I don't hold that Wood set out to make a very different kind of film with NINE, that he meant to do anything else but make his own sort of really great pulpy sci-fi/horror film exactly along the lines of what was all the rage at the time. I believe that alcohol combined with a Special Blind Spot (for bad performances, special effects, scripting & continuity errors, and most importantly, as these things plague every low budget flick, an acute shortage of funds ... which makes retakes prohibitative) combined with an outrageously audacious sense of strange confidence caused Wood to go on when others would have thrown in the towel or at least regrouped and cleaned stuff up. It's one of those rare moments where a film got made where another filmmaker would have held back, and we discover to our delight, usually upon repeated viewings, that something fantastic happens when a guy can go ahead and make the film anyhoo, and keeps these "errors" in..

Beyond all this quaint, inspiring-to-fuckups sentiment for the film, you get to the actual substance of the film itself, which genuinely and without a doubt accidentally created on an ex post facto basis a whole new form of comic timing, style, and mise en scene. Deadpan readings of lines which are hilarious that only some folks get the humor of and fly right over most other people's heads, because they're right there teeter-tottering along the edge of absurdity. Potentiating the effect of all of this are the strange silences and pauses after certain line readings ("I'm a big boy now," or "I saw a flying saucer" with the fist punch in the backyard... "That's nothing from this world" in the cockpit, etc I could go on ad infinitum). This kind of stoical comic delivery that not everyone will get is now part and parcel in life, and was picked up by SNL in it's best days, Monty Python, Kids Inna Hall, 2nd City TV, etc.

In a nutshell, to me, it fucking mirrors the deadpan absurdity of life. It gets to me and makes me roll on the floor losing bladder control in my dry goods the same way Joe Cornell's CAROUSEL-ANIMAL OPERA sneaks up on me and outa nowhere makes me spit mash potato across the room.

None of the lines or plot lines in PLAN NINE are any more or less absurd than the typical drek out there at the time; it's the delivery and the cheapness, and the slight lack of sense from moment to moment. Normally these type of errors are not allowed to get through and make it up onto the silver screen and on television.. never mind the pop cultural pantheon-- so we usually never get to experience the effect of these elements used as an actual cinematic device, even in ex post facto and totally accidental way. It's always assumed that they have no utility. I find these jarring jolts satisfying in the same way that Burroughs cut-ups are poetically satisfying. Now granted Wood was an inocuous dude, not a dark-minded sinister man concerned with screwing people over, prostiution, psychological deterioration, drug use, hucksterism, and generall hitting people in the gut with sudden sick images a la Dwain Esper. But I do like PLAN NINE an awful lot, and it's not anywhere near in my mind the worst film ever made.

Fletch F. Fletch · #10 Post by **Fletch F. Fletch** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:34 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Beyond the silliness "so-bad-it's-good" aspect, there's an element in PLAN NINE which is only going to be teased out by minds receptive to it, the same way Ms Bondarchuk talks about the prolonged stretches of loaded silence in Tarkovsky-- some folks have it in them to interact with, other folks don't....

I think that this is quite possibly one of THE best readings of Plan 9 I've ever come across. Thanks.

And yeah, it sure ain't the worst film ever when you've got dreck like the Ernest movies or Bio Dome out there. They make Plan 9 look like Citizen freakin' Kane.

atcolomb · #11 Post by **atcolomb** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:59 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:You TRULY think PLAN 9 is the worst film of all time?

Been to the movies lately?

I agree with that 100%...SAW 3, GRUDGE 2 ?.......AUDIENCE 0.......

denti alligator · #12 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue May 13, 2008 4:50 pm

AR query:

Academy?
matted at:
1.66?
1.85?

HerrSchreck · #13 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue May 13, 2008 4:57 pm

Weirdest.. question.. ever.

denti alligator · #14 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:04 pm

How so?

Someone on the Beaver listserv suggested it would have been matted to 1.85 in 1959. That wasn't exactly an uncommon practice, no?

denti alligator · #15 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:34 pm

davidhare wrote:If this were matted tighter than the 1.37 ratio we'ld lose all those shots of the astro turf stopping short of the studio floor.

Acadmey is the only answer!

That's what I'm getting at. Would some of the real low budget gaffes not be visible were it matted? I mean, could Wood have expected matting?

How much do we know about screening practices of this period in the US? Is it likely that it was projected a little wider? Do the first reviewers mention the astro turf?

HerrSchreck · #16 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:47 pm

denti alligator wrote:How so?

Someone on the Beaver listserv suggested it would have been matted to 1.85 in 1959. That wasn't exactly an uncommon practice, no?

These questions go on and on throughout time over 1950's films. Forget about the listserv, this is Ed Wood and Bill Thompson.

We are talking the worst theaters in shitville, that actually showed these things back then.. which were very very few. Forget about was "Cinemas were doing at the time" viz the mix of wide and 1.37 in studio output. We are talking the most cruddo of theaters, we are not talking "cinemas"... we're talking z-paradise dumps that showed 2nd 3rd run sloppo and sci slop and juvenile switchblade tittyshit... this is dank rancid sticky floor snoozing tickettaker half bankrupt from silent-era debts before the neighborhood turned bad cinemas.

