Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood, brilliantly reconstructs the sleazy side of 1950s Hollywood, and is a sympathetic tribute to the director of such gems of the awful as Glen or Glenda (1953) – in which he cast himself as an anguished cross-dresser – and his “masterpiece”, the truly terrible Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959).
The film is a chronicle of sad dreams and disappointments, with Martin Landau outstanding (he deservedly won an Oscar) as washed-up horror star Bela Lugosi who finds a new home in Wood’s schlocky rubber-monstered fantasies.
Filmed in crisp black & white, it’s a fairy tale about one man’s triumph over a world that systematically shuns him – a collision between cruel, harsh Tinsel Town and the individual fantasy worlds of Wood’s unique imagination.
Edward D. Wood Jr
Johnny Depp
Bela Lugosi
Martin Landau
Dolores Fuller
Sarah Jessica Parker
Kathy O’Hara
Patricia Arquette
Criswell
Jeffrey Jones
Reverend Lemon
G D Spradlin
Orson Welles
Vincent D’Onofrio
John “Bunny” Breckinridge
Bill Murray
Georgie Weiss
Mike Starr
Paul Marco
Max Casella
Conrad Brooks
Brent Hinkley
Vampira
Lisa Marie
Tor Johnson
George “the Animal” Steele
Director
Tim Burton
