Plan 9 from Outer Space

Mourners gather around an old man (Lugosi) at his wife's grave site as an airliner overhead flies toward Burbank, California. Pilot Jeff Trent and his co-pilot Danny are startled by a bright light, accompanied by a loud noise. They see a flying saucer land in the cemetery near Jeff's house, where two gravediggers are killed by a ghoul (the reanimated wife of the old man). Lost in grief, the old man is struck and killed by a car in front of his home. Mourners at his funeral discover the gravediggers' corpses. When Inspector Daniel Clay and his police officers arrive, Clay goes alone into the cemetery to investigate. Jeff tells his wife, Paula (the old man's granddaughter), about his flying saucer encounter, saying that the Army has sworn him to secrecy. Another saucer lands, and a powerful swooshing noise knocks the Trents, and the police officers in the cemetery, to the ground. Inspector Clay is murdered by the ghoul and her husband's now-reanimated corpse. Lieutenant Harper says: "But one thing's sure. Inspector Clay is dead, murdered, and somebody's responsible!". Newspaper headlines report flying saucer sightings over Hollywood Boulevard, and three of them fly across Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., the military fires missiles at several saucers. Chief of saucer operations Thomas Edwards says the government has been covering up saucer attacks. The aliens return to their Space Station 7, and Commander Eros tells the alien ruler that he has been unsuccessful in contacting Earth's governments. Eros recommends "Plan 9", the resurrection of recently deceased humans. Concerned about Paula's safety, Jeff urges her to stay with her mother while he's at work, but she refuses. That night, the undead old man breaks into their house and chases Paula outside, where the female ghoul and Inspector Clay join him. Paula escapes, collapsing in the woods while the three ghouls return to Eros in the saucer. At the Pentagon, General Roberts tells Edwards that aliens have been telling the government that they are trying to prevent humanity from destroying the universe. Roberts sends Edwards to San Fernando, where most of the alien activity has occurred. The zombified Inspector Clay goes berserk and attacks Eros, nearly killing him. The ruler approves Eros's Plan 9 to raise armies of the dead to march on Earth's capitals. Edwards and the police interview the Trents, unaware that the flying saucer has returned to the cemetery. Officer Kelton encounters the old man, who chases him into the Trents' backyard. Eros's long-distance ray strikes the old man, reducing him to a skeleton. Edwards, the Trents, and the police drive to the cemetery. Harper insists on leaving Paula in the car; Kelton stays with her. Eros and Tanna (his fellow female alien) send Clay to kidnap Paula and lure the other three humans to the saucer. Seeing its glow, Jeff and the police approach it. Clay knocks Kelton unconscious and carries Paula into the woods. Eros lets Jeff and the police enter the saucer with pistols drawn. He tells them that human weapons development will lead to the discovery of the "solaronite" bomb, a substance that explodes sunlight particles. Such an explosion would set off an uncontrollable chain reaction, destroying the universe. Eros believes that humans are immature and stupid; he intends to destroy humanity, threatening to kill Paula if Jeff and the police try to stop him. Kelton and Larry arrive and see Clay near the saucer carrying the unconscious Paula. They sneak up behind Clay and knock him out with a club. Eros says that Clay's controlling ray has been shut off, which released Paula. He and Jeff have a fistfight inside the ship, and the saucer's equipment is damaged and catches fire. The humans escape, and Tanna and Eros take off. The fire consumes the saucer, which explodes, and the two remaining zombies decompose into skeletons. ==Cast==

) confronts the aliens. ) attacks Eros (Dudley Manlove). • Gregory Walcott as Jeff Trent • Mona McKinnon as Paula Trent • Duke Moore as Lieutenant John Harper • Tom Keene as Colonel Tom Edwards • Carl Anthony as Patrolman Larry • Paul Marco as Patrolman Kelton • Tor Johnson as Inspector Daniel Clay • Dudley Manlove as Eros • Joanna Lee as Tanna • John Breckinridge as The Ruler • Lyle Talbot as General Roberts • David De Mering as Danny • Norma McCarty as Edie the stewardess • Bill Ash as Captain • Lynn Lemon as Minister at Clay's funeral • Ben Frommer and Gloria Dea as Mourners • Conrad Brooks as Patrolman Jamie • Maila Nurmi (Vampira) as Vampire Girl • Bela Lugosi as the Old Man/Ghoul Man • Tom Mason as Old Man/Ghoul Man body double, Lugosi's fake Shemp (uncredited) • Criswell as himself/narrator • Karl Johnson as Farmer Calder (uncredited) • Ed Wood as Man Holding Newspaper (uncredited) • J. Edward Reynolds as Gravedigger (also executive producer) • Hugh Thomas Jr. as Gravedigger (also associate producer) ==Production==

