Plan 9 From Outer Space

Thanks mostly to a couple of writers in the early 80s, there is a widespread belief that one of the worst films of all time is Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space. This irritates me for a bunch of reasons. One of them is that it isn't even the worst film Ed Wood made. He did make some films that can be hard to sit through. Plan 9 is not one of them.

It also bothers me because, whatever else you can say about Plan 9, it is watchable and entertaining. If you are watching ironically, you are having fun, and if you aren't you're having fun. There are literally thousands of movies that are completely mediocre and unwatchably dull. Nobody ever puts them on "worst movie lists."  Some will at least talk about films so bad they're good.

The main reason that it bothers me is this: Ed Wood's movies cannot be judged by comparison with other films of the period.  Ed Wood is a legitimate outsider artist. Comparing his movies to contemporary films like The Day The Earth Stood Still is ridiculous in the same way that it would be to compare the work of Henry Darger to the work of Kurt Vonnegut.

Darger grappled with mental illness, worked a series of day jobs, and produced his writing in the evenings. It does not seem that he did the work for anything but the work itself. His work was discovered after his death and became a focus of fascination. Stylistically crude, and obsessively detailed and illustrated, his work is not like the work of anyone else's. It is simultaneously innocent and sexual, peace-loving and blood-thirsty. It is a window into the mind of the author, and for all of its problems, fascinating.

Ed Wood was an outsider in mid-twentieth century America. He fought depression his entire life, enjoyed cross-dressing to the point of obsession, and battled with alcohol addiction off and on for most of his life.

Unlike Darger, Wood wanted an audience for his writing. He wanted to be in charge of his films, to make them exactly as he wanted under his own terms. While he would make serious compromises due to budget, he remained true to his vision. This results in occasional scenes of unintentional hilarity, but this never seemed to bother him.

The biopic by Tim Burton annoys me because it paints his relationship with Bela Lugosi as him using an old man in the last years of his life, and that does not seem to be accurate. Their friendship seems to have been mutual, and based on deep respect of each other and their status as outsiders. Lugosi never felt himself appreciated in Hollywood, and Wood, well...Hollywood wasn't ready for him.  Yes, it is true, Wood did enable Lugosi's terrible addiction to alcohol and paraldehyde. Wood didn't judge people for things like that.

Eking out a meager living with his films only lasted so long, and he began to write pornographic novels, and it is this that paid his bills most of his life. He died in squalor.

His films remain, and many of them make the "so bad, it's good lists." None of them belong there.  We need to assess his films for what they were.  They are technically shaky, made for pennies, borrowing props and occasionally stealing stock from Hollywood studios. Living in the underbelly of Hollywood allowed Wood access to materials. Had he lived in Wisconsin, his films would have been impossible.

Wood embraced his own strangeness without shame.  His first film, Glen or Glenda is all about transvestism. He starred. It's an amazingly honest film, trying to build legitimate bridges for people to understand the fetish.  I may do an in depth on that one.

His films are filled with no name actors, and open homosexuals and people with political beliefs that made it hard for them to find jobs. Nobody was going after the art of Ed Wood.  He flew under the radar. The roughness of his films and the genre trappings he used meant that nobody took them seriously.  Knowing what we know of him, and his outsider status, we can view his films very differently.

And Plan 9 might be the finest example of what I mean when I talk about his subversive genius.  It is, on one level a science-fiction/horror quickie. It's also a very funny and pointed satire about the military mind, mid-twentieth century America, and the nature of authority. And I feel it's meant to be.

And with that...I'll start the film.

The film opens with Criswell, an out homosexual, and minor celebrity here, to try to draw investors to the film.  I maintain that, Wood's dialogue is tin-eared but kind of brilliant in its own way.  It has a cadence unlike anyone else's.  Talking of our interest in the future because it is where we will spend the rest of our lives.

Criswell was a known and open fraud, and to have an open fortune-teller fraud, repeatedly calling the audience "My friends," claiming the story we are about to watch is based on true facts and secret testimony.  This is a contempt for the argument by authority, and he knows what he's doing.  This speech ends asking us if we're able to handle the horrors of Grave Robbers From Outer Space.  This is one of the titles the movie was released under.

The credits are very business-like, and this film actually had one of his higher budgets, and you can tell.

Criswell narrates over this graveyard scene featuring Bela Lugosi's character at the funeral of his wife.  This scene was filmed without usable sound due to noise in the background. Bela's performance here is perfectly adequate.  It's one of only a few scenes that Bela filmed before his death, sadly.

This is not a convincing airplane cockpit, and yes, that is a shower curtain, and the pilots have multiple shadows from studio lights, but I maintain that we can't really consider technical shortcomings as mattering much. This is like filmed theater. Suspend disbelief.

Also, here is the first flying saucer.  Not a paper plate as commonly claimed but a model of some kind.

The actors in this plane scene are no more stilted than most actors in films of this period.  Honestly.

It is extremely funny to many people to see the scenes crosscutting here from the gravediggers finishing their chores in daylight to Vampira coming from her tomb in pitch darkness, and I'll admit, this is some lousy editing.  But it also gives her first appearance a genuine sense of the uncanny.  Many have made a point of how stiff an unnatural her movements are.  I dig it.

Now we see Bela, again narrated, leaving his home. This was the last footage ever shot of a great actor. He died days later. Wood made the decision to carry on. Some of called this thoughtless and nasty. I think that a) it's what Lugosi would have wanted, and b) that he had put time effort and love into this film.  Also, Lugosi's presence in the film was one of the primary ways he got funding, and he couldn't afford NOT to use this footage.  I will admit, he might have found a better physical match for Lugosi, but his backers really wanted a role for his stand in.

And so here we go.  "The Doctor" steps of screen to an ignominious end unable to go on without his wife.

This is a very low budget cemetery set, and it is hard to take seriously, but he had a budget like what most amateur theatre companies would have...this is a stage set.  Pretend this is a play.

Also, I don't think I ever realized Vampira's character was the dead wife until just now.  That's funny because I've watched this movie a lot, and it's in the narration and EVERYTHING.

This actress here is not good. The gentleman is much better. You get what you get when you're basically getting actors for beer money.  I'm not sure, but I think she was a relative of one of the financers.