Wood always used William C Thompson an de kamera... and I daresay, though it may be possible that the man shot a widescreen film or two (for an occasional film he shot that actually had a genuine "Low Budget"-- which would be major dollars vs what wood was dealing with), the vast bulk of his films were incredibly poor and shot on the fly. Films like Woods & Dwain Esper's Maniac and Parker's Dementia were nicely lit and shot quickly thru the viewfinder. Sitting around doing ws comps on an Ed Wood set-- contemplating this because "cinemas were in changeover period"-- is wacko. THE FILM WAS NOT EXHIBITED. The speculator is speculating over a film which showed maybe 3 or four times.

Ed Wood didnt "anticipate" anything aside from praying he'd get some exhibition. Trust the world, which has gotten Ed Wood right. No meticulous widescreen comps in PLan Nine.

denti alligator · #17 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:51 pm

Sounds right to me, Schreck.

What's the hostory of the reception of this film, then? When did it re-surface, and why?

HerrSchreck · #18 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:58 pm

Popping up on television. Late nite wacks w no jobs, insomniac from no life, hair sticking up in right angles, couldnt believe what they were seeing... a friend, pure karma, weed, laughing, and ed wood... it made it into rotation on the non-3 major network channels. It got a rep on campuses, in mags, it became anticipated-- but the thing that really made it take off and become "known" was the Golden Turkey award book by those two brothers, and Plan Nine was voted (infamously and wrongly-- though we must be thankful because if not so voted it wouldnt have received that huge push in popularity.. it found its marketing gimmick "worst movie ever made"... and so if not we'd have been deprived and prints might have slipped into the dumper forever).

This stuff is all covered in the priceless Ed Wood box fro Image, with definitive transfers of all the films plus two docs "The Haunted World of EW", and "The PLan Nine Companion" (which is sublime). Own it or be square.

HerrSchreck · #19 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:07 pm

Right the Medveds. Those are the bros I meant.

colinr0380 · #20 Post by **colinr0380** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:24 pm

davidhare wrote:The great Wood Biog Nightmare of Ecstasy ( which was the basis for the British TV doco "Look Back in Angora") and of course Michael Medved's two superb Psychotronic Cinema Compendia (and the Psychotronic mag which preceded them.) These books still the seminal spine of any serious cinephile's library.

That was an interesting documentary. I'm afraid my Wood Jr knowledge only extends to that documentary and Glen or Glenda? which the BBC screened in 1995 to capitalise on the Burton film hitting UK cinemas (not sure whether that has been the only Wood film shown on British television, it was certainly billed as Glen or Glenda's premiere).

Wasn't that 'turkey' book the one that also trashed Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia - I've a vague memory of casually mentioning that film to a friend as a teen and having them pull out a book that said it was one of the worst films of all time and telling me I was completely weird to like it! We lost contact soon after (

) so I'm not in a position to check back with them! (For some obscure reasons this friend also harboured particular disdain for Arthur Miller and Michael Gough!)

Cold Bishop · #21 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Tue May 13, 2008 7:39 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Wasn't that 'turkey' book the one that also trashed Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia - I've a vague memory of casually mentioning that film to a friend as a teen and having them pull out a book that said it was one of the worst films of all time and telling me I was completely weird to like it! We lost contact soon after ( ) so I'm not in a position to check back with them! (For some obscure reasons this friend also harboured particular disdain for Arthur Miller and Michael Gough!)

Alfredo Garcia, Last Year in Marienbad, Zabriskie Point, Ivan the Terrible, Last Movie... Let's just say despite it's notoriety, the list is full of it. Even stuff like Myra Breckinridge and Trouble Man deserve better.

Cold Bishop · #22 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:10 pm

Well, I can say that I never DON'T enjoy watching it, which is more than I can say for most movies.

atcolomb · #23 Post by **atcolomb** » Wed May 14, 2008 8:32 am

davidhare wrote:Have you SEEN Myra Breckinridge lately?

Staggeringly bad. Jaw breakingly bad. Unwatchably bad. As is the other Michael Sarne horror, Joanna.

Make sure you listen to the commentary by Raquel Welch....it's really
good and she has a good time talking about the film......

BrianInAtlanta · #24 Post by **BrianInAtlanta** » Wed May 14, 2008 10:34 am

To add to HerrSchreck's wise words, I'd say PLAN 9's appeal is almost the same pleasure that Parisian surrealists had in watching parts of Hollywood B movies in the early 1930's; ignoring the cheesy plots to find the sublime in accidental collisions.

Then there's the "mystery movie" element of trying to figure out what Wood was intending with his material. Was he really trying to make a "great statement" with Manlove's final speech? Was he trying to be subversive to 1950's values and on what conscious level?

For me, at least, PLAN 9 is fun in that way but pales next to Wood's cri de coeur GLEN OR GLENDA? One of the cinema's great autobiographies.

MadJack · #25 Post by **MadJack** » Wed May 14, 2008 11:07 am

I heartily second HerrSchreck recommendation of the Image box. Surprisingly, considering Wood's rep, the only flop in the set is Night of the Ghouls, made after Lugosi's death, and you can kinda tell that Wood had lost something. The other four are pretty much running even for best Wood film, though I lean more to Bride of the Monster as the best (almost as good as anything Universal was turning out in the 1950s).