Plan 9 from Outer Space

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Plan 9 from Outer Space is a 1959 science fiction/horror film written, produced and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Particularly famous now after the success of Tim Burton's dramatization of the director's life, Ed Wood, the movie is widely regarded as a leading candidate for the title of "worst movie ever made", although this is subject to considerable debate amongst aficionados of bad cinema. It earned Edward D. Wood, Jr. (a devotee of Orson Welles) a posthumous Golden Turkey Award as the worst director ever.

Despite its reputation as a bad film, it does not appear on the The Internet Movie Database's "Bottom 100" list of the 100 worst-reviewed films on the site. Reportedly, in his research for the film Ed Wood, Martin Landau watched all of Bela Lugosi's movies and said Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla "made the Ed Wood films look like Gone with the Wind."

[edit] History

Plan 9 was originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space, but it was changed to Plan 9 from Outer Space. The reason for the change is said to be because the original title was supposedly considered sacrilegious by the film's backers, the deacons of the Baptist Church of Beverly Hills (as with much general information on Wood, this comes from the Tim Burton film).

In reality, the Baptists who sponsored the film were not opposed to the title Grave Robbers from Outer Space. The exact circumstances are unknown, but the film, which took three years to release, was distributed as Plan 9 from Outer Space without any acknowledgement of the congregation. It is possible that Wood, or his distributor, were trying to avoid paying royalties.

To convince the church to bankroll the film, Wood had the entire cast baptized. However, since Tor Johnson, a professional wrestler, was such a huge man (well over 300 pounds) he couldn't fit into the church's baptismal. Thus the baptism was convened at a swimming pool.

[edit] Plot summary

[edit] Introduction

The film opens with an introduction by the narrator, television psychic The Amazing Criswell. Criswell advises viewers to pay attention, as "future events such as these will affect you in the future". Criswell then proceeds to tell "what happened on that fateful day", based on the secret testimony of survivors.

[edit] The future

After a funeral for the wife of an old man, the town's two gravediggers fill her grave. Suddenly, they hear a strange noise. As they're about to leave the cemetery, they see a dead woman walking. She slowly lifts her arms and the gravediggers scream.

While piloting American flight 812, Jeff Trent and his pilot see a bright light flash before their eyes. The stewardess enters the cockpit, wondering what it was. Jeff is sure that the source of the light "wasn't anything from this world". The pilot tells the stewardess to tell the passengers not to worry.

The old man has been so overwhelmed by grief for his wife that he goes insane. One day, he walks out of his house and screams in terror. The old man is later found dead. After his funeral, two of his mourners discover the corpses of the gravediggers. The police come to the cemetery to investigate, with Inspector Daniel Clay in charge.

While Clay is wandering around the cemetery, he encounters the female zombie, who is now joined by the corpse of the old man. Clay tries to shoot them, but to no avail. He is killed by the zombies. Jeff Trent is curiously watching the cemetery with his wife, Paula, from their nearby house. Jeff suspects that whatever is happening in the cemetery is related to what he saw on the airplane. Suddenly, a powerful wind knocks Jeff, Paula, and everyone in the cemetery to the ground.

In the weeks that follow, people begin seeing flying saucers in the sky. The military, under the command of Colonel Thomas Edwards, attacks the three alien spaceships. The spaceships momentarily float in the sky, then leave Earth. They return to Space Station 7 for repairs. While the alien ships are at the space station, their commander, Eros, delivers a report to the Ruler. Eros informs the Ruler that he has attempted unsuccessfully to contact the governments of Earth. He tells the Ruler that to force the people of Earth to acknowledge his people's existence, he is implementing Plan Nine, which involves resurrecting people who have recently died by stimulating their pituitary and pineal glands. The Ruler orders Eros to continue Plan Nine. The three alien ships return to Earth.

Jeff is about to leave home again. Concerned for Paula's safety, he urges her to stay with her mother while he's gone, but she insists on staying. Jeff's concern for Paula distracts him while he's flying.

Jeff's fear that something would happen turns out to be true when the corpse of the old man sneaks into the house and, joined by his wife and the newly resurrected Daniel Clay, chases Paula through the cemetery. After losing Paula, all three zombies return to Eros' ship.

At the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., a general informs Colonel Edwards that the government has been receiving messages from the aliens. He plays the last message, which has been translated into English by the recently invented "language computer". The general sends Edwards to the town in California where most of the aliens' activities have occurred.

