Plano 9 do Espaço Sideral

While it thoroughly deserves its reputation as a film only worth seeing so that you can enjoy its remarkably amateurish production, on the other hand it seems a bit unfair to label "Plan 9 From Outer Space" as the worst film ever made. Most of it is quite watchable, it's not at all offensive, and the story - utterly ridiculous as it is - moves fairly quickly, and gives you some reasons to stick around to the end. Those qualities put it well ahead of a great many movies that cost a lot more to make and that involved many more recognizable names than you'll find in this cast.

To be sure, almost everything about it is of amazingly poor quality, from the incompetent directing and acting to the slipshod special effects to the dialogue that produces countless unintentional laughs. The story is goofy, and uses ideas and devices that lack credibility even by sci-fi standards. Everyone who watches it has their own list of favorite examples of this film's complete ineptitude.

If you have any interest in old movies, you should see this if you have the chance, as long as you can do so without paying for the privilege. It says something that so many viewers are still talking about it over 40 years after it was made, which is a lot more than will ever be said about most of the movies you could see in a theater today. Whether you will ever want to watch it again is an entirely different question, although there are those who have managed to enjoy watching this several times. Take a look for yourself and see what you think about this classic example of inept film-making.

There is a scene in Tim Burton's Bio-flick/homage to Ed Wood where the director bumps into Orson Welles in a Hollywood watering hole-in-the-wall, and gets a brief spirit-lifting speech from the great one about remaining true to your vision and not letting the clerks and backers (who ARE clerks, regardless where they live or what fate finds them doing for a living) get you down. Maybe we should have to look at that scene before watching this film.

If Plan Nine is awful, it is probably so precisely because it IS so grandly ambitious. --If all ambition cannot culminate in a Citizen Kane or a Vertigo, maybe it gives us a moment to mourn quietly for the rest of us, the ones who worship genius –as Ed Wood no doubt did– without being geniuses ourselves. Bottom line, no matter what cards you get, you can laugh or you can cry at life. Ed Wood put on nylons and pumps and, making sure his seams were straight, marched into the fray of life like a true Hero Born. He stuck incongruous, obvious stock footage into his magnum opus, knowing the poetry would arise from the montage; he improvised long stretches, fully certain he would get the same results Welles could working under similar circumstances; he tried valiantly to coax performances out of wretched actors, or fatally self-conscious non-actors, like Criswell and Vampira, and put them in no matter how their work turned out ("No time to re-shoot!"). No matter what, you have to admire his staying in the game.

VanGogh is perhaps the best case scenario of a loser who cranked away, certain he was onto something, who is lucky enough to have the entire world one day concur. Ed Wood's is, sadly, the more often played scenario. He is positive attitude, high ambition and wishful thinking, unsupported. He was certain he was onto something. He could not have been more wrong about anything if he had tried to be.

Oh yeah baby. "Ich bin ein Ed Wood."

What are all these people moaning about? I've rarely had more fun while watching a movie as I had with Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space. Besides, most criticism goes out to the lousy scenery and the goofy decors. Well excuse Mr. Wood for not disposing over a huge budget or funds! He did what he could and sure, the jet cockpit looks amateurish and the Pentagon-offices have the image of being build by a kindergarten-crew but so what? I have a lot more respect and sympathy for this film than for those over-budgeted, uninspired blockbusters! Like in ALL of his films, Ed Wood proves that he's full of good intentions, creativity and a strong will to proceed and purchase his dreams. The only thing you can reproach him here, is the silly and pointless screenplay. Aliens are desperately seeking contact with humanity and in their ninth attempt to achieve this, they even resurrect the dead. Why?!? To make humans aware of their existence and to figure as prophets with a message. This is where the silliness comes in. But it all remains pure fun, all the time! What also makes this film legendary is the fact that it contains the last on-screen appearance by Bela Lugosi. Lugosi died during filming and another guy in a Dracula outfit who constantly hides his face behind a cape (!) replaces him. Am I the only one who thinks this subtle cast-change is absolutely charming and nicely tried? Vampiria and Tor Johnson are credited as main performances but all the have to do is stumble around and look ghoulishnot a difficult thing to do if you have the posture of Tor Johnson. Overall, Plan 9 from Outer Space remains the absolute top-recommendation to watch with a group of people when there's beer and snacks.

Somewhere, in the great and mysterious beyond, Ed Wood looks down (up?) and laughs maniacally. Why? Because we're stupid! Stupid! Fools! The Maestro's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is his zenith / nadir in one! It is a cultural phenomenon!

From Criswell's crackpot intro / narration, to Dudley Manlove's (Never, has there been a better name for any actor, male or female! Never!) scolding of all mankind, P9FOS hypnotizes with it's eerie, cardboard brilliance! Wood's use of Vampira as... well, Vampira, is a masterstroke of casting! Tor Johnson's take on the world's largest police chief is sheer genius!

The sets, assembled in mere seconds, rival those in BEN HUR! The FX, while certainly not computer generated, were powered by the latest D batteries of the time! Other, lesser films by the thousands, get no attention at all, while this towering giant of cinematic immensity is universally known!

HA! HA! HA!

It is inescapable! Vampira and Tor are revered! Bela Lugosi lives forever, immortalized by an enigmatic chiropractor from some other world (Burbank perhaps)! Indeed, PLAN 9 is, at this very moment, conquering this puny planet! All hail Ed Wood! Amen...

OK, I'm Deaf. There are no subtitles in this movie. Usually, I would turn it off after five minutes because there was too much talking.

But this was different... it was hillarious even without dialogue. The hearing person I was watching it with told me that I could make up my own dialogue and it would be better. Now, I don't know how true that is, but any movie that I can watch without subtitles is a 10 in my book.

Hillarious. :)