3. From Plan 9 From Outer Space...
I know you were waiting for it: the inevitable Ed Wood entry. While there are quite a few connections to be made through Bela Lugosi alone, this article is going to take a slightly different route. The hero of Plan 9, Jeff Trent, was played by up-and-coming young actor Gregory Walcott. Walcott had no formal training in acting; after the army, he hitchhiked from the East Coast to California more or less on a whim. Walcott procured a number of bit parts and eventually secured a contract with Warner Brothers. A year later, he landed the lead role of pilot Jeff Trent in Wood's cult classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space. The movie was shot in a week but went unreleased for three years. Walcott probably would have preferred the film to stay that way, considering his lengthy and relatively respectable career later on (which we'll get to in a minute). Once the Medved brothers publicized Plan 9 as "the worst movie ever made" in 1980, though, Walcott couldn't escape it.
...To Steven Spielberg
Six years before Plan 9 would garner Wood the coveted "Golden Turkey" award, a fresh young director named Steven Spielberg would make his feature-length debut with a movie called The Sugarland Express. Based on the true story of Robert and Ida Fae Dent, The Sugarland Express chronicles a husband