Back at Space Station 7, Eros reports to the Ruler days behind schedule. Eros and his colleague Tanna shows the Ruler Clay. Clay, however, nearly chokes Eros, but is stopped when Tanna throws her electro-gun, which was guiding Clay, to the ground. Impressed, the Ruler orders Eros to return to Earth and shoot the old man with a "decomposite ray", then continue resurrecting dead people. However, he also informs Eros that he is reassigning two of his ships.

In California, the police, joined by Edwards, interview the Trents about their experiences with the aliens. One cop encounters the old man. The old man chases the cop to the Trents' house, where he's knocked out. The aliens then strike him with the decomposite ray, causing him to completely decay instantly. The people at the Trents' house then notice a bright light blocked by several trees. Jeff, Edwards, and Lieutenant Harper go to the source, while Paula and one cop stay in the police car. Clay later comes, knocks the cop out, and kidnaps Paula.

Eros and Tanna allow Jeff, Edwards, and Harper to enter. Eros tells the humans that their mission was to prevent Earth from developing the "solarbenite", a bomb which has the effect of exploding sunlight molecules. Eros explains that a solarbenite explosion would destroy everything the sunlight touches, causing a chain reaction that would eventually destroy the entire universe. After Eros explains all of this, the humans begin to escort him and Tanna out of the ship. However, Jeff starts a fistfight. All three humans leave the ship. The ship takes off, but is damaged and explodes in the air, killing both Eros and Tanna.

[edit] Conclusion

Criswell challenges the audience to disprove the sworn testimony of the witnesses. He points out that people used to laugh at many things they now take for granted, the same way they now laugh at outer space.

[edit] Cast

• Bela Lugosi - The Dracula Character (character name from Wood's screenplay)
• Maila Nurmi (Vampira) - The Ghoul's wife
• Tor Johnson - Insp. Daniel Clay
• Gregory Walcott - Jeff Trent
• Mona McKinnon - Paula Trent
• Duke Moore - Lt. John Harper
• Tom Keene - Col. Tom Edwards
• Dudley Manlove - Eros
• Joanna Lee - Tanna
• John Breckinridge - The Ruler
• Edward Reynolds - Grave digger (uncredited)
• Reverend Jim Lymon - Minister at Clay's funeral (uncredited)
• Dr. Tom Mason - The Dracula Character/Lugosi Double (uncredited)
• Paul Marco - Patrolman Kelton
• Conrad Brooks - Jamie the cop
• Carl Anthony (Wuco) - Patrolman Larry

[edit] Mistakes

Plan 9 From Outer Space is widely noted for having a plethora of obvious goofs. Some of the most glaring include:

• "Night" and "day" shots are interspersed constantly within the same scene (for example, the old man's corpse chases Paula Trent through the cemetery, with the scene switching between night and day nine times). One porthole on the alien spaceship shows a cloudy day (shown during a scene set at night), while the others show only blackness.
• Mason's attempts to hide the fact that he is not Lugosi are wildly unsuccessful. As an early version of Leonard Maltin's movie guidebook put it, "Lugosi died during production, and it shows." (In fact, Lugosi did not survive into filming [see below]).
• In one scene, as his character was being riddled with bullets, Mason's Dracula cape unintentionally started to slip off his shoulders and he quickly pull it back in place.
• Criswell's opening narration redundantly informs the viewer how "future events such as these will affect you in the future." Immediately afterwards, he states that the story has already "happened on that fateful day."
• In the numerous graveyard scenes, as characters brush against tombstones, the stones wobble and, in one case, fall over (e.g., the cross at the right side of the screen in an early scene).
• During a scene in an airplane cockpit, a flash of light from a flying saucer reveals the shadow of the boom mike. Also in this scene, the actress playing the flight attendant bumps into the curtain several times while waiting for her cue.
• The flying saucers (visibly wobbling on strings) cast shadows over the "space" backdrop.
• When Tor Johnson drops the girl in the cemetery, a pillow is clearly visible beneath her.
• Most notably in the first scenes, string is clearly visible from the top of the wobbly saucer to the top of the screen.
• There are many problems with the graveyard scene. The cop is holding his gun and scratching his neck, with his finger on trigger, then points it at others. Then a flash of light goes by (the UFO) and they all fall down. The guy on the far right falls down and knocks over a tombstone.

[edit] Misconceptions

Although certainly below C-list, Plan 9 is not nearly as amateurish or horribly-made as reputed. Also, many of the film's production techniques that are laughed at now were fairly common at the time, especially for low-budget sci-fi films. The film has, however, had a great deal of success from its subtitle "The Worst Movie Ever"; had it not been singled out for this dishonor, it may have sunk with time and faded from the memories of all, never to be rereleased or seen again as hundreds of similar movies. "The Worst Movie Ever" is its claim to fame and a way to continue capitalizing on an original commercial failure.

