Ed Woods' "The Naked Lunch"
Nov. 2nd, 2011 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonWith Vincent Price playing Bill Lee, Malia ‘Vampira’ Nurmi as Joan and Jeron ‘ The Amazing Criswell’ King making a cameo appearance as Doctor Benway, Ed Wood’s 1961 adaptation of William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch is considered one of the greatest movies never made. For only a few scenes were shot before an enraged Price stormed off the set after attempting to strangle Woods to death with a Styrofoam centipede before Tor Johnson was forced to intercede. Woods, undeterred by such a minor setback was going to continue filming with a stand-in for Price (his ‘goof-ball’ connection in a fake moustache), before Burroughs arrived unexpectedly on set, hopped up on Christ only knows What with a pack of feral ‘wild-boys’ at his side and a loaded shotgun trembling in his hands. Woods was forced to admit that he hadn’t exactly ‘secured’ the rights to Naked Lunch and at barrel point promptly agreed to immediately cease production of the film.
Woods however, never one to surrender, quickly shifted gears and focused on the production of Married Too Young and The Sinister Urge. He rarely spoke of the project and it was said to have haunted him in that it would have possibly been his finest film. The only mention he makes of it was in an interview in the December ’70 issue of ‘Cinema Dreadful Quarterly’. There he spoke of how he became a fan of the novel while working with Valiant about distributing his most (in)famous film - Plan 9 from Outer Space. He felt the non-linear narrative of Naked Lunch synchronized with some of his cinematic instincts and felt for the first time that a novelist had captured in voice what he had struggled to present in vision. In fact he felt that the role of Doctor Benway would have been a perfect match for his departed compatriot and friend, Bela Lugosi and that it would have served as his come back performance.
Woods claims that all the footage of The Naked Lunch was confiscated by Burroughs and that it was subsequently destroyed. Burroughs, denied any recollection of the event, the adaptation or having made Tor Johnson devour a Styrofoam centipede at gun point for his own amusement. Price, when asked about his aborted collaboration with Woods, was reported to have kicked the interviewer in the balls before announcing that he would be taking no more questions.
However there are rumors that some of the footage exists. One such is the opening scene. Price narrating in a hung-over version of his characteristic creepy-crawly drawl: “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station...” During the narration we are treated to grainy shots of Bill Lee wandering around various Los Angeles warehouses and train yards in a rough approximation of New York City, while a trench coat wearing Tor ‘tails’ him. Only the missing chasm scene from the original King Kong rivals this lost gem in the eyes of cinematic aficionados.
Another scene was the meeting between Benway and Lee, shot in a Mexican restaurant with a clearly annoyed waiter staring straight into the camera and refusing to budge from the shot. It only last two minutes, but it is said that in some of the stills one can see the ghost of Bela Lugosi hovering over the waiter’s shoulder. In actuality this was the restaurant’s manager, who was led to believe by Woods that they were shooting a documentary on local L.A. cuisine.
It wouldn’t be for another thirty years until David Cronenberg was finally able to put Naked Lunch up on the big screen and hook a new generation on the virtues of ‘the black meat’.
Woods however, never one to surrender, quickly shifted gears and focused on the production of Married Too Young and The Sinister Urge. He rarely spoke of the project and it was said to have haunted him in that it would have possibly been his finest film. The only mention he makes of it was in an interview in the December ’70 issue of ‘Cinema Dreadful Quarterly’. There he spoke of how he became a fan of the novel while working with Valiant about distributing his most (in)famous film - Plan 9 from Outer Space. He felt the non-linear narrative of Naked Lunch synchronized with some of his cinematic instincts and felt for the first time that a novelist had captured in voice what he had struggled to present in vision. In fact he felt that the role of Doctor Benway would have been a perfect match for his departed compatriot and friend, Bela Lugosi and that it would have served as his come back performance.
Woods claims that all the footage of The Naked Lunch was confiscated by Burroughs and that it was subsequently destroyed. Burroughs, denied any recollection of the event, the adaptation or having made Tor Johnson devour a Styrofoam centipede at gun point for his own amusement. Price, when asked about his aborted collaboration with Woods, was reported to have kicked the interviewer in the balls before announcing that he would be taking no more questions.
However there are rumors that some of the footage exists. One such is the opening scene. Price narrating in a hung-over version of his characteristic creepy-crawly drawl: “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station...” During the narration we are treated to grainy shots of Bill Lee wandering around various Los Angeles warehouses and train yards in a rough approximation of New York City, while a trench coat wearing Tor ‘tails’ him. Only the missing chasm scene from the original King Kong rivals this lost gem in the eyes of cinematic aficionados.
Another scene was the meeting between Benway and Lee, shot in a Mexican restaurant with a clearly annoyed waiter staring straight into the camera and refusing to budge from the shot. It only last two minutes, but it is said that in some of the stills one can see the ghost of Bela Lugosi hovering over the waiter’s shoulder. In actuality this was the restaurant’s manager, who was led to believe by Woods that they were shooting a documentary on local L.A. cuisine.
It wouldn’t be for another thirty years until David Cronenberg was finally able to put Naked Lunch up on the big screen and hook a new generation on the virtues of ‘the black meat’.