Background and genre Plan 9 from Outer Space combines elements of science fiction, Atompunk, and gothic horror. Science fiction remained popular throughout the 1950s, though the genre had experienced significant changes in the post-war period. The Atomic Age, heralded by the development of nuclear weapons and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had inspired science fiction films to deal with the dangers of unrestricted science, while space flight and the existence of extraterrestrial life and civilizations (more "traditional" elements of the genre), seemed to hold a new fascination for audiences at the beginning of the Space Race. On the other hand, the height of Gothic film's popularity was during the 1930s and 1940s but it was in decline by the 1950s and considered old-fashioned. By 1950s standards, the combination of dated and modern elements gives the film a rather anachronistic quality. Plan 9s script seems to aim at being an epic film, a genre typically requiring a big budget from a major film studio. That Wood made it with minimal financial resources underscores one of the qualities of his work: his ideas tended to be too expensive to film, yet he tried to film them anyway. As Rob Craig argues, Wood's failed efforts give the film a peculiar charm. Craig finds that Plan 9 has much in common with both epic theatre ("grand melodrama on a minuscule budget") and the Theatre of the Absurd (characters acting as buffoons, nonsense, and verbosity in dialogue, dreamlike and fantasy imagery, hints of allegory, and a narrative structure where continuity is consistently undermined). At the time of filming, Criswell was the star of the KLAC Channel 13 (now KCOP-13) television series Criswell Predicts. The introduction could be an allusion to the opening lines of his show (a Criswell Predicts title card appears at the start of the scene), but since no episodes of the television show are known to survive, a comparison is impossible. Craig suggests that Criswell's public persona was based on the style of a charismatic preacher, perhaps influenced by early televangelists. He addresses the viewers repeatedly as "my friends", as if attempting to establish a bond between the speaker and the audience. The line likely derives from his show, and would not be out of place in a segment where a televangelist addresses his congregation. Another phrase of the introduction, "Future events such as these will affect you in the future", was a signature line for Criswell. He used it repeatedly in his newspaper and magazine columns, and probably his show. Themes Through Jeff's initial conversation with his wife, the film introduces the notion of a government and military conspiracy to cover up information on documented UFO sightings. This notion was clearly influenced by the emergence and increased popularity of a UFO conspiracy theory. But the implications for the public's distrust of the government were atypical for a 1950s American film. Anti-statist ideas became more popular in the 1960s, when the subject became "safe" for mainstream cinema to explore. Production details and special effects The film's "iconic" flying saucers have been variously identified as paper plates or hubcaps. But according to the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood, The Plan 9 Companion (1992), they were actually a recognizable plastic model kit, first issued in 1952 by toy manufacturer Paul Lindberg's Lindberg Line model kit company: this was the first science fiction plastic model kit produced (product #517). Roughly matching the era's popular image of UFOs, the saucer model was disk-shaped with a clear dome on top. Under the kit dome was a little green alien pilot. This pilot figure was not used in the film. Its multiple flying saucers were painted metallic silver, including the domes. Two slightly modified versions of the Lindberg kit are used in Plan 9s UFO scenes. The male alien Eros is apparently named after Eros, the Greek god of love. Craig suggests that the female alien's name, Tanna, invokes the name of another Greek deity: Thanatos, god of death. Bela Lugosi's last film , in silent footage for the abandoned ''The Vampire's Tomb, which was later recycled for Plan 9 from Outer Space'' Shortly before Lugosi's death in August 1956, he had been working with Wood on a handful of half-realized projects, variously titled ''The Vampire's Tomb or The Ghoul Goes West''. Some scenes connected to these projects had been shot. They featured Lugosi weeping at a funeral, picking a rose from a bush in front of Tor Johnson's house in the daytime, walking in and out of the Johnson home's side door at nighttime, and a daylight scene, on a patch of highway, with Lugosi stalking toward the camera and dramatically spreading his Dracula cape before furling it around himself, then walking back the way he came. According to the documentary Flying Saucers: The "Plan 9" Companion, these shots were all improvised. Only the first two had reached any level of completion. When Lugosi died, Wood shelved the projects. ==Casting==

