PLAN 9 PLAN

Excuse me while I go and watch the 1959 (but shot in 1956) horror-chiller-scifi-thriller, Plan 9 From Outer Space. I will be back with a full report on it...

... wonderfully entertaining movie. Even more so than I remember it being. Whoever said "no matter what time of the day you watch Plan 9, it always feels like 3 o'clock in the morning", was absolutely right.

You could see that Edward D. Wood was so sincere in his storytelling; he believed everything he was saying. The ineptitude is still there and has not changed an iota since my last screening. Deadly earnest characters and actors in an insane asylum.

One thing I really noticed this time 'round -- an incongruity, an oddity: The scene at the Pentagon between General Roberts (played by veteran character actor Lyle Talbot) and Col. Tom Edwards (Tom Keene) is out-of-place in this contraption. These particular few minutes are resonably competent and dare I say, polished. The dialogue is clear and believable -- within the absurd premise -- with the actors doing their thing well. (Good actors. Maybe Eddie was away that day. Maybe someone else went over the dialogue for this one piece.) If the whole film could have been this way... nooo! Do not ruin the magic!

What I did find pretty funny within this scene is the moment the General asks the Colonel if he believes in flying saucers. Weird question considering that Col. Edwards is "in charge of Flying Saucer Field Activity"! An appointment no doubt decided by "army brass". Just what did the General think that Edwards imagined firing at earlier? Flying Winnebagos?!

As author Daniel Peary wrote in his essay on Plan 9 in the wonderful book, "Cult Movies", there are some truly effective moments such as the images of Vampira and Police Inspector Dan Clay (Tor Johnson) walking zombie-like through the eerie graveyard. Peary is correct also when he points out and reasons the matter of Plan 9 containing a philosophy from Wood. Like Doctor Zaius did in a very similar way to Charleton Heston, near the end of the 1968 classic, Planet of the Apes, Eros gives a rant about the violent nature of the human species. It's one of those moments that you say, "right on, Eros! My man!"

See this movie if you have not.

(I should note that my friend Jim lent me his DVD of Plan 9. Jim is 23 years of age and is an English Literature major at the University of Toronto. Just so you know... )