Casting Tor Johnson as Chief Inspector Clay to investigate the death of the gravediggers makes me laugh every time. The other actors do a good job helping him along with this scene. Honestly, the thickness of his accent, and his semi-broken English makes this otherwise bland character more interesting.  How did a Swedish guy end up here in SoCal as the head of police?  Is he just that brilliant.  Now I want to write a book.  Unfortunately, he dies really soon, so Tor can do what he does best...look really weird and scary.

But, I love this about Wood.  No other director would have given Tor the chance at this dialogue, and you know, it grows on me, this scene, a little more every time.  That character seems like a real guy. There's an inner life there.  Tor acted his heart out, and it kinda works. The men he works with clearly respect and like him.  It's neat.

So now he's wandering the graveyard with the flashlight, with some mist.

The other detectives are standing by the bodies, noting the savagery of the attacks and a strange odor.  We cut to this suburban couple, one of whom is the pilot from the earlier scene, the other is his wife.  They discuss his saucer sighting.  There's a dialogue weirdness here.  He describes the craft as shaped like a cigar, not a saucer. I suspect they had a special effect change after this was filmed.

And then, just as he's discussing how he can't talk about it, they get buzzed by the saucer, as do the police.  Tor's Inspector sees the craft land in the graveyard and walks toward it, gun out, flashlight in hand.  And here comes "The Doctor" now played by a dentist almost a foot taller than Lugosi, and clearly twenty or thirty years younger.

Vampira also seems very young to be an elderly doctor's wife of many many many years marriage. I posit that the resurrection process may cause some changes to the body.  Except for Tor Johnson, because, Tor looks fantastic as a zombie.

The Doctor is now stalking behind Tor, as he walks toward the ship. He turns, and sees the Doctor, shooting, and turning to see the Wife. His gun does nothing, and they close on him, killing him.

He's found by the Detective and the two officers.  The detective pushes his hat back with his gun...in what I think is an actual moment of real human behaviour, but which most people call ridiculous. He also scratches his shoulder with the barrel while uttering the line "One thing's sure.  Clay's dead, murdered, and someone's responsible."  He points with his gun like an extension of his hand.  I've seen people do things that stupid countless times.

The Wife is watching the funeral from apparent cover.

Meanwhile, elsewhere we see three saucers high over Hollywood Blvd.  The police are called.  Some of the effects shot are better than others. Criswell narrates over the effects shots, and the stock footage, and the few original shots Wood has shot.  Day and night switch with no regard, possibly a budgetary concern (almost certainly), possible to show that there is the passage of time.  Either works for me.

The saucers are being seen all over the country, and the army is now involved.  We see vivid stock footage cut with an actor in front of a white wall pretending to be outside looking at the sky with binoculars.  This is theater, no realism intended.

Colonel Edwards (the fellow mentioned) orders the troops to fire. The attack does nothing, and it's pretty clear it's doing nothing. They keep at it for awhile though, because you never know, I guess, and what else can the US Army do with advanced craft but keep shooting.

The ships flee and vanish from all sight.

Edwards proceeds to discuss what must be incredibly secret data with an underling here, revealing that they haven't always shot at these visitors in the past, but they received no response on radio. It's revealed the aliens attacked a small town, and killed many people. The government covered it up, he suggests his young captain consider every disaster he hears about and wonder if it's related.  They then joke grimly about how they'll call this a training exercise.

Wood served in the military, and I think he has a pretty good sense of the culture, despite the roughness of this acting and dialogue, and I think he did not care for it. This scene seems sympathetic to the Colonel, but also angry at both of these soldiers for their complicity in keeping secrets of this importance from the people.

Wood questions, I think the wisdom of people in power. This was not a common habit in America in the fifties.

From one military to another, we head to the alien space station. The alien flight commander is prissy and irritable. He claims to have contacted government officials, and they refused to acknowledge their existence. This is either a lie, or Wood means for this character to totally misunderstand Earth's response. His superior is bored, reading his lines from a script on his desk, barely present, and asks which plan they will follow now.  The actor pretends to be reading the details of Plan 9 to cover that he's reading from a script. He does a good job of it, really. You get a legitimate sense of pointless bureaucracy.

Plan 9 involves the resurrection of the dead, and they report that they have successfully resurrected two, and that they should be able to add more.  The implication is that there is to be an army of the dead resurrected. The commanding officer seems to regret the need for violence, but sees there being no other choice.

This is a strange scene. There have been 8 plans before this. One of them apparently involved the attack on that town.  They seem to think hovering above Washington and LA is an attempt at communication that was rebuffed.  Are they assuming Earth to be more advanced, expecting some kind of communication we don't possess?  Or, is the prissy Alien captain deliberately lying to his superior here. I think the film kind of hangs on this.

In the hall outside the room, The captain and his female first officer discuss how, as long as humans can think, they will have problems dealing with them, noting the irony that humans fear the dead, who cannot think.  Then they head back to their vessel and depart for Earth again.

The pilot is back in uniform speaking with his wife. He suggests that she should stay with her mother for the time being. These two have the blandest chemistry ever. It's a perfect fifties married couple.  There is a line in this scene that is discussed as badly written. It's not. It's a muffed reading is all.  The wife says, "The saucers are up there," looking at the sky, then inclines her head, "and the cemetery's over there, and then adds, "but I'll be locked up in there," with no inflection. She should have looked at their house and emphasized the word "there." That's a perfectly legitimate bit of writing, let down by a weak delivery. In a film with a larger budget, and a better actress, they'd have reshot.  And heck, maybe they did, and this was the best take of it.

All this said, they kind of do feel like an actual couple.  Just really boring people who like each other a lot, and are in this film right now for reasons that are unclear. They are absolutely the normal people in this film. They represent America as the public ideal.

We cut back to the "cockpit," and our boy is pretty preoccupied with thoughts of his wife all alone next to that cemetery with all the deaths.

The co-pilot and the stewardess flirt and chatter like really boring co-workers with a side of moderate sexual harassment.

