Wood on TV?

 

 (youtube)

FINAL CURTAIN-1957-In an empty theater, the lead actor (Duke Moore) in the play "The Vampire" investigates the spirit world which is supposed to exist after the living have left. He thinks about various spooky things and screams when he hears the cries of a cat. Later he decides to explore. In one room he finds a life like mannequin (Jenny Stevens; also in NIGHT OF THE GHOULS) which seems to come to life. Eventually, he finds what he's looking for. 

This short film (22 minutes) was produced, written and directed by Ed Wood Jr. as a pilot for a planned TV series “Portraits in Terror”. If the scenes with the mannequin seem familiar, most of it (probably Wood's best work) was used in his NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959). The bombastic desperate out of control (but typical Wood) narration is by Dudley Manlove.

Once thought to be a lost film, a copy was discovered by the great grand-nephew of Paul (Kelton the Cop) Marco.

Thanks for reading! 

Wood Back in Hollywood

 

 (imdb)

THE SINISTER URGE-1960-Lt. Carson (Keene Duncan; the phony swami in NIGHT OF THE GHOULS) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore; Lt. Harper in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE) try to stop the pornography ring run by Johnny Ryde (Carl Anthony; also in PLAN 9) and Gloria Henderson (Jean Fontaine). Mr. Romaine (Wood regular Harvey B. Dunn), a small business operator complains that the police are too concerned with "smut" than crime. Johnny says "I look at this slush and try to remember at one time I made good movies". The chief porno photographer is a German named Jaffe (Harry Keaton). 

Meanwhile a psycho named Dirk (Dino Fantini) (who's on Gloria's payroll) hangs around and kills a woman in a park pond (in some prints there's a topless scene). The organization decides Dirk must go. Johnny arranges for Dirk to be killed in a car crash but that fails. Dirk goes for revenge. He tries to kill Johnny who convinces him Gloria planned his killing. Johnny botches it and Dirk kills him. Gloria shoots Dirk but she thinks she's shot Johnny and winds up incriminating herself when she calls the cops.

"Pornography. A nasty word for a dirty business" says Lt. Carson. 

A scene of Ed Wood fighting Conrad Brooks was actually filmed earlier for an aborted project. This is a typical “morality crime tale” written and directed by Ed Wood Jr. a year after the release of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Strangely, though this movie treats porn as a serious moral and criminal offense (and makes a connection to violence toward women) this would be Wood's last attempt at mainstream cinema. The rest of his output would be exploitative soft core sex films....

Thanks for reading!