Ed Wood’s Devil Girls Rage Across Chicago!

If Golden Turkey award-winning writer and director, Edward D. Wood, Jr., could have afforded a grave… he’d be rolling over in it. Principal shooting has finished, in Chicago, on the film Ed Wood’s Devil Girls. Based on the novel Devil Girls, written by Wood in 1967 (Pad Publishing). Wood was reduced to writing soft-core porn an directing some of the worst sexploitation movies (only Ed Wood could make sex boring) to ever grace the screen from the early-sixties to his death in 1978, at the age of fifty-four. Despondent, alcoholic, and penniless, Wood prided himself in later years on the 138 pulp novels he had written, Devil Girls being chief among these. When Hollywood refused to pay attention to the mastermind behind cinematic classics like Plan 9 from Outer Space

(1956), Orgy of the Dead (1965), and Glen or Glenda (1953), Wood sunk lower and lower into heavy drinking, evictions, and the porn industry, sometimes starring in his own soft-core sex-epics.

Devil Girls is among the best of Wood’s pulp novels, according to Chicago-based director and founder of the Bowlegged Man Media, Andre Perkowski. He fell into the Ed Wood-phenomenon after seeing Plan 9 at the tender age of eleven. Since this “Wood Epiphany,” Perkowski has been on a crusade of sorts to bring Wood back to the theaters, or at least the video store. Pre-production on the feature-length film began 1 year ago in New Jersey with establishing shots, stunts, and other incidental, non-principal filming. The majority of the movie was done in Chicago, using a cast and crew of Chicago-based actors, camera folk, and production staff. “The choice to come to Chicago was pretty natural,” explains Devil Girls writer and director, Andre Perkowski, “there are more resources here [Chicago] for independent filmakers, as well as accessibility to a wide range of production and acting talent.”

Perkowski, “… sick of taping weddings, commercials and all the rest of that garbage,” embarked on this project with a zeal seldom seen in today’s Hollywood fare. He worked very closely with every aspect of production, from adapting the script from Wood’s novel, pulling pieces from other scripts that Wood never got the chance to produce (like Trial by Terror and Venus DeMilo) to editing the entire feature himself. “Devil Girls is the first in an Ed Wood Trilogy that we are planning,” Perkowski states, “Wood intended to make a Bela Lugosi/Lon Chaney, Jr./Gene Autry vehicle titled The Ghoul Goes West, that was scrapped when Gene Autry pulled out. Also, a script titled Vampire’s Tomb has recently come my way. These two, along with Devil Girls and The Ghoul Goes West are going to be the trilogy. Who needs George Lucas when you’ve got Eddie Wood?” Perkowski plans on shooting Vampire’s Tomb in April of this year. “If we talk the cast into coming to the screening of Devil Girls,” Perkowski said, “we can talk them into making another movie over the weekend.”

Like Wood in many ways, Perkowski financed the film entirely on his own. There were no financial backers, banks, or eager chiropractors interested in dumping their money into a self-labeled “B” movie. This only fueled the fire, as far as Perkowski was concerned, although, if anyone wanted to give him some money, he wouldn’t say no.

Unbelievably, the entire feature was shot in 4 days, with a rehearsal period of 3 weeks prior to the actual shooting. The quick, almost breakneck pace at which the film was shot was very Ed Wood-ian, and allowed the cast and crew to really get into the spirit of the Ed Wood Filmmaking Process. Christine Malcom, Devil Girls Assistant Director, found the entire experience “… exhausting, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Well, maybe. Yeah, I’d definitely trade it.”

The speed of the production provided Perkowski and Malcom with other interesting dilemmas, for example finding locations. In an inspired piece of guerilla filming, the cast and crew took over the area surrounding the Shedd Aquarium. Standing in the freezing rain and wind, and in various states of undress to mimic a nice summer day on the villian’s boat, cast and crew had to take their turn on keeping a watchful eye out for the mounted police that patrol the area. Filming in Chicago requires a permit, of course Ed never bought a permit, so the Devil Girls didn’t think it would be in the true spirit of “the worst director of all time” to get one. Besides, those things are expensive.

A majority of the film is shot with 2 cameras on digital video, and will be transferred to black and white in post-production, to preserve the feel of the pulp novels and films of the fifties and sixties. An additional camera using black and white 16 millimeter film was also used for close-up and action shots. Director of Photography, Victoria Suchey, braving wind, rain, and half-naked actors ran the principal digital video camera. “The use of film and video should turn out looking great,” Suchey went on to explain, “The video portions will get a film wash (a process that adds scratches, nicks, etc. mimicking the look of film) in post [production] and the straight film portions were all hand-held, that should really capture the action.

The pool of Chicago talent that Perkowski and Malcom had brought together, considering they had neither the time nor the money, is pretty amazing. Sandra Delgado, a company member of the Collaboraction Theatre Group, played the leader of the Devil Girls, Lila Purdue. Mustering all of the fifties teen-angst and juvenile delinquency she could manage, Delgado’s character not only runs heroin for Lark, the maniacal villain (played by veteran actor Mike Cooney, whose wife, Arelene, plays Miss O’Hara, the teacher killed by the Devil Girls), but murders her father. Not to be outdone with simple patricide, Lila also murders her mother (Kathy Cecchin)… twice. Faced with these odds, the motley band of heroes out to stop Lark and the Devil Girls really don’t stand much of a chance. Sheriff Buck Rhodes (Paul Hoffman), the cross-dressing Deputy Klein (John Badalementi), the pedophile/homo-erotic Reverend Steele (David Hayes), ex-junkie and current hamburger joint owner Jockey (Kevin Marquette) and his lumbering Swedish wrestler/chef Lobo (Himself) all come together to try and stop the evil Lark and his henchman, Claude (Keith Hempel), before more kids get hooked on the, “… sick stench of H.” That Jockey certainly has a way with words, ex-junkies are always so poetic.

The Devil Girls of the film’s title certainly have an appeal all their own. The lot of them are firmly rooted in their rock-and-roll, drug induced, sex for money lifestyle. All except for Lila’s little sister, Rhoda (Katie Dugan). She sees what is happening, and doesn’t really like it one bit. Who could, surrounded by characters like the nymphomaniac-lesbian, Babs (Fanny Madison), the tough, wannabe leader of the Devil Girls, Dee (Jody-Ann Martin) and Dee’s horny brothers, Lonnie (Victor Grenada) and Rick (Nate Sands).

The cast and the crew, with nary a dissenter in sight, believe in the project. Which, by all Hollywood accounts, is rare. “I’ve been an Ed Wood fan for years, so I just jumped at the chance to do this,” Kevin Marquette (Jockey) said. In a surprise, almost complete sentence, Lobo muttered, “Me like Andre. No care if sky pee cold water on head.” Casting that part really wasn’t much of a problem.

If you think that Ed Wood’s penchant for using stock footage will be ignored, don’t. The film opens and ends with Wood’s friend and TV psychic, Criswell (imitated flawlessly by Rob Gorden). Criswell also pops up throughout the film offering endless monologues of advice, warnings, free-association poetry, etc. to a steady stream of stock footage. Ed might be proud, he would definitely be drunk, but he might just be proud.

Next up for Perkowski is Ed Wood’s lost masterpiece The Vampire’s Tomb and a Mexican wrestling/horror epic titled El Intoxico & Blue Bastard vs. Hitler’s Brain. Rehearsals for Tomb have already begun and shoot dates are being hammered out. Devil Girls will premiere at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and is being self-distributed by Perkowski from his website, www.bmm.hispeed.com.