Bela is out in full Dracula costume as the reanimated corpse of The Doctor. He's old again, so there goes my rejuvenation theory/joke.  He sneaks into a house. We cut to a ringing phone, Max, our pilot is talking to his wife.  Bela enters the door, and is soon in her bedroom, younger and taller (and a dentist, apparently).  She runs away as slowly as she seems able, but picks up speed.  Bela as himself pursues, and she nearly runs into Vampira. Another grave is stirring as Vampira walks by.

Max's wife is slowly, oh so slowly cornered by The Doctor and his Wife, and then, shockingly, and lit from below, Detective Clay rises from his grave to join the chase. His face is fixed, and legitimately scary as he staggers after her.  The Doctor (dentist) also pursues, his cape interfering with the crosses and tombstone on this theater set.  Look away.

She manages to make it to the road, where a man in a cowboy hat finds her exhausted at the side of the road, and pursued by ghouls.  He tosses her in his car, and drives away.

Bela's doctor glares, the dentist doctor walks after the car.  Too slow. Night and day change with no frame of reference.  All ghouls give up the chase, returning to the cemetery.  They are clearly counting on volume of soldiers for Plan 9, for these three are not very effective as a small combat unit.

Bela's doctor staggers away, and I think that's the last we will see of him.

The police lieutenant is here to investigate the report apparently. The ghouls are now approaching the hatch of the saucer.  His female first officer Tana, opens the hatch, and Vampira and Tor come on board.  The device they are using to control the dead are turned off, and the ghouls seem inactive. It's clear that when the device is on, they ghouls will attack anyone. Even their master.  The Doctor joins them, and the saucer leaves.

The cops pretty much shoot the shit, talk about the saucers. The lieutenant seems quite a bit more knowledgeable than he should be.  They head to Clay's grave, thinking it's been broken into. They examine the grave and realize something dug OUT of the grave. Not one of these trained cops remembers this is where they buried Clay. They need to go into the grave and see the stone.

One of the cops is complaining that he always gets the spook details. That's a cute little in joke.  This cop has appeared in previous films of Wood's as the same character.  I don't think it's an accident that these cops are being portrayed as buffoons.  I think that it's part and parcel of the message of this film.  Authority is not to be trusted, it's made up of people just like everyone else, and probably people inclined to doing as they're told.

Meanwhile in the Pentagon, our Colonel Edwards is reporting to his superior, General Roberts.. This superior asks if Edwards believes in saucers and he has seen them despite the government's directive that there is no such thing.  Roberts advises this could be a courtmartial, but he does admit they're real, and have been there for some time.

Roberts says they've had radio contact. For a while in came in as jumbled noise.  It seems that they've now developed a language computer that deciphers the alien language.  Edwards is offered the chance to hear the recordings.  It begins with Space Commander Eros, our prissy alien captain saying that he understands the language difficulties, but also that they now are aware earth has the translator and they can now understand.

The aliens are far ahead of the humans, and seem offended that humans still do not believe in them.  They do not wish to harm Earth but to keep it safe.  They could have destroyed Earth long ago if that had been their aim (the general scoffs at that part...dick that he is)

The aliens admit that they have done some criminal things because the Earth does have big guns that have damaged their ships. If they refuse to let them land, Earth must not want them on friendly terms.

The aliens say that they may have to destroy them to keep the humans from destroying themselves and the aliens with atomic weapons, and that they are on the road to greater weapons that will let them destroy the entire universe. This will not be permitted.

The general and the colonel discuss San Fernando where the saucers have been flying low, maybe landing. Edwards is their best chance for contacting them and finding out what they want...despite the pretty clear mentions on the tape.

The General mirrors the Alien superior officer pretty closely...which is not an accident, as we transfer back to the Alien space station. Excellency is annoyed by Eros' lateness, and demands to see one of the reanimated.  Eros is informed that two of his three ships have been reassigned and he must continue alone.  Excellency is as dubious of this plan as, frankly, everyone in the audience right now, and is not prepared to commit more ships, energy or manpower until some results are shown.

Tor is brought in, and is menacing Eros, the electrode gun malfunctioning. Excellency advises Tana to throw the gun to the floor to turn it off. The giant is now docile, and brought for review.  Excellency is informed the other two are a woman and an old man.

Excellency seems inspired by this. Tana takes Tor to the ship. The Doctor is to be sacrificed, he is to enter a building, be released from electro command and a "decomposure ray" set on him to astound the humans and cause them to wonder what is going on long enough for them to resurrect a great many more dead.

It is apparent to me that the aliens, despite having a martial culture, and despite Excellency having a halberd on his shirt simply do not have weaponry at hand. I'm not sure how they'd have destroyed Earth, maybe it's a bluff.

It hasn't, seemingly, occurred to them that a decomposure ray could be effective on a live human.  I think that they simply find it anathema.

What the "attack" was on that small town that resulted in deaths might have been is a mystery.  Was it an accident of some kind?  A different alien race.  I don't know.

It is fascinating that they feel the humans will not respond to them. Why have they not responded by radio? It's genuinely confusing to them.

Rather than acting with violence, they are hoping to intimidate humans with a show of their power by reanimating the dead. The violence is incidental. They want humans to see that they wield power over life and death.  What the dead do seems to be less important to them.  The sidearms they carry, the electrode guns, only control, they have no offensive power.

They want a bloodless coup. They want the dead to march on the capitals until all of Earth simply acknowledge the aliens exist and respect their right to do so, and, ostensibly, as a result, stop building atom bombs.  By "respect our existence" they may mean for Earth to become nonviolent as well.

Plan 9 is a bad plan, based in two things, an inability to understand humans, and a kind of inconsistent pacifism.  Hypocrisy is baked in.  The aliens are every bit as arrogant and ignorant as the humans, even if their intention is noble.  They will not take, it seems, overt violent action, but their control over what actions they DO take is limited, and they seem indifferent to the violence committed by the ghouls. I suspect the attack on that other town was much the same.

I think Wood's portrayal of the aliens is, essentially, a portrayal of beat and intellectual culture. Good intentioned, paying lip service to pacifism and the triumph of intellect and education, showing contempt for the common people (earthlings) and full of overly complicated solutions that lack practicality.