Besides the exaggeration of its lowness in quality, there are also many rumours concerning the making of the film that are untrue. Many of these can be traced to the aforementioned film Ed Wood, which is a biographical dramatization featuring many fictional elements. For instance, Bela Lugosi is portrayed as acting in one brief scene for Wood and that the scene was shot without even a vague conception for a film to surround it, and was thereafter unused (due to the actor's death). Though it is true that Wood used clips from private footage he shot of Lugosi and the actor did indeed die before the film's completion, Lugosi appears in several scenes, wearing many different costumes. This inaccuracy was merely a case of dramatic license on the part of "Wood" screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

[edit] Documenting the film

The movie is the subject of a documentary entitled Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion, which is notable for being 30 minutes longer than the movie itself. The documentary is included on many DVD releases of the movie.

Rudolph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. contains anecdotes regarding the making of this film. Grey notes that participants in the original events sometimes contradict one another, but he relates each person's information for posterity regardless.

In 1994, Tim Burton directed a fictionalized biopic, Ed Wood, which climaxes with the making and release of this film, starring Johnny Depp in the title role, Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, and Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge (who played the alien "Ruler" in Plan 9). Ed Wood also featured frequent Wood cohorts Conrad Brooks and Gregory Walcott, both of whom appeared in Plan 9.

[edit] The colorized version

In 2005, Legend Films announced the release of a colorized DVD version of Plan 9 from Outer Space, and autographed pre-release pressings of the DVD were made available through the company's website, and on their eBay store. Though the colorization process was largely done straight, unlike the campy bright colors used in the studio's release of Reefer Madness, there were a few alterations. Legend had auctioned off the opportunity to insert new material into the film through two auctions on eBay. The first allowed the auction winner to provide a photograph that is digitally inserted into part of the scene between the Ghoul Man and Paula Trent. The second allowed the winner to have his or her name placed on a gravestone during a scene with Tor Johnson. The third alteration is at a point where Eros is punched and briefly turns green from head to toe.

The DVD featured an audio commentary track by comedian Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. (The producers of the series at one point actually screened the film for Mystery Science Theater 3000, but found it to have too much dialogue to fit the show's format. Instead, the series' cast mocked an earlier Wood film, Bride of the Monster, which also starred Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson.) The DVD also featured a restored black and white version of Plan 9 as well as a home movie of Edward D. Wood in drag performing a striptease (Wood, in real life, was a cross-dresser) and the "lost" Plans 1-8. The standard release of the DVD also included an information text track not available on the pre-release edition. Fans of the film affectionately said of the colorized version that it made "Ed Wood's incredibly cheap sets look even worse." [1] The autographed edition also came with a limited edition air freshener. [2] The colorized version was also shown at various theaters throughout the country, including the Castro Theatre on March 11, 2006. [3]

