The Sinister Urge

What a night. The stuff of which legends are made.

In 1995 in beautiful downtown Toronto, when Tim Burton's mighty biopic ED WOOD went into second-run, one of our rep cinemas had a never-to-be-forgotten quadruple bill of films by everyone's favourite cross-dressing auteur. JAIL BAIT, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS preceded this, the final programme of the evening, and perhaps Ed Wood's final masterpiece (well, for his "legit" non-porn movies anyway). From the expected pimply nerdy geeks to one dignified old gentleman who said that they SHOULD have given Mr. Wood a star in front of Grauman's, this, the least seen of all of Wood's pictures from his "classical" period, was a real crowd pleaser.

THE SINISTER URGE is a must for anyone with even a passing interest in the films of this precious Gonzo genius, or, like myself, who have a strange attraction to works made by people who eke out an existence way way way in the back alleys of Tinseltown. This riotous "expose" is classic Edward D.: long scenes which don't go anywhere (including an extract from his uncompleted JD epic- HELLBORN), priceless dialogue which waxes profundity about everything and nothing, and a strange attempt at morality while also delivering whatever exploitation elements that unsuspecting people paid to see.

My favourite bits include:

1) the long scene where the two hardworking cops out to bust the porn ring must explain to an anonymous taxpayer who comes to the station, and tell him exactly why they are spending his hard-earned tax dollars on such a seemingly trivial matter; this scene wouldn't even pass the green light in a pre-production meeting for an educational film, however with typically Woodian panache, the taxpayer leaves afterwards shaking his head in amazement over the great public service these man are performing. Once again, within his ridiculous subplots, Wood slyly inserts bits where you realize how subversive his scenarios really are. The ever-critical writer-director is simultaneously praising and damning these intrepid cops for a seemingly superfluous service-- remember, only two years later the US government spent a huge wad of the taxpayers' money to decipher the lyrics to "Louie Louie" because the song was considered to be corrupting the minds of impressionable youngsters.

2) the director's cameo appearance; since one of the main subplots concerns some knife-wielding loony who attacks women in the park (apparently looking at semi-clad girls in magazines drove him to his social deviance), the two cops talk about sending an undercover male officer in drag to the park and foil the psychotic pervert (right here, the audience knowingly began to applaud), and in the next scene, there is Mr. Wood in a dress and mop wig trying to ferret out the guy in the park. A cameo appearance to save some money instead of hiring another bit player? In most likelihood, a good excuse for the eccentric auteur to insert his personal baggage-- a Brechtian cry for identity.

3) a bizarre climax, featuring a decapitated head in someone's bushes!

Man, they sure don't make them like this anymore. Seeing THE SINISTER URGE is like a breath of fresh air. As much as PLAN 9, GLEN OR GLENDA and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are important works of this pioneering independent filmmaker, the stories about their creation, and their dialogue is cited so often that perhaps they no longer seem new. It is great to see this, and also JAIL BAIT, and appreciate the charms that even his under-hyped works have.

"The Sinister Urge" is proof if any was ever needed that Ed Wood was a completely and utterly inept writer and director. He does, of course, have a surprising number of fans who actually like some of his work ("Bride of the Monster", I have to admit, isn't really all that bad of a film), but "The Sinister Urge" is so chock-full of Ed Wood clichés (redundant dialogue, amazingly bad acting, and taking hypocritical preaching to a whole new level are but few of the features of this film).

I've seen "The Sinister Urge" several times in its "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version, which features some of the funniest and most seemingly random riffs in the history of that show- one scene features Mike and the bots breaking into song... but I won't spoil that for you. Tonight I watched this film without their aid and it is a prime example of complete cinematic incompetence. From start to finish the script is unbelievably bad, not even in an earnest "Plan 9" sort of way- there's only the occasional laugh here, unless you can find humor in something so pathetically horrid. Similarly, Wood is incapable of even a second of flair in his direction of the film.

There are people in this world who will tell you with a straight face that this is a fine film, an indictment of the seedy world of pornography (oh let's face it, compared to what we have going now, the porn industry in 1960 was one big huge convent). These people are absolutely, unequivocally NUTS. One only has too look at Wood's filmography to see that he had already written several smut films, including notorious early nudie Western "Revenge of the Virgins", prior to this film's release.

"The Sinister Urge" is one of the most boring, plodding, miserable excuses for a film in all of cinema. I'm not a big fan of picking on Ed Wood, to be honest, but this is proof (along with the many other films of his that aren't widely known) that Wood is an astoundingly incompetent director.

