To read Part I – “THE BRIDE OF THE MONSTER” please click here
As magnificent as “Bride of the Monster” was, Ed Wood’s tour de force, “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” dwarfs it by comparison.
From the opening scenes poignantly telling the story of a bereaved old man, who ironically is reunited with his dead wife in an unholy union brought about by the “9th Plan” implemented by an invading alien force, to the final breathtaking doomed escape by the aliens, Wood’s deft touch is everywhere.
The surreal multi-use of props in variously changing roles creates the eerie illusory world inhabited by Wood’s “poor wretched creatures”.
For instance, the wall that forms the backdrop of the airplane cockpit also serves as the side of the alien ship. The patio chairs do double duty as bedroom furniture. The tiny scale of the cemetery set continually fosters the unsettling sense of déjà vu that the director works so hard to achieve.
By constantly testing the boundaries between art and artifice, the real and the fake, the director keeps his audience off balance, vainly looking for some semblance of historically perceived reality to anchor their emotions. Wisely, Wood refuses to succumb to this convention and paints a masterpiece of bizarre events coupled with incomprehensible emotional reactions.
But, as lush and exciting as this all sounds, it merely serves as a backdrop for the heart of the film, Wood’s prescient rant on the horror of the military-industrial complex.
The sublime expository scene inside the spacecraft during the third act deftly outlines not only the plot points but the passion of the writer/director also. In a moving speech, it is revealed that the aliens’ purpose in taking over Earth does not lie in desire for domination, but in a last minute attempt to avert a universe-wide catastrophe.
Eros, the leader, confronts a group of skeptical earthlings with the true nature of his plan. It appears that the scientific minds of Earth are on a treacherous course of weapons development that will eventually lead to a bomb that could explode the whole universe, the “Solaranite Bomb”.
Colonel Edwards: Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our earth?
Eros: Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!
Jeff Trent: Now you just hold on, Buster.
Eros: No, you hold on! First was your firecracker, a harmless explosive. Then your hand grenade: you began to kill your own people, a few at a time. Then the bomb. Then a larger bomb: many people are killed at one time. Then your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb, split the atom. Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you can arrange the total destruction of the entire universe served by our sun: The only explosion left is the Solaranite.
Colonel Tom Edwards: Why, there’s no such thing! Why, a particle of sunlight can’t even be seen or measured.
Eros: Can you see or measure an atom? Yet you can explode one! A ray of sunlight is made up of many atoms.
Jeff Trent: So what if we do develop this Solaranite bomb? We’d be even a stronger nation than now.
Eros: “Stronger.” You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The impassioned plea continues with an appeal to intelligence and the adroit use of metaphor.
Colonel Edwards: You speak of Solaranite. But just what is it?
Eros: Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now, you spread a thin line of it to a ball, representing the earth. Now, the gasoline represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline, the sunlight. Then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can, or the sun itself. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline, our sunlight, touches. Explode the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe. Explode the sunlight here and a chain reaction will occur direct to the sun itself and to all the planets that sunlight touches, to every planet in the universe. This is why you must be stopped. This is why any means must be used to stop you. In a friendly manner or as, it seems, you want it.
A fist fight immediately breaks out between the Earthlings and the aliens, resulting in a riveting and dramatic denoument that I refuse to spoil for you, my dear readers.
It is heartening to see this film take on a new respectability. Now it can rightfully take its place in the annals of film history. This movie can proudly stand as the testament of Edward D. Wood’s life and beliefs. His humanity, his kindness and his eerily precognitive ability to predict the future are all on display in this, his magnum opus.
For information on Jessica Atwater, the original Movielady and my mentor, and to read some of her classic film reviews :