[edit] References in popular culture

• An unofficial theatrical version of Plan 9 was staged in the 2006 Toronto Fringe Festival. "Plan LIVE from Outer Space!" was written by James Gordon Taylor and featured well known Canadian comedians (most of them Second City alumni) such as Lisa Brooke, Aurora Browne, Brandon Firla, Chris Gibbs, Sandy Jobin-Bevans and Ron Sparks.
• A murder mystery play was written, Plan 10 From Outer Space, featuring Ed Wood directing his next blockbuster. [4]
• An adventure game of the same name was made in which you must recover the film from Bela Lugosi's double, who has stolen it. [5]
• The Bell Labs successor to the Unix operating system was named Plan 9 from Bell Labs based on the name of this movie.
• Horror punk icons The Misfits named one of their record labels "PLAN 9", and released a song, "Vampira", named after the film's female lead. [6]
• Chiller Theatre in New Jersey hosts an annual horror convention, featuring two of the three zombies from Plan 9 (Maila Nurmi and Tor Johnson).^{[citation needed]}
• Those that preordered the video game Destroy All Humans!, available for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 video game consoles, received a bonus DVD of Plan 9 from Outer Space when the game was released. The game itself also features several references to the movie. But the movie is also unlockable in the game, along with Teenagers From Outer Space, but neither has any controls (play, pause, fast forward).
• Aside from referencing and including a scene from the film, Night of the Creeps also intentionally has a similar plot - an alien experiment is inadvertently sent to Earth that can reanimate the dead.
• A "neo-psychedelic" rock band from the 1980's named themselves Plan 9. [7]
• There is a Seattle band called The Dudley Manlove Quartet (Manlove is the actor who played Eros). [8]
• Plan 9 Music is a chain of record stores in Virginia. [9]
• The film is referenced in two Seinfeld episodes: in "The Chinese Restaurant" where Jerry, George, and Elaine are going to the movie following their dinner, but plans fall through and Jerry refuses to see it alone. Jerry calls it "the worst movie ever made." Also referenced in "The Postponement," where Jerry and Kramer see an advertisement on a telephone pole for a second chance to see it. Also said in "The Chinese Restaurant" is "This is not plans 1 through 8, this is plan 9 - the one that actually worked!"
• Episode number 66 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 cartoon series is named Plan 6 from Outer Space. This is a wordplay and the 6 here stands for the fictional TV-channel Channel 6 in this cartoon.
• In the Mission Hill episode Plan 9 from Mission Hill (or I Married a Gay Man from Outer Space), Kevin becomes a classic film fan with the help of Wally, and one day he discovers a long-lost movie, The Man from Pluto, and calls the media to promote its re-projection. The movie is clearly a spoof of Plan 9 from Outer Space (although the backstory behind the making of The Man from Pluto is based upon rumors circulated around the making of another cult film, Teenagers from Outer Space).
• Fox Mulder, a primary character in the TV series X-Files, claims to have seen the movie exactly 42 times, simultaneously a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• In The Simpsons episode Worst Episode Ever, a terrible comic book "Biclops" is made by Plan 9 Comics on behalf of LensCrafters.
• Rockabilly/surf band Department of Crooks (also known as Casino Crooks) released a CD entitled "Plan 9 From Las Vegas" in the late 90s. [10]
• In 1997, David G Smith wrote and composed the music for Plan 9 from Outer Space: The Musical. It received better reviews than the original film. [11]
• Karl Edward Wagner's story "Plan Ten from Inner Space" purports to be a film treatment for a Roger Corman ripoff of Plan 9 from Outer Space which, in the alternate world the story inhabits, is apparently a critically acclaimed big-budget epic.^{[citation needed]}
• In popular webcomic 8-Bit Theater episode 473, Red Mage calls his plan to defeat Kary "Plan 9 From Outer Space." The name also references to the fact that the plan involves Ice-nine, of Kurt Vonnegut fame.^{[citation needed]}
• Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 have a song called "Plan 9 From Outer Space, and also make reference to Ed Wood in there song "Hooray For Horrorwood" in the line "You can knock on Ed wood but it wont do you no good" this song was also covered, edited, and retitled "Dead In Hollywood" by the Murderdolls and released as a single." [12]
• Plan 10 From Outer Space is a movie which makes fun of Mormons and Mormon history.[13]
• The foot soldiers of the X-Naut aliens in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door salute their superiors with a similar "X-salute" to the one given by the aliens in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
• This movie was used in an episode of Steve Smith Playhouse, in which Canadian comedian Steve Smith re-dubs the dialogue of only one character in various b-movies to achieve a humorous effect.
• In Uncanny X-Men #479, Nightcrawler suggests the use of a fighting maneuver called "Plan 9" during a mission in outer space.

[edit] Images

A Flying Saucer wobbles unrealistically as it descends into a San Fernando cemetery

The recently deceased Inspector Dan Clay (Tor Johnson) in a classic pose

Lt. Harper (Duke Moore) explains to Patrolman Larry (Carl Anthony) some important facts about the case (and also manages to point his gun at him in the process)

Bela Lugosi "played" the "Ghoul Man" (see above) but died long before the shoot. Director Ed Wood replaced him with his wife's chiropractor (Tom Mason), keeping his face hidden behind a cape so viewers would not notice any facial differences.

[edit] See also

• Films considered the worst ever

[edit] References

Sloan, Will. (April 2005). "Can Your Heart Stand the Shocking Facts About Kelton the Cop A/K/A Paul Marco?" Filmfax, p.88-89

[edit] External links

• Plan 9 from Outer Space at Google Video

• Plan 9 from Outer Space at the Internet Movie Database
• Plan 9 from Outer Space at The Hunt for Edward D. Wood, Jr.
• Goofs at the Internet Movie Database
• Illustrated review of the film
• Detailed list of the film's mistakes
• Everything2 entries for the film
• Murder Mystery Dinner Theater for Ed Wood Fans (Plan 10 From Outer Space)
• Theatrical trailer for the film (Windows and Real Media formats)cs:Plan 9 from Outer Space

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