Two films by the man voted "Worst Movie Director of All Time" by the "Golden Turkey Awards" in 1980 will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, introduced by an actor who appeared in both. Both movies will be seen in 35mm prints.
Showing in the Capitol Theatre, 220 W. Dominick St. will be Poughkeepsie native Ed Wood Jr’s. 1952’s Glen or Glenda and his 1959 sci-fi opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space, that Nitrate Online calls, "Unintentionally one of the funniest movies ever made."
Conrad Brooks, a member of the Wood stock company who appears in both films will introduce the films and host a question and answer session afterwards.
Admission is $5.50 for adults, $4.50 for Capitol members, and $1.50 for children 12 and under. Tickets are available at the door.
Wood directed a series of ultra-low-budget potboilers in the 1950’s, beginning with 1952’s Glen or Glenda, one the movies showing Saturday.
Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide says of Glen or Glenda, "Sensational but sincere ‘docu-fantasy’ about transvestism could well be the worst movie ever made….Dizzying hodge-podge of stock footage, demented dream sequences, and heartfelt pleas for tolerance…inept and hilarious."
Wood himself stars as the title character(s), while Bela Lugosi is featured as a mad scientist who narrates the tale.
Rounding out Saturday’s program will be Plan 9 from Outer Space. The 79-minute feature was built around a few minutes of footage Wood had taken of horror icon Bela Lugosi, who died well before the movie’s completion. The resulting story concerned a band of invaders from another planet who resurrect graveyard corpses to assist in their takeover of the Earth.
Widgett Walls of Needcoffee.com says of Plan 9, "It’s mind-numbingly brilliant in its overwhelming, soul-destroying badness," but Phil Hall of Film Threat holds that the movie is "Far too entertaining to be considered as the very worst film ever made."
Besides introducing the films, Brooks, dubbed by the NY Times "The Gielgud of Bad Movies," will host a question and answer session afterwards.
Brooks was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1932. He arrived in Hollywood in 1948. He and his brothers paid Ed Wood $60 to appear in his Range Revenge, a one-reel silent that was actually nothing more than a "home movie," according to Brooks. In 1952 Brooks was cast in Wood’s first commercial film, Glen Or Glenda, and would appear in five more Wood films, the last being 1960’s The Sinister Urge.
Among the non-Wood movies Conrad Brooks appeared in were Clipped Wings and Jalopy with The Bowery Boys and The Mad Magician with Vincent Price. Conrad Brooks was played by Brent Hinkley in Tim Burton’s 1994 bio-movie, Ed Wood, and Brooks appeared in the movie as a bartender. He made his first television appearance in 1960, the same year he directed his first movie, a short subject entitled, Mystery in Shadows. He continues to work in the industry, his most recent directorial effort being in 2005. He is working in a remake of Plan 9 For Outer Space.
He resides in West Virginia. Saturday’s event will mark his first visit to Rome.
On the net: www.romecapitol.com.
