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By PAUL BRENNER
The wait is finally over (for anyone who really cares) with Acme Video's DVD
release of the Edward Wood, Jr. skin flick, "Pretty Models All In a Row." It was
1963 -- the year that brought us "Who's Minding the Store?" and "Under the Yum
Yum Tree." Nevertheless, despite those high water marks in film history, in
"Pretty Models All In a Row" --a.k.a. "The Photographer" -- there stands Ed
Wood, doing his best Billy De Wolfe impersonation and sporting a white suit, a
pink carnation, and a puffy face, his well-hewed visage a perfect representation
of where the history of American film was heading.
Wood plays Mr. Murphy, a
middle-aged lecher posing as a photographer to lure pretty models all in a row
to his home -- ostensibly to take their photos. Of course, this flimsy excuse
for plot is abandoned almost immediately for an all nude-all the time orgy. Wood
flutters around the pasty white Escher-esque pile of skin until a final group of
nude women rig a dog collar around his fat, floppy neck, force him to wear a
baby doll nightgown and lick a woman's boots. Since this is not an Elia Kazan
production but a distinctively Wood enterprise, the wearing of the nightie and
the licking of the boots becomes the climax of the film -- in more ways than
one. Of course the film is horrible -- that should be a given. But once that is
settled you can sit back and enjoy such over-dubbed dialogue like, "You look
sexy, babe, I've been waitin' all day -- You're the nicest dish I've seen in a
long time." Only Wood can mix up three clichés in one statement.
The DVD also contains the old Ed Wood documentary "Look Back in Angora" -- which
is almost the same length as the main film. |
