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Doctor Gregor: This afternoon we had a long telephone conversation earlier in the day.
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Dr.Gregor: You know sometimes I find plastic surgery to be hard and very, very complicated.
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Description
She's a good girl--to leave alone! Fresh from his sensational "Glen or Glenda?," Ed Wood, Jr. presents his homage to the gangster films of the '30s and '40s, starring his sex kitten girlfriend Dolores Fuller and introducing to the screen handsome young Steve Reeves (Hercules). Inspired by the popular TV show "Dragnet," this Ed Wood film tells the story of a rich but troubled young man who kills a cop and has plastic surgery to hide his identity. Filmdom's legendary Alex Gordon co-wrote this clever script to help Ed make his first legitimate feature film.
Amazon.com
"How can a great doctor have such a jerk for a son?" asks Ed Wood in his cheap dime store crime thriller about a sneering delinquent whose mania for handguns leads to murder. "I never thought carrying a gun would lead to this," he burbles to his far-too-understanding father, but it's too late. His cold-hearted partner Timothy Farrell blackmails Daddy (who just happens to be the most gifted plastic surgeon in the world) into giving him a new face, but Dad has a trick up his sleeve. Wood regular Lyle Talbot headlines as the investigating police inspector, former Mr. America and future Hercules Steve Reeves takes his shirt off for no good reason to flex his physique to the camera, and Wood's real-life girlfriend and frequent costar Dolores Fuller wears angora as the doctor's nice-girl daughter. "Cheap? Does this look joint look cheap to you?" demands the crook's gold-digging girlfriend? In a word, yes. There's a pleasing grungy B-movie aesthetic to Wood's nighttime location shooting, giving those moments a film noir flavor, but the rest of the film takes place on bland, generic sets with the flat look of a sitcom. Actually, flat is the operative word for this lethargic thriller: Wood displays his genius for arch dialogue and draws wooden performances from his largely mediocre cast. In other words, it's prime Ed Wood. The annoying guitar and piano score was borrowed from Mesa of Lost Women. --Sean Axmaker
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