'So bad it's good' - this has now become an official category of cult-movie, as reflected in the Golden Turkey Awards, reflecting an enduring public appetite for the flawed and the rejected, the offcuts fit for the bin. It is the consolation prize at a kindergarden sports day.
Around 1950, two almost-bankrupt Hollywood figures decide to lean on each other for support. One is the legendary Dracula star Bela Lugosi, who has been on the slide for half his career, brought low by multiple divorces, morphine addiction, and a strong accent that has cruelly limited his range. The other is a struggling young producer Ed Wood, trying to score hits on comically low budgets.
Half the time, he relies on economy alone, as in his westerns, largely padded-out with stock footage. For the other half, he is counting on shock, reflected in 'Jail Bait' and 'Bride of the Monster'. Unfortunately 'Grave Robbers from Outer Space' was going too far for the church elder who had agreed to finance the picture, so it had to be 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' instead. This is symptomatic of the surreal atmosphere in which he lived and worked, so the story of his films is largely the story of him.
The reference to Angora in the title relates to his own fetish for that soft material, which his mother (who had wanted a daughter) dressed him in as a child, and which he still wore on active service in the Pacific - if his claims are to be believed. A fellow-marine is brought on, apparently for no other reason than to back-up his story, so his war record remains as dubious as most historians have judged it.
You might not expect such a mixed-up fetishist to be happily married, but he managed to hold on to the shapely Kathy O'Hara for almost twenty years till his death, a helpless alcoholic, evicted from his home and dossing-down in the pits of L.A. He would be flattered to have watched this film, but probably envious at what a handsome budget they had managed to assemble for what is essentially a re-run of his own efforts from the bottom rungs of Poverty Row.
