I’ll write about it more soon, but I do have to say that Hollywood Rat Race is an interesting book. It gives some interesting insight into Ed Wood. He’s definitely a far more sympathetic figure from this book than just from the movies. Something else which comes across very clearly is how much he loved movies. You can see it in the movies themselves, of course; he would do anything to make movies and that included making bad movies, if that’s what it took to make movies. I’m reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s often misunderstood epigram, “if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.”

Much of the book is a warning to people not to come to Hollywood, for one reason and another. The last two lines in the book are very interesting, especially in light of just how much movies were Ed Wood’s life:

But that’s the extent of it. That’s the Hollywood as an insider knows it. Trouble. Problems. Heartaches…

Believe it or not, your life is more real than the Hollywood scene.