It's the birthday of Edward D. Wood, Jr. today.  If he didn't drink himself dead, he'd be 80 today.

For those not in the know, Ed Wood* was the affable, energetic, dogged, and totally untalented director of a surprising number of unsuccessful B movies in the 50s and 60s.  Included is the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space," which is sometimes called "the worst movie of all time."**

He had a rough life--untalented yet totally devoted to getting his sci-fi, monster, western, and porn movies on the screen.***  In the end, the booze got him.  But he had a lot of friends, and the Burton movie is surprisingly touching and upbeat--ending, as it does, with one of Wood's triumphs.

If you're a MSTie,**** you'll know that Ed Wood directed both "Bride of the Monster" and "The Sinister Urge," and wrote the screenplay for "The Violent Years," the movie that became famous and money-making because of its beautiful-criminal-coed-girls-rape-young-man scene.  Sadly, Wood was paid $500 for the screenplay, no residuals.

Just his luck.

Anyway, be thankful if your talents line up AT ALL with your dreams.  When they don't, you get Edward D. Wood, Jr.


* Ed Wood was the subject of the excellent movie by that name, starring Johnny Depp in the lead role and directed by Tim Burton, plus an amazing turn by Bill Murray as a transvestite/transexual and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.

** It's not.  But it's bad.  Several Coleman Francis movies, "Manos: The Hands of Fate," and "My Best Friend's Wedding" are all worse.  "Plan 9" is sort of entertaining in its way, since it is directed with a lot of energy, even as the screenplay and the acting fall to tatters.  It's a campy cult classic.