I WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Cinequanon Pictures International Director: Aris Iliopulos Writer: Edward D. Wood, Jr. Cast: Billy Zane, Sandra Bernhard, Karen Black, Conrad Brooks, Tippi Hedren, Eartha Kitt, Ann Magnuson, Andrew McCarthy, Will Patton, Max Perlich, Ron Perlman, Summer Phoenix, Rain Phoenix, Christina Ricci, John Ritter, Rick Schroder, Nicollette Sheridan, Carel Struycken, Johnathan Taylor Thomas, Vampira, Steven Weber
Aris Iliopulos, who directed this film written by Ed Wood, must have woken up early one day and decided to make a film out of a script that had apparently died and rested in peace for over twenty years. Having won from the writer's widow, Kathleen Wood, the right to translate the text to celluloid after convincing her that he would not put a word of dialogue into the movie, Iliopulos--a portrait painter and photographer as well as a filmmaker-- somehow scraped up some of Hollywood's celebrated stars to appear in this no-budget silent. With Billy Zane ("Titanic," "Orlando," "Dead Calm," "Back to the Future") in virtually every scene of the 90-minute, unabashedly "B" movie, the entire cast seem to be having a ball hamming it up, struggling to keep a straight face in a movie with Ed Wood's characteristic 1950s ambiance. Wood, considered by cognoscenti to be the worst American director of all-time, gained celebrity status when Johnny Depp and Martin Landau starred in Tim Burton's 1994 film "Ed Wood," a film with a decidedly loving look at the no-talent helmer whose "Glen or Glenda" (1953) docu-fantasied about transvestism (Wood himself starred as the title character who cannot decide how to tell his fiancee he wants to wear her clothes) and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1959), about aliens seeking to conquer our planet by resurrecting corpses from a San Fernando Valley cemetery.
Iliopolus could have made a film to satirize Wood, but why beat a dead horse? Besides he obviously has a soft spot in his heart. How can you help loving a guy with no aptitude who carried on making film after film while riding on pure enthusiasm? Though "I Woke Up Early" has the feel of early Wood, Iliopulos takes advantage of a few modern special effects techniques to the extent that his budget would allow, juxtaposing black-and-white dream sequences from the principal character's youth with boldly colorful scenes depicting his current odyssey. This is the sort of film that kids in the seventies might have turned out for at midnight, toking their weed and establishing their hip quotient by turning out for the show on Saturday nights for a few weeks.
We can guess that widow Kathy Wood insisted no dialogue mar the film because any verbal exchanges would put "I Woke Up Early" in the category of just another movie, one to be judged critically by the usual standards. By barring conversations, she perhaps hoped to cement the movie's cult status, signalling reviewers and Joe Sixpack alike that this work should be judged on its own unique merits. This is not a silent film in the way we perceive the genre, though at times Billy Zane may remind us of Chaplin and Keaton. Instead the soundtrack is filled with shrieks and eerie music from the haunting, even maddening, strains of a Scottish bagpipe (actually played by Ron Perlman who spent quite a while learning to conquer the basics of the unusual instrument) to the mellifluous tones of Nat King Cole crooning "Nature Boy."
While there is no maxim to be learned from the film--no "love conquers all," or "life is short," or "persistence pays"-- the movie enjoys incorporating elements of Hitchcock, Brecht and Fellini, challenging serious viewers to show their erudition by analyzing the work semiotically and casual moviegoers to open their minds to an experience unlike any other they're likely to see this year.
The plot is anything but confusing. The Thief (Billy Zane) escapes from a California mental institution by knocking out or perhaps killing a nurse (he plunges the long syringe all the way into her arm), donning her uniform, and making his getaway. Quickly stealing clothes more appropriate to his gender from the local clothes lines, he robs a lending institution of $15,000 and becomes a wanted man after shooting the owner. Attending what he thinks is the victim's funeral, he hides the money in a coffin which locks the cash in, making it inaccessible to the thief. He then shadows each of the mourners in turn hoping to find the loot.
Staying a step or two ahead of the police (Andrew McCarthy, Steven Weber and Rick Schroder), he confronts the caretaker (Ron Perlman) and a succession of mourners whose names he finds on a list. During his murderous adventures, he attracts women at a dance hall and, in one more or less compelling scene is invited to have fun in his flophouse room by a teenaged hooker (Christina Ricci).
If you judge the picture as though it were just another entry in the annual march of cinema, you will likely conclude that "I Woke Up Early" is a hollow experience: unemotional, bereft of traditional character development, pointless, just one- damn-thing-after-another. The movie is all that, but what redeems the whole enterprise is the affection that paradoxically comes through from its director, who obviously has tender memories of Mr. Wood. From time to time, we regular moviegoers need to watch both serious and comic stars simply cut loose and have a good time with a script that is so silly that we wonder whether its writer was as nuts as The Thief who's in the limelight. If nothing else, the film may encourage us to go back to the silents to see how all those movies made from 1895 to 1927 succeeded in riveting audiences purely on their visual imagery. While "I Woke Up Early" can hardly be called riveting--it's no "Birth of a Nation"- -there is somehow enough going on visually and sufficient charm exuded by the admittedly undeveloped characters to keep us in our seats, despite its absence of either flat-out laughs or authentic Hitchcockian suspense, genuinely Brechtian devices or seriously amusing Felliniesque characterizations.
Not Rated. Running Time: 90 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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