Whereas the American military wants to resolve everything with violence and rigid order, the Aliens are their diametric opposite, and BOTH are portrayed as being deeply flawed.

The colonel is introduced to our pilot and his wife. to discuss their experiences.  The dead are walking again in the cemetery.

The doctor closes in on Officer Kelton (our cop who always gets the spook details) and backs him right onto the patio with the others.  They empty bullets into him to no effect, and then the decomposure ray hits, and he is turned into a skeleton.  All stare on in befuddled silence. Kelton is okay! Kelton is always okay.

Our earthlings head out to the cemetery. Kelton is advised to stay with Officer Kelton.  She doesn't like it, "but I guess there isn't much I can do about it." If that isn't the state of women in 1956, I don't know what is.  All the men folk arm up and stumble into the graveyard, looking for whatever is causing all of this.

The Wife is still prowling. No sign of Tor so far.  The American good guys all discuss Clay's breaking out of his grave.

Back on the ship, Eros advises Tana that the men will find their ship, and that they must be halted before they can inform others.  Now, Eros, I know your mission is secret, but has it occurred to you that your whole beef is that they won't contact you?  Apparently face to face is not what they want. These intellectual liberal space aliens want to be acknowledged, respected, but apparently only on their terms, which are a mystery to us.

They dispatch the giant to gather the Kelton and Mrs. Trent.

The menfolk spot the glow of the ship and head in to investigate.

Back at the car, Kelton, our police buffoon is knocked senseless by Clay, who then turns attention to Mrs. Trent.

The Earthlings are astonished by the craft's size and wondered how it stayed hidden, as Eros and Tana look out through one way portholes.  Tana opens the outer hatch, startling the Earthlings, and they decide to go inside. Our pilot, Mr. All American says, "if a little green man pops out at me, I'm shooting first and asking questions later." The Colonel and the police lieutenant seem to agree.

And I think Wood means for that to be as stupid and brutal as it sounds.

Tana asks if they must kill these humans. Eros very sadly says yes, and that it is better they kill a small number now than be thwarted in their mission, and allow humans to destroy the universe with their weapons.  They do seem genuinely sorry about it. Tana says that Eros is always right, and Eros agrees, because he is a smug fake liberal dick.

Guns drawn, the Earthlings order Eros and Tana to stay where they are, and Eros says they will comply for the moment.  The lieutenant won't be sassed and tells them to do as they're told.

Eros says they don't need guns, and they will not be useful. He acts like a smug superior dick as the humans snarl and threaten like the primitive brutes Eros thinks they are.

Eros asks if they want to talk or wait, advising their friends will be here shortly, those left at the vehicle.  Eros assures them that they are unharmed, offering to show them, and reaches for the control panel. Trent shoots the machine, advising next time he won't aim at the board.

Eros advises that he was only turning on the televisor. The lieutenant advises him to go ahead, but move carefully. We see Tor carrying Mrs Trent.  Mr Trent calls Eros a fiend.

Eros says he is a soldier of his planet and that he didn't come as an enemy but to ask their aid for the whole universe, but the humans refused to accept their existence, or reply to their messages.

The colonel asks why it's so important that they contact Earth.

Eros says "Because of DEATH, and because all you of Earth are IDIOTS."

Trent objects, and Eros continues with a brief history of Earth explosives, culminating with the H-bomb and advises they are about to be capable of destroying the entire universe.

The only explosion left is to detonate Earth's sun, and sunlight itself, and that will destroy the universe.

Eros believes that humans will discover the "Solonite" bomb soon, and not recognize its power because of their primitive, juvenile minds.

Mr Trent says, "So what if we do develop this Solonite bomb. We'd be an even stronger nation than we were before."

Eros replies, "You see!?  You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid."

Mr. Trent replies with "That's all I'm taking from you," and pistol whips Eros.

And this scene, this scene right here is the subversive heart of the picture.

Here we see the American heart laid bare as Wood sees it. The military industrial complex, willing to use brute force to impose will, unable to conceive that more power is not more wisdom, and on the other hand the counterculture, too arrogant, too entitled and too blinkered to act with any kind of useful response.

This is an incredibly nuanced, and rebellious film for the period. It's a deep criticism not just of American foreign policy and nuclear brinksmanship, but also of the opposition to it. It's a pessimistic, but, I think, realistic depiction of how forces in opposition become like each other and it becomes impossible to communicate.

It foreshadows America under Trump, with jingoism, and the fascist undercurrent of American patriotism naked on one side, and the ineffectual, hypocritical, and disorganized left on the other.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Wood is deeply aware of what Burroughs called "the essential rottenness" of American culture, the hypocrisies that fuel it.  They ways in which the left and right are flawed. And he made a movie about it, and released it in 1956.  And people saw it in droves.

It's rough and the acting is iffy, but the message is there.  It's all there.

Eros gathers his dignity and continues to talk to the humans like a lesser species, indicating again that it's because of headstrong men like Trent that they may have to destroy humanity, because once they have Solonite, they have NOTHING, and so does the universe. He says they tried extreme means to get to the humans, because they were left with no choice.

But it's clear that they did have other choices, just not choices they deemed acceptable.  Eros' hypocrisy is apparent. Some think Wood means him as the hero of the picture, but I disagree.  The only hero in this film is Kelton, the average guy, just trying to live his life in his buffoonish disinterest, and Tana, who will speak her most important lines next.

The Solonite (or solaranite) seems to work by using sunlight like a trail of gasoline that will detonate the sun...but likewise to every place our sun has shed lite, and to all the other stars it touches setting off a chain reaction to all stars in the universe.  And you have to admit, that's pretty bad. I suspect that the realization of this is what turned Eros' people into pacifists.

He explains that this must not happen, either through friendly means or, he says with a snarl, "as it seems YOU want it."

The lieutenant says he's mad. Tana then delivers a speech about the madness of nuclear brinksmanship, and indeed nationalism itself.  She then asks why, if all this is sane, they would consider it mad for one planet to destroy another to save the universe.  Eros, seemingly annoyed by this outburst of calmly spoken rationalism, grabs her arm and says "That's ENOUGH."  Trent, offended by Eros shoving her comes in to sock him again, and is barely restrained.

