Tim Burton's Ed Wood: how accurate is it?

[gusse]

I viewed the recently released (reg2) Ed Wood DVD together with a friend last night. Superb movie - just as good as I remembered it to be, probably my favorite Tim Burton movie!

my question to you good people is as follows: does anyone know how much of the story that is 'real' and how much is fiction? A few things I have read about this questions state that the real Bela Lugosi wasn't quit as harsh as how he is in the movie (wouldn't curse infron ot women, never said a bad word about Karloff and so on) and smal stuff like that. But there are sooo many wonderful weird caracters and events in this movie that one has to wonder if all of it is true.

Was Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi such good friends that the movie tells? Did they realy 'steal' the giant octupus to make the endsequence of Bride Of The Monster? Is it true that the real person that Bill Murray plays wanted to change sex?

Perhaps the commentary will answer my questions, but I haven't had the chanse to listen to it as of yet.

Cheers!

[Paff]

The movie, as good as it is, definitely takes some liberties with the Ed Wood story.

I don't know all the details, but I know a few glaring inaccuracies. Like the bit with Lugosi and the giant octopus. That was VERY obviously a stunt double in Bride of the Monster, not Lugosi. Also, I don't believe Ed ever cross-dressed on set like at the end of the movie (except for Glen or Glenda of course).

Some other Ed Wood-philes can continue...?

[EPKJ]

While I love the film, it only tells part of the Ed Wood story. He degenerated into a bad pornographer.

[onebyone]

It takes some liberties while some of the oddest stuff, like his crew, is almost all true. Ed Wood was an interesting guy. But I love this movie regardless. :glasses:

[EPKJ]

I would say that the film does more than take liberties. It paints Ed Wood as a really great guy who just had a weird fetish. Based on his later films, I think it is clear that Wood was quite sleazy.
The film also tries to paint Bela Lugosi as a great actor, and even implies that he was better than Boris Karloff because sales of his memorabilia surpassed those of Karloff. This is misleading, as memorabilia is left undefined. I don't know anyone who thinks Lugosi was a better actor than Karloff.

[KillerCannabis]

Great flick. I hope it gets announced for R1 release really soon cause I'm tired of waiting to complete my Burton collection on disc.

[BlazingMagnum]

I don't know too much about the accuracy - I watched a Bela Lugosi doc on TV just yesterday, and it didn't mention half of the stuff that's in Ed Wood. In fact it was quite scathing of Wood.
It did make mention of some of the events surrounding Lugosi's drug addictions - but Ed wasn't included at all.

[Horrorfan]

WEll either way we know there were friends as that has been reported and the film was excellent!!!!!!!!!

[EPKJ]

Originally posted by Horrorfan
WEll either way we know there were friends as that has been reported and the film was excellent!!!!!!!!!

Actually, we don't know that Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi were friends. We know that they knew one another. When you state that this has been reported, by whom has it been reported?