Ed Wood described the cast of his film as "the best I ever had". TV personality Vampira (Maila Nurmi) was second-billed below Lugosi in the posters and advertising. She recalled that Paul Marco paid her $200 to act as a vampire in the film. She recalled insisting that her part be silent, as she did not like the dialogue Wood had written for her. This recollection might be inaccurate since the zombie undead of the film are generally mute. She gave the film a "regal presence" and theatrical mannerisms. Her performance is reminiscent of a silent film actress; she credited Theda Bara as her main influence. Former cowboy star Tom Keene was still working in pictures at the time. After he stopped starring in westerns in 1943, he worked steadily as a character actor under the name Richard Powers. Wood insisted on billing him as the better-known Tom Keene. Lynn Lemon, who plays an unnamed minister, was one of the Baptists variously involved in the production of the film. J. Edward Reynolds was a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention in Beverly Hills, California, and Hugh Thomas was one of his associates from the church; both play gravediggers, and Reynolds was also the film's executive producer. At the time of the film's creation, David De Mering was the personal secretary and alleged lover of fellow cast member Bunny Breckinridge; his inclusion in the cast was probably a result of this association. ==Music==

The music for Plan 9 from Outer Space was compiled by Gordon Zahler. Zahler had taken over the stock-music library of his late father Lee Zahler; these mood-music tracks for every occasion had been used frequently in feature films, westerns, and serials. Zahler also owned stock recordings of works by about a dozen composers. The Zahler library was often consulted by producers of low-budget films and television programs; however, Gordon Zahler never reliably sourced and credited the Plan 9 score. In 1996, Paul Mandell produced a CD that recreated the film's score by tracking down the stock recordings and the composers, and wrote an article about it for Film Score Monthly. Some websites give proper credit to these composers. In 1996, Paul Mandell produced a CD that recreated the film's musical score; the CD was released by the now-defunct Retrosonic Corp. ==Release==

Plan 9 from Outer Space was shot in November 1956 (under the shooting title Grave Robbers from Outer Space) and premiered on March 15, 1957, at the Carlton Theatre in Los Angeles. The original shooting title is mentioned at the end of Criswell's opening narration when he asks the audience: "Can your heart stand the shocking facts about grave robbers from outer space?" It is thought that Wood changed the title because he did not want his backers to know that the film was being distributed in the South. (By 1958, the film's backers had given up all hope of seeing a return on their investment.) But the new title was less indicative of the film's content and may have contributed to its distribution problems; Wood could not find a distributor until early 1958. ==Reception==

Distributors Corporation of America (DCA) was a subsidiary of the Walter Reade Organisation, a British-based firm catering to art houses; the American counterpart DCA specialized in cheap exploitation quickies for drive-ins. DCA released Plan 9 from Outer Space nationally in July 1958. In its time, the film served its purpose as a suitable offering for juvenile audiences at theaters and drive-ins. The trade paper The Exhibitor didn't consider it bad at all, calling it an "okay science-fiction programmer". In many situations it did very respectable business in theaters; in Minneapolis Plan 9 played at the RKO Pantages as a companion to the Alan Freed musical Go, Johnny, Go!, and Variety noted that the show, intended "for kids and teenagers", earned a "tall $6,500" for the week. For comparison, in the same city the Frank Sinatra–Frank Capra film A Hole in the Head earned $6,000, and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller North by Northwest earned $7,000, so Plan 9 was just as successful as these major productions. Plan 9 was sometimes screened as part of a double feature. In Chicago, it was first seen alongside another DCA release, the British thriller Time Lock (1957), a film mostly remembered as an early credit for Sean Connery. It was later used as a companion feature for double-feature screenings of The Trap (1959), a film noir starring Richard Widmark. In Texas, it was seen alongside Devil Girl From Mars (1954), a reissued British science fiction film. Plan 9 premiered in many cities during 1959 (through DCA) and was still playing into 1960 (though DCA's successor, Valiant Pictures). In 1961 the picture was sold to television and was shown on Chiller Theatre and similar venues for years. ==Accidental notoriety==

