Earlier I mentioned I got the book Hollywood Rat Race by Edward D. Wood Jr. of Plan 9 From Outer Space fame. I don’t have time for a full review now, but I do want to say that for people interested in the history of film, it is definitely worth reading.

It’s a weird book, which I suppose is no great surprise because it was written by a very weird man. Equally famous for Glen or Glenda, a semi-autobiographical movie about crossdressing in which understanding for people so afflicted is pleaded to the audience, Hollywood Rat Race more than once comments fairly negatively on men and women who dress in such a way that one cannot tell the difference between them, and also on men who wear women’s clothing. There’s something very curious there, because Ed Wood had publicly admitted to wearing women’s underwear many years before he ever started writing this book, so it’s not like he could have been trying to draw attention away from himself. (A lot of public hypocrisy around moral issues is frequently much less about actual hypocrisy and more a smoke screen by the vicious in the hope that publicly condemning their vice makes them less likely to ever be suspected of it.)

This is but a small part of the book, though. The various ways in which people who want to be stars are taken advantage of when they get to Hollywood is the main subject, at least by page count. It’s actually primarily financial predation, though he does talk about other types, as well. This is intermixed with advice on practical matters like having a 24 hour messaging service because you can’t carry your phone around with you in your pocket and how to get room and board cheaply. Some of this includes very practical advice, like taking into account the cost of gasoline to go to a further away grocery story with slightly better prices.

Also quite interesting is a section on just how great movies are. It begins by being against actors, writers, etc. who rail against Hollywood, and this section really shows just how much Ed Wood loves movies. I think that this is why people like me who love Mystery Science Theater 3000 so enjoy laughing at Ed Wood’s movies—we’d love to make movies too and if the best we could afford to do was a movie in which the grave stones are cardboard and the airplane steering wheels are artfully cut paper plates, we’d make that movie. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, a thing worth doing is worth doing even if you can only do it badly. In laughing at Ed Wood’s movies, we’re laughing at a friend, and in so doing, we’re laughing at ourselves.

There’s also a very curious reminiscence of when Bella Lugosi felt bad because he learned fans didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and so Ed Wood put together a public appearance for Bela, who used it as a springboard into comedic performances in Las Vegas. Just how much Ed Wood loved Bella comes across.

It’s a very quirky book. I’m not sure if it was ever edited past basic grammar. I believe it was unfinished at the time of Ed Wood’s death. For example, there’s a chapter in it which consists of three paragraphs, none longer than three sentences, all of which fit on a single page.

There is no earth-shattering insight in this book, but I none the less recommend it, at least if you like movies. It’s an unfinished and not-well-organized book about a bygone time, but it is very personal about a curious figure.