Product Details

• Actors: Conrad Brooks, Dolores Fuller, Kathy Wood, Edward D. Wood Jr., Gary Owens
• Directors: Ted Newsom
• Format: Black & White, Color, EP, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Rhino / Wea
• VHS Release Date: April 18, 1995
• Run Time: 55 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303170455
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,445 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Ed Wood, whose low-budget oeuvre has developed quite a cult following over the years, is at the receiving end of exploitation in this 50-minute documentary. Quickly pulled together before the release of Tim Burton's 1994 biopic, it may look cheesy, but offers a fairly complete depiction of Wood's method and his madness. The story is told by the writer-director's close compatriots, including Kathy O'Hara, former girlfriend Dolores Fuller, and close assistant Conrad Brooks. Narrated by a booming Gary Owens, it focuses on Wood's alcoholism, sexual peccadilloes, and incessant bad luck. It is entertaining to learn that Wood's serious, and seriously inept films were weirdly autobiographical. Unfortunately, the revelations are overshadowed by a smarmy sense of humor. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Defending smarm., July 4, 1999

By A Customer

Actually, it took nearly six months, and the director did it on a budget that Wood would've understood. "Smarmy sense of humor?" Actually, I thought sub-heads like "Dead-Wood" and "Wood Work" were clever. Wood ended up badly, and unlike the Burton film, this doesn't whitewash.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing -- could have been better, November 14, 1999

By	Lori Sampson (Garrett Park, MD USA) - See all my reviews

"Thrown together" is the right description. This was done on the cheap, with lots of stock footage of the 1930s-50s, to his Hollywood days (however, lots of Ed's early home movies & photos had been destroyed after he was evicted from his last decent home in the 1970s). The best parts were the bits from his best-known movies, but I would have liked to have known more of his seedy days & seedy movies - his descent into bad porno films. The feature film "Ed Wood" remains the best "documentary" of EDW, Jr.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing documentary of one very bad filmmaker, July 1, 2001

By	Brian Kelly (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

Surely even Ed Wood deserves better treatment than this disappointing documentary from Rhino! Yes, it does look cheap and there are plenty of clips from Wood's films. But most of these excerpts act as if the actors are commenting on the Great Bad One's filmmaking abilities. Narrator Gary Owens is frankly annoying. Finding at least one well-known film critic, Leonard Maltin or Roger Ebert anyone?, to comment on Wood's legacy would have added immeasurably and given this effort a lot more depth. For now, I'll stick with Tim Burton's great film. This is definitely not the definitive Ed Wood biography.