Plan 9 from Outer Space gained notoriety through the Medveds' book because of its multiple continuity problems and apparently ridiculous inclusion of props not meant to be seen. Plan 9 was photographed in the 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, which by 1957 had become the common theatrical format alongside CinemaScope. Wood composed his shots so that the performers were always within the widescreen frame, but anything outside the frame—random props, boom microphones, edges of sets—would be cropped off the screen in projection. However, when the film was first shown on television and later home video, the 1.33:1 full-frame image revealed all the stray matter at the top and bottom of the frame that Wood took pains to hide. This gave viewers the false impression that Wood was hilariously inept in framing his shots. During the first aircraft cockpit scene, the first officer is reading from a script in his lap, and a flash of light from a flying saucer reveals the boom microphone's shadow. These mistakes are noticeable only in the Plan 9 full-frame film prints, TV releases, and video transfers. Another problem arose when Wood incorporated stock footage in full-frame 1.33:1 (including his own footage of Lugosi), which becomes overly cropped when shown in widescreen. Turner Classic Movies has since presented a high-definition transfer of the film in the original 1.85:1 ratio. The stock footage shots in this version have been slightly adjusted to better fit the frame. ==Revisions and colorization==

In 2006, Legend Films released a colorized version of Plan 9 from Outer Space on DVD. Though the colorization process was largely done straight, unlike the campy bright colors used in the studio's release of Reefer Madness, there were a few alterations. Legend had auctioned off the opportunity to insert new material into the film through two auctions on eBay. The first allowed the auction winner to provide a photograph that is digitally inserted into part of the scene between the Ghoul Man and Paula Trent. The second allowed the winner to have his or her name placed on a gravestone during a scene with Wood regular Tor Johnson. The third alteration is at a point where Eros gets punched and his skin briefly turns green. The DVD featured an audio commentary track by comedian Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, in which he heckles the film in a style similar to an episode of the series, a restored black-and-white version of Plan 9, a home video of Wood in drag performing a striptease (Wood cross-dressed throughout his life), a subtitled information track and a comedic feature narrated by Nelson detailing the "lost" Plans 1–8. The autographed edition also came with a limited-edition air freshener. In 2011, PassmoreLab, a San Diego–based 3D production–conversion studio, produced a 3D version of Legend's colorized version, which received limited theatrical release. ==Home media==

A 35 mm print from the Wade Williams Collection was released on DVD in the U.S. (Image Entertainment, 2000), the U.K. (MPIC Video, 2009), Germany (Winkler Film/Alive AG, 2009), and Australia (Force Video, 2001). All feature Flying Saucers Over Hollywood and the original theatrical trailer. Legend Films' restored colorized and original black-and-white versions have been released on DVD and Blu-ray in the U.S., and on DVD in various other territories. No home video release has presented the film in widescreen, its original theatrical aspect ratio. ==Legacy==