And then Eros reveals that for his race women are for advancing the race, not fighting a man's battles. Yep, his toxic masculinity forces him to silence Tana and bluster against the humans some more.  They're so very very advanced, and dedicated to peace, but chauvinism is still all good.

And, again, I think Wood finds this offensive. Eros is a dick. He's a dick trying to save the universe, but he is being a total asshole as he does it, and he couldn't be less perfect.

Kelton has hooked up with the other cop, and his story isn't being believed until The Wife shows up, all silent and creepy moving again.  The two cops follow after the ship.  And Tor keeps walking.

The lieutenant intends to arrest Eros and Tana. Eros demonstrates that Clay has Jeff Trent's wife, and that she is still unharmed, but that could change if he chose.  Nice pacifism. We don't use weapons. We make zombies, and THEY hurt people. Our hands are clean.

The slightly more butch cop develops a cunning plan to sneak up behind the very slow undead Clay and hit him on the head and run off with Mrs. Trent.  It's SUPER-EFFECTIVE.

Eros advises this is because the electrode ray is off, and he'll walk again once it's turned on.

But Eros' mind is no match for the Earthling's puny weapons, and, rather rudely, they don't let him turn it on. He is pretty annoyed.

Eros' stunt double is slightly less of a pacifist, and engages in a struggle with the suddenly disarmed Trent, while Tana flips switches and Colonel and Lieutenant try to figure out where this all went quite so wrong.

Tana is simply trying to take off as the Colonel tries to open the hatch, which he does manage to do.  The ship is on fire, and the men flee, Eros beaten senseless.

The flaming ship rises into the air, again, not a flaming paper plate as many say, but a burning model.

The humans watch it flee, Tana trying to rouse Eros.

The humans say that they are sure there will be more of them, and discover Clay has skeletonized.

Mrs Trent asks if they've found the woman yet...not sure how she knows about the woman, but it hardly matters.  The colonel expects she will also be skeletonized.  With the ship and the rays gone, they're probably unable to move.

The saucer explodes, disappearing completely.

We cut back to Criswell at the desk asking the viewer if they can prove it didn't happen (a logical fallacy...and I think Woods knows this), and advises that many viewers will likely meet aliens in secret in their lifetime. He rises from his desk, and finishes with "God help us in the future."

Indeed.

We live in a world where culturally we have split into alien factions, none of which may be capable of communicating with the other.  Wood saw this happening in his own time.  We have seen it intensify.

And this is the genius of outsider art. I think that, not only is Plan 9 good art, it's predictive art. It's social satire. It's subversive, and it's angry, and it offers no answers. It just looks in on America from the outside, from the viewpoint of a kinky, disenfranchised person who never ever felt a part of it.

It's an angry movie. Anger and frustration, and the inability to meaningfully communicate are factors in every screen. In Wood's film, every man is an island, and even in our factions we are misunderstood, and cannot be heard, cannot be honest. Our actions become less and less meaningful and sensible the more we organize.

And at root it's because we lack the ability to truly KNOW anything.  We are stumbling around, guessing, trying to be heard, to imprint reason on a chaotic film, demanding to be acknowledged, respected.  Each of us in a universe of our own that can be so easily destroyed by others.

Wood stumbled and struggled to be heard, doing the best he could, and his message is what mattered, not the props, or the acting. It was the act of being heard.

And I think he deserves to be. I think Plan 9 is brave and angry, and funny (on purpose), and deeply subversive and disrespectful filmmaking.

God help us in the future.

Boy, Do I Need A Laugh

Welcome back, and for those of you daring to join me after that epic act of film priapism that was my Mulholland Drive ramble, may I say you are one patient character.  I'm writing this on the same day that the US Congress passed the AHCA.  I've spent most of the day gargling my own bile, and boy do I need a laugh. How fortunate then that I am to watch one of the funniest movies ever made.

So, when I asked my FB friends what movies they were curious to see me discuss, Airplane! was, I think the first mentioned.  I chose to start with Mulholland Drive. I did this for two reasons:

1) Mulholland Drive had been poking at me, and I felt a strong need to revisit it.

2) A discussion of Mulholland Drive is, surprisingly, really useful in discussing Airplane!.

How the hell can this be, you are asking?  Well, I'll tell you.

Many people are unaware that Airplane! is a near scene for scene remake of another film. In fact, most people will refuse to believe that without evidence. I will provide that right here-->

Go ahead and watch that video. it's about 12 minutes long.  Jump around.

Now, if you already KNOW about this, then, forgive me while I recap.

Zero Hour was made in 1957.  It stars Dana Andrews...famous for Night of the Demon (or Curse of the Demon) and Day of the Triffids.  It's a fine little melodrama for the period.

The makers of Airplane! watched the film, and noted that it had a perfect structure, and began fooling around with it. By they time they were done, they'd written a script. So much of the original was lifted, including nearly ALL the dialogue, to the extent that they bought the rights to the film for $2500.00

What does this have to do with Mulholland Drive?

Well, in that film, you may recall there are two mirrored scenes where Betty performs a rehearsal scene.  The first time, she is doing it with Rita, and neither of them are taking the dialogue very seriously, and they laugh their way through it.  The second time, she performs it with an older male actor, and takes it extraordinarily seriously.  The interpretation and physical performance turn mundane dialogue into something erotic and sad and wrenching.  It is a direct demonstration of the way the craft of performance can transform.

That is part of the genius of Airplane! The film adapts, again, scene for scene with nearly intact dialogue a serious melodrama, but it tells you it is a comedy, and uses the power of exaggeration, and stepping one step further to transform it. The very serious melodrama is key to what makes the film funny.

Many people have talked about the humour in Airplane! being deadpan. I would say that there is an element of truth to this, but that by and large, that's not precisely true. These are deliberately comic performances, most of the time. Watching the original, and the remake side by side will show that.  The genius was in casting actors, by and large recognizable for their performances in dramas, and letting them exaggerate themselves just that fraction into absurdity.

There is also a lot of talk about the Airplane! approach to movies--that being to throw endless jokes at the screen so some will laugh. That annoys me, because this movie is more carefully crafted than that.  Watch the endless installments of the "(Insert Genre) Movie" series and you will see what I mean.  In fact, even Airplane!'s sequel failed to grasp the craft of the first film.