1/10

Edward D. Wood Jr (or E.D. Wood credited for the film) is practically revered today as a filmmaker forgotten and neglected in his time as just another Shlock-Meister of B-movie (or Z-movie) cinema. His legacy is now, well, being the ultimate in bad schlock kind of movie-making, where you can almost see the sets about the tear at the seams, the actors going through their lines like they know they won't get any pay for it, and camera-work (and perhaps editing too) that becomes jarring in the worst possible ways. While the Sinister Urge, Wood's last 'real' film before diving deep into obscure porn directing (ironic considering the film's subject here), does not have a kind of classically bad way about it like Plan 9 From Outer Space. That film has since become a kind of cult classic where the actor in place of the late Bela Lugosi in the film, the various props and sets (including the 'saucers'), and horrendous narration becomes most of the ironic fun. The Sinister Urge in comparison doesn't have that impressive ambition to be something more than it can never be, as this film is nothing more than an under-cooked 'warning' film about porn movies, and the people who may kill to be apart of them.

The Sinister Urge is 71 minutes long, which doesn't overstay its welcome (though one may try and define 'welcome' with an Ed Wood picture) as a film with many static camera angles and very few moments of ingenuity. One of those- the scene where the brakes don't work with the car- is ironically successful, as it really shouldn't be at all workable as a scene, but as a little piece of suspense it could be worse. Most of the rest of the picture isn't so lucky- again, many, many actors who seem like they are not only content to not become stars, they're almost doomed to be in pictures like Wood's. Often the performances are wooden, but of course part of the real problem with watching such actors is the often silly dialog. It tries to be 'realistic', but Wood has no gripe with stopping somewhere to have a character (usually the lead cop character) to lay out a dull speech about the message of the story. On top of the story not really being too coherent, anyway, the director's method of the 'cut, print, perfect' method can be seen quite often with some laughable mistakes abound.

Now, does all of this make the Sinister Urge as astoundingly, amusingly bad as Plan 9? Not really; there's nothing too memorable about how the film is bad here, unless you're a die-hard fan of the director. He does try here and there to keep some storytelling merit, with his style being so uncomplicated and static it shows his ambition. But the lack of talent overcomes everything else, not to mention the cardboard-sided points of the film. It's also not too unworthy of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment either, which has now made the film available on DVD. The commentary is spot-on usually and funny, though as with Plan 9 you may still want to make wisecracks on your own. That's Wood as the mustached guy who fights at the Cafeteria in one scene.

The Sinister Urge (1960)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s hard-hitting look at the smut business has Lt. Carson (Kenne Duncan) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore) trying to solve a couple murders where the victims had just taken part in the pornography world. They believe the victims can be traced to a certain woman (Jean Fontaine) but they need to find out who's actually doing the killing. THE SINISTER URGE is Wood's attempt to show how ugly and evil the porn business is so I guess it's kind of ironic that this would be his last directing job for ten years until he would start working in, you guessed it, the porn business. As you'd expect, this here is a pretty poor film that like most of Wood's stuff has an interesting idea but the story is all over the place and in the end it just makes no sense. It seems that Wood was wanting to do the story about a psycho turned on by porn and then mix in a detective tale and the two items just didn't mix very well. The film is certainly a tad bit sleazier than the normal 1960 production but this doesn't make up for the weak dialogue or bad performances. It's funny but the film really puts down those who take advantage of girls who come to Hollywood to become stars and the film also preaches that girls should just stay home. The first female victim has such a Southern accent that I'm guessing Wood found her as she stepped off the bus. Wood's regular outlaws (Duncan, Moore, Conrad Brooks) are all here and it's worth noting that this here was Duncan's last feature film. Fans of Wood's work will still want to check this out but it's certainly miles behind his classics.

Some people believe that Ed Wood knew exactly what he was doing: that he *intended* to make "bad" movies in order to make people laugh. There are plenty of good reasons not to buy into that theory, and THE SINISTER URGE is Exhibit A.

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA, and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are endearing in their goofy lunacy. This one, though just as bad as the rest of Wood's oeuvre, is mostly just plodding and dull.

Not that there isn't entertainment to be had here, at least for the bad movie connoisseur: my personal favorite is the obvious use of pre-existing (and completely unrelated) footage, shoehorned in on the waste-not want-not principle and "justified" through the use of atrocious dubbing and risible expository dialogue (which takes place *after* the inserted scene, making it even more ludicrous).

But that's not the sort of thing calculated to make a mainstream audience roar with laughter.

I can imagine someone trying to make a movie like PLAN 9. I can't imagine anyone trying to make a movie like this.