Some critics, including Michael Medved, consider Plan 9 from Outer Space the worst film in the history of cinema. On Metacritic, the film received a score of 56 based on 13 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Josiah Teal of Film Threat gave the film a 10/10, calling it a "quintessential cult classic" and writing that it is a "testament to a love of cinema and making all the wrong creative choices." There are also claims that Wood managed to convey some interesting ideas. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, for instance, claims that "the film's reception modulated away from jovial mockery of its wanton indifference to normal professional standards of script, performance, and effects, in favour of a more nuanced appreciation of its dreamlike narrative assemblage of genre tropes, resonantly unspeakable dialogue, and irrepressible budgetary ingenuity." As of 2021, Plan 9 had failed to place in the IMDb Bottom 100, a list compiled using average scores given by Internet Movie Database users, though some of Wood's other movies had. In 1996, the film was saluted by the author of the Cult Flicks and Trash Pics edition of VideoHound, which says: "The film has become so famous for its own badness that it's now beyond criticism". In 2024, Marya E. Gates of Inverse called the film "a low-budget wonder. Although the final product is sometimes hampered by its budget, it's hard to resist its ambitious thematic scope, peculiar vision, and melancholic charm. It's not so bad it's good. It's just good." Views of cast members Lyle Talbot defended Ed Wood in later years: "Eddie was serious about his movie. He wanted to keep making them and he wanted to improve. And that's why I don't think you can ridicule the poor little guy." Lead actor Gregory Walcott, who admired Ed Wood's tenacity in his projects, still had some bad opinions of Plan 9. He said years later, "Ed had poor taste and was undisciplined. If he had ten million dollars, [Plan 9] would still have been a piece of tasteless shit. I liked Ed Wood but I could discern no genius there. His main concern was making his next film. It looked like they shot the thing in a kitchen....worst film of all time. Thirty years later, it's come back to haunt me." Vampira years later recalled: "I didn't have a decent costume for Plan 9. What I wore was old, worn out. It looks like I had a hole in the crotch of the dress, if you notice....But I thought, 'oh well, nobody's ever gonna see this movie, so it doesn't matter'." The Seinfeld episode "The Chinese Restaurant" involves trying to get a table at a Chinese restaurant before going to see Plan 9 from Outer Space, which is playing for one night only. Jerry emphasizes the significance of Plan 9, saying, "Just a movie? You don't understand. This isn't plans 1 through 8 from outer space. This is Plan 9! This is the one that worked, the worst movie ever made!" A portion of the film was featured in The X-Files episode "Hollywood A.D.", broadcast in April 2000. The series' protagonist, Fox Mulder, is paid a visit by his partner Dana Scully at his home. The film is playing on the television, and the VHS sleeve is seen as Mulder says he has seen Plan 9 forty-two times. The film's title was the inspiration for the name of Bell Labs' successor to the Unix operating system. Plan 9 from Bell Labs was developed over several years starting in the mid-1980s and released to the general public in 1995. The film was included in live performances at the SF Sketchfest by The Film Crew, composed of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 cast members Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. A commentary based on the performances was released by RiffTrax. It was advertised as a "Three Riffer Edition", due to Nelson's solo commentary for the film's colorized DVD release, which had previously been sold as an audio file on the Rifftrax website. On August 20, 2009, the RiffTrax trio performed the commentary at a live event in Nashville, Tennessee, and the performance was broadcast to theaters across the country. The 1994 film Ed Wood is an American comedy-drama biopic produced and directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, which depicts Wood's creation of Plan 9 from Outer Space. The film was released to critical acclaim but was a box office bomb, making only $5.9 million on a $18 million budget. It won two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Martin Landau and Best Makeup for Rick Baker, who designed Landau's prosthetic makeup, and the makeup for Ve Neill and Yolanda Toussieng. In connection with the Planet Nine hypothesis, the film's title found its way into academic discourse. In 2016, an article titled Planet Nine from Outer Space about the hypothesized planet in the outer region of the Solar System was published in Scientific American. Several conference talks since then have used the same word play, as did a 2019 lecture by Mike Brown. Other media Documentaries In 1992, Plan 9 from Outer Space was the subject of the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion, which is included on Image Entertainment's DVD edition of Plan 9. The documentary visits several locations related to the film, including the building with Wood's former office (at 4477 Hollywood Boulevard), and what was left of the small sound stage used for the film's interiors, which is down a small alley next to the Harvey Apartments at 5640 Santa Monica Boulevard. That same year, Rudolph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr., was published and contained anecdotes about the making of this film. Grey notes that participants in the original events sometimes contradict one another, but he relates each person's recollections for posterity. In 2006, the documentary Vampira: The Movie, by Kevin Sean Michaels, chronicled Nurmi's work with Wood and her role as television's first horror host. Comic miniseries In 1991, Eternity Comics released a three-issue miniseries, Plan 9 from Outer Space: Thirty Years Later!, which served as an unofficial sequel to the film. Video game A point and click adventure video game titled Plan 9 from Outer Space was developed by Gremlin Graphics and released in 1992 for the Amiga and Atari ST; in it, the player must recover the film from Lugosi's double, who has stolen it. Stage adaptation In October 2005, a stage adaptation, Plan Nine from Outer Space: The Rip-Off, was staged in Jacksonville, Florida. The play, based on Wood's script, is by Steven Bailey. In 2006, another stage adaptation, Plan LIVE from Outer Space!, was staged at the Toronto Fringe Festival. That play, also based on Wood's script, is by James Gordon Taylor; it won a Canadian Comedy Award the next year. A stage adaptation was also performed in Glasgow by Off World Productions in 2015, again based on Wood's script. The Off World production was also performed at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Remakes Filmmaker Ernie Fosselius (of Hardware Wars fame) created the 2009 short film Plan 9.1 from Outer Space, which features hand-carved wooden puppets of the characters from the film. The puppets act out the scenes along with the original film's edited soundtrack. As of September 2009, there was an additional proposed remake: Grave Robbers from Outer Space was written and directed by Christopher Kahler for Drunkenflesh Films. Another remake was released by Darkstone Entertainment, written and directed by John Johnson. The teaser trailer was released on the film's website on September 9, 2009. Horror host Mr. Lobo, Brian Krause, and internet celebrities Matt Sloan, Aaron Yonda, James Rolfe, and Monique Dupree performed in the film, which was released through video-on-demand on February 16, 2016. It released on physical media for retail outlets on January 5, 2017. ==See also==