Timing, of course, is impossible to discuss or describe, and so, I won't be able to full explain the genius of timing in this film, but I'll try to point it out when I can.

Also, a caveat: This film was made in 1980, as such, there are a lot of jokes in it that we probably would handle differently today. It's been awhile since I've watched.  If I bring them up, it's merely to note them. All our favourites of a certain age are going to have problematic things in them.  So it goes.

Also, unlike my Mulholland Drive ramble, this will not recap nearly all on screen.  This film is not intricate to need that.  I recommend watching along with this.  I'm only going to remark on notable things, and outside the context of the film, there may be nothing here for you.

And with that, I will start the film, now.

The film starts with a Jaws gag, the fin cutting through the clouds like a fin.  Right off the bat, the filmmakers need you to understand this is a comedy.  The score of this movie is designed to evoke immediately, the soundtrack of the Airport! series of airplane disaster movies.

An interesting note: The red zone and white zone voice overs in the airport as we see the cast arriving, are the real, actual married couple that did the announcements for LAX at this time.  That tickles me.

Here we see the moonies, and our jive brothers, all of whom I love.

The man removing his metal leg is a useful exaggeration here.

I think this film was the first place I heard the term abortion, as the red zone and white zone couple bicker.

Here we see Stryker leave his cabbie waiting.  Patient guy as it turns out.

Thus far, all of this material is not in Zero Hour.  It's all designed to teach us this film is a joke before we get there.

This initial exchange between Elaine and Stryker is tone perfect with the dialogue in Zero Hour, that I expect it must be from the film.  But I've been wrong before.

I had no idea what the Mayo clinic was when I first saw this film, did you?  It was still funny to me.

Ham on five, hold the mayo.  That is a terrible joke.

Here comes our heart transplant girl, source of one of the funniest, and most problematic gags in the film.

I'd forgotten how much of this introductory material is just setup for later scenes and to set a brisk pace.

Elaine telling Stryker that what's really hurt him is his record since the war makes me laugh harder since I saw the original film, where it is delivered with this exact same cadence by a different character altogether.  (By a different character!) ((You'll get that joke later in the film.))

Was there really a time that people climbed stairs right out on the tarmac to board a plane like this, by the way?  Not in my recollection.  I could be wrong.

This scene with the flight crew discussing weather is from the original, the guy wiping the windshield is not.

The names of the flight crew have been changed for the obvious comedic reasons to Victor, Roger, and Clarence Over  But most of their dialogue remains unchanged.

Here is the first of many uses of flashback stock footage of Stryker's war experiences.

The jive brothers translated into English are on screen. Is this problematic? Probably, but I love these guys, and they're treated with respect in later scenes. I dunno.

There are a lot of ethnic jokes in this film already, really.

Stryker is now seated next to the first of his casualties, and we cut to the treacly sick girl. It's kind of a brilliant performance.

I also love this plane conductor, and the girl running alongside the plane.  It's really dumb, but the way she runs into the pylons cracks me up every time.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is the co-pilot in this film. The co-pilot in Zero Hour was also a famous athlete of the period. That's a joke only the filmmakers got as they released this.  Nice.

The nun reading Boy's Life and the boy reading Nun's Life cracks me up.  I wish there was a magazine called Nun's Life. I would subscribe.

This old woman getting increasing creepy about Elaine is a wonderful bit of acting.  And here we go into the first flashback to Drambuie, to the terrible bar.

I didn't get the joke here was that these two women in the fist fight are girl scouts until I was a lot older.  I just thought they were female soldiers and the gag was purely sexist. It's funnier as girl scouts. Also it's a funny running gag that has led to a lifelong argument.

The transition to the disco scene in this flashback is amazing. When Stryker asks the guy next to him to pinch him, that actor's reaction is legit great acting. Oscar that guy.

I know I should not find a hunchbacked man trying to point out there is a knife in his back this funny, but I do.  Also when the hat flies back and hits the bartender.

I am pretty sure Air force uniforms do not have white vests under, but I'll allow it.

Also, despite the exaggerations, Stryker is a legitimately good dancer.  I would dance with him.

I am also a good disco dancer. Even at my current weight. None of you will ever see it, but it's true.

The russian dance is funny, the juggling makes it perfect..

Okay, so as we pan across the crowd, the Girl Scouts are locked in combat again. Either stakes or high, there is a prior grudge or these two are petty.  Either way, in a couple moments, as Stryker and Elaine slow dance we hear a blow, and a scream and one of them falls lifeless to the dance floor.

One of my friends and I have argued for thirty years now as to who won.  I say it's the one without pigtails, and he insists it's the one without. You tell me. Weigh in. End this. I beg you.

I just watched it.  Definite pig tails.  He's a scoundrel and wrong.  I insist.

As we cut back to the present we find that the old woman listening has hung herself.

Not sure that gag would fly now.

This scene with the kid asking to see the cockpit, and his parents ordering...verbatim from the film.  As is the jive section, but the original film uses the translated dialogue.  That kills me.

These children acting adult is another one of those jokes we probably wouldn't do today. Im not sure if it's a bad joke, but it doesn't land very well.

Oh!  I forgot Elaine has a flashback. I thought that was only Stryker.

But no, here we are recreating the beach scene in From Here to Eternity only with a lot more water and seaweed and detritus.  Also remembering why I had a crush on both of these leads. These two are pretty, in non traditional ways.  Like it.

I also love the seaweed.

So, the choices are steak and fish for dinner.  Just as in Zero Hour.  I'd avoid the fish.

This cockpit scene is 99 percent the same as the original.  You can probably find the lines that weren't in the original. There are about 3.

That tickles me.

Of course once the kid starts talking about Kareem Abdul Jabbar, it's all original, and also a lot of fun.  As the years of gone by, I've become increasingly fond of this guy.  Did you know he wrote a Mycroft Holmes novel?  True story.  It's even okay.  Good for him

Do you like movies about gladiators?  I always did.  Took me a while to really get why :)

Does Stryker even have an assigned seat.  I swear he is all over this plane.

