CINEMA: A Monster to Be Despised!

Not any more. Now schlock auteur Ed Wood is a brand name

Come on, now! Edward D. Wood Jr. is not nearly the world's worst director. Lots of people made movies that were even more desperately inept and ludicrous. It's true that Wood's cheap '50s exploitation films -- the heartfelt expose Glen or Glenda, the octopus-wrangling horror movie Bride of the Monster and the sci-fi anticlassic Plan 9 from Outer Space -- boasted floridly awful dialogue and actors who seemed terrified to be on camera. But Wood had passion, ambition and, as a heterosexual who enjoyed wearing women's clothes, a very chic identity crisis. His films were about something: man's need to create...

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