BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) *** Characteristically playing his cards as quickly as he realizes that he's got them, Ed Wood alternates between Bela Lugosi smiling a lot, and whipping Tor Johnson. Bela's smile is wonderful; sly, sinister and silly; somewhere between De Niro and Pee Wee Herman. But no sooner have you settled in for a monster flick than Wood trots out some of the most droll and hyper-realistic dialogues ever set to film: yes, yes, this is exactly how conversations at newspapers and police stations go (they just aren't delivered quite like this). Loretta King isn't too accomplished for the milieu, but it's easy enough to see, from her line or two, why Wood thought that Dolores Fuller was just the girl for him. She is the incarnation of a cinematic aesthetic, and it surely must be one of the ones tyrannized by the mordantly multi-personalitated Wood. Lugosi's political discussion with George Becwar should serve as a warning to disciples of the doctrine of corporate conformity. But it's not all indictments of the mundane, and prophecies against philosophical prophylacticism; oh, no, there remains room on Wood's palate for mad scientist laboratories, damsels in distress (in this film, really, how could anyone not be?), gunfire, meditations on the swampy ecosystem, white wedding dresses, car wrecks, and the legendary sedentary octopus. The entire thing is permeated with a celebrative sense of wanton sophomoric glee, like Monty Python or the Ramones. "One is always considered mad, if one discovers something that others cannot grasp."
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