Julie Hagerty's performance as Elaine is really so well handled.  She straddles deadpan and exaggeration perfectly.  Better than anyone aside from Leslie Nielsen, who hasn't appeared yet.

This flashback to the psych ward is, again, nearly word for word, though Ethel Merman is not in the original. It's so perfect. Watching this movie side by side with Zero Hour is highly recommended. You see the way the original dialogue enhances this film, and it makes the riffing like a very early and very advanced Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Okay, here's the guitar scene. This is partly in Zero Hour, and partly based on a scene from one of the Airport films as well.  It makes me laugh at an IV being knocked out of a desperately ill child's arm.  I've debated if her mugging and trying to stab it back in her arm makes it more or less funny.  I suspect without that mugging, the joke might have been TOO cruel. All I know is that this scene underlines exactly how I feel about sick kid plotlines played for pathos in films of this type.

That Japanese soldier sitting next to Stryker is there specifically to commit hari kiri as a result of this boring story.  Problematic? Yes.  So is a lot of this Peace Corps scene, but it's leavened with a lot of jokes at the expense of the well meaning white liberals...like the Tupperware party scene.  The scene where all of the Africans are experts at basketball is a little much these days, but Stryker's belief in the advanced teaching techniques being responsible help a little.

George Zip, by the way, is the real name of a dead airman in Zero Hour.

This drinking problem joke. I have used it ever since, no less than once a month. I am that guy. I am sorry. It has never not made me smile. Not once. Anyone can do it and I will laugh. Hitler's ghost could pull that schtick and I would laugh. I have NO IDEA why this is so. Partly timing, I think.  Who knows. Drama is a lot easier to dissect than comedy.

Comedy functions by the disruption of expectations. That's part of why building a comedy like this, on the bones of a melodrama is so effective. Even though this movie is a barrage of absurd oversteps into madness, they always dip back into melodrama, and follow the exact act structure of melodrama. They keep pulling us back into the structure, into the place where we expect X, and once in three times give us Y.  It's genius. It's the particular genius of this film.

Laughter is an evolved scream, when we realize something has gone wrong, but what has gone wrong is essentially harmless, at least to us. It's at nobody's serious expense, or nobody we care about.

This is also why, of course, it's so very dangerous and can be so abusive, and why we need to be careful how we use it. It's very often used to make a group of people the Other, and that's rarely cool.

I'm impressed, actually, how rarely this film has done that so far.

It's punching down less than I'd expect.

This scene with the first illness and the request to find a doctor is nearly verbatim again. As is MUCH of the film from this point on.

Of course when the doctor appears in the original he is not wearing a stethoscope, nor is he Leslie Nielsen.  This was the very first time anyone ever cast him in a comedic role, and it's certainly the best performance he ever gave in one. And the genius of his performance is that with very few exceptions he IS the only one playing it entirely straight.

I want to learn this egg trick. I should get on that.

Has anyone ever wiped sweat from their forehead in a thriller without it being a sign of imminent physical trouble?

It looks like everyone in that cockpit has had the fish.  Ruh-roh.

This scene in the cockpit where the doctor asks what the menu choices were makes me laugh MORE after seeing Zero Hour.  The choices are chicken and fish, and the doctor states he had lasagna.  In the original the doctor says, "Yes, I remember, I had meat."  Which, even at the time must have rung weird in people's ears, but it was a gold mine for these clowns.

So as it becomes clear that the culprit is fish, the doctor begins describing symptoms that the pilot immediately begins to experience in turn. This was also Peter Graves' first comic performance, and you can tell, because when he tries to be funny, he's not so hot here.  He's much better when he plays straight.

This automatic pilot gag was stupid when I was 10. It's stupid now. One of a few gags that I just never liked.

Ahh Lloyd Bridges as McCloskey.  So much of his dialogue is identical to the original film, but his performance is genuinely hilarious and I dunno why.  Also love this guy Johnny, who read as gay to me then, and still does, but with no jokes at the expense of that. He's just great.

Sigh.  The inflate the autopiliot by blowing him up below the belt line.  This is not funny.  Get back to the funny part.

Elaine's post coital eyes at the co-pilot are a little funny, but not worth the joke.

"Finding someone who can fly this plane, and who didn't have fish for dinner," is from the original. That shocked me past words because it is so funny.

And here's Robert Stack, now as Captain Kramer.  Also his first comedic role, but again, his dialogue is almost verbatim from Zero Hour! He's not as much fun as Bridges or Nielsen, and people don't tend to remember his performance as much, but he's really very good here.

Are we at three suicides for people next to Stryker already. I thought it took longer. And so it is that Stryker is called to the cockpit.

"I am serious, and don't call me surely" is NOT from Zero Hour, but it could be.

This score is so beautifully generic that I am in love with it. It could have been so winky.. and that's a problem that infects the sequel, and a lot of the subsequent attempts to catch this lightning in other bottles.

This scene where Kramer is driving to the airport makes excellent use of terrible rear projection driving footage, drawing attention to it, and then switching the footage to the western chase footage just as it becomes almost intolerable. Timing.

The Jesus on the windshield covering its eyes...another joke that doesn't land. It was a step too far. It's funny to see the ones that don't feel of a piece with the film.

Okay, so this scene where the passenger is panicking and the stewardess is shaking her. In Airplane, she is interrupted and a man takes over, and then another, and there is a long line, including a dude with a wrench.  The scene in Zero Hour...it's not much less funny.  It's really the same.  Except they cut the line. It's a clear case of that scene already being kind of accidentally funny and them being able to seamlessly exaggerate it.

It's not funny to see a woman in distress get slapped around. I'm not really sure why it's funny here. I will say she is definitely NOT the butt of the joke. The joke is at the expense of a certain kind of scene in a melodrama. We've seen this scene so many times where someone is trying to calm a person down, and another person steps in to take over...doing the EXACT SAME THING.

I think this scene where Stryker physically destroys all the people trying to hand him pamphlets is cathartic for some, but it's also a fine tip of the hat to his action hero past.

McCloskey's escalating series of addictions he picked the wrong week to keep quitting is spaced out exactly correctly.

And here's the automatic pilot molesting Elaine, and it's not funny, and was never funny. Thankfully it's brief

This scene here with Kramer talking Stryker through the plane's controls--verbatim.

Barbara Billngsley speaks jive.  Of course.

In this scene in Air Traffic Control, Johnny is deliberately doing the worst fake typing I have ever scene.  This guy playing full out vaudeville next to Bridges playing straight is like cheese popcorn and caramel popcorn together: perfect.

The pilot's wife is having an affair with a horse.  I think this is a Godfather reference. Either way, it's just odd enough it works.

When you turn on the air in your real life flight, this is you.  This is what you look like.

They guy who checks the turkey in the Radar Range in this scene is Jonathan Banks, later to star in Wiseguy, and even later in Breaking Bad as Mike Ehrmantraut. This is pretty darned early in his career, but that voice is unmistakable.

This scene with the reporters is verbatim until Johnny takes over in it, unsurprisingly.

Ah spinning newspapers over presses.  Some day I will do a supercut of these shots.

Incidentally, Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot, later became the name of my film production unit when I made short films in high school and college. It's not funny, but it made me laugh.

"I say 'Let 'em crash,'" from this Counterpoint spot was laughably over exaggerated in 1980.  I miss times when this was just a joke in a film.  Seriously, I hear conservative pundits say worse things than this with utter seriousness every day now. Dammit, I was hoping this movie would distract me from the American Congress declaring a couple million people unfit for life in a blatant move toward eugenics. No such luck.

I could use something to rinse my mouth out like this guy and his flask.  This exchange where he offers the woman a slug...from Zero Hour again.  So SO much more of this film than you realize is from the original movie.  It's crazy.  Of course the old woman doesn't snort a line of coke in the original.

This nun singing Aretha Franklin's "Respect" is a perfect summation of mid-century American culture.

Time for more stock footage from the war...interspersed with wacky early attempts at flight.

Of COURSE, Johnny knows the work of Barbara Stanwyck.

Did I mention I love Johnny as he literally jumps in and out of scenes?  I do.

This scene where the doctor tries to talk Stryker into going back to the cockpit is verbatim again, from Zero Hour...up until the win one for the Zipper speech, which is dark and hilarious.

Dr Rumack.  Huh.  I never noticed he HAD a last name.  Learn something every time you watch a film.

And now we prepare for the landing scene, a festival of sight gags interrupted by verbatim dialogue from the film.

Boy they were really sick of disco by 1980 huh?  The plane trashes a disco station on approach for grins.

Lloyd Bridges as McCloskey enjoys sniffing glue more than I've ever enjoyed anything.

Jonathan Banks has a few more lines here.  Keen.

And now Lloyd Bridges gets to be actually goofy and it works.  :)

This landing really is genuinely hairy to watch, and technically as rough to watch or worse than the one in Zero Hour, even though it is exactly the same landing.  In almost all particulars.

Every time I am told to practice crash position on an airplane I am tempted to get upside down in my seat like the moonies.

And this speech from the air traffic controller to Stryker is verbatim, until Stryker walks away, but Kramer just keeps going, and is perfect at it.

This kiss by the airplane is pretty much right out of the original too.

Sigh finish on an auto pilot gag.  Blerg.  Bad way to stop.

This was the first film I can think of, and maybe the first one ever to have gags in the closing credits, and they are legitimately hilarious. I'm not going to go over all of them, of course, because it's not really required.  If you haven't sat through them and paid attention, though...you should.

So, as the credits play out I'll talk about why this film, missed gags and all works where the sequel fails, why it's better than Top Secret, Police Squad or the Naked Gun series.  Now, I love Top Secret a lot as well, and I like Police Squad, the shortly lived series by the same creators. I loathe the Naked Gun movies, and I hate all the "Scary Movie" imitators.

Airplane! works because it is a re-interpretation of an existing text. It is a classic case of transformative derivative work. Airplane has great jokes, middling jokes, and some clunkers.  This is true of the subsequent entries. What it has that the others do not is a blueprint. By following SO religiously on the original film, they were able to exaggerate, to avoid all story problems. The STORY was sound. The characters were SOUND. The plot works.  All they needed to do was push it..break reality, and make it funny. They could focus on just extending melodrama that one step into the place where our expectations were thwarted, and this is the root of funny.

Airplane 2 tries too hard. It has no story, except a vague retelling of the first film.  It tries to graft science fiction elements for satire, but throws to wide a net and misses far more than it hits.

Top Secret satirizes two very specific types of films by blending them, and it comes far nearer to recapturing the magic of Airplane!  It's a worthy sequel, but again, throws a wide net, and misses out on the focus of Airplane!

Police Squad, the tv show satirizes cop shows of the period, but no cop show in particular, and might have been better served to do so. The jokes are fresh, and they do hit a lot of common conventions well.

The Naked Gun films are, I'm afraid, just a festival of Nielsen mugging, and a series of jokes thrown at the wall, some funny, and some not.

Airplane! is a genuinely great film, not just because it's funny, but because it had focus, and found humour in a narrow field. Sometimes restrictions are as good for art as total freedom. It's also an early example of remix culture.

It's audacious in a lot of ways that they did this at all.  Hell, most of the characters kept their names.

I thought it was a funny film without knowing Zero Hour existed.

Knowing it does makes me consider it a great film. It lets me appreciate the craft, and it helps e understand why it's the best movie of this type ever made.

It's built on good bones-a perfectly structured little melodrama, that they don't actually disrespect. They aren't mocking Zero Hour. They are playing with it, engaging with the text and addressing how time changes our perspective.

And looking back on this film now from about thirty years on, I can see ways this film has dated also. But I don't intend to disrespect it either.

It's almost damned perfect, even if it is sometimes a little broad, and a little crass.

In thirty years, if we're all around, I suspect our descendants will look at us now and find much of what we do painfully earnest and much painfully ironic.

In any case, I love this film with a child's heart as it hit me with the impact of a freight train, and I still love it as a considerably more mature adult who finds it less funny than he used to but far, FAR more interesting and artful

And thanks for reading.  Comments are always welcome.

And forgive my multitude of typos.  I'm committed to the first draft explosion of feelings and words things I'm doing here.  At least for now.  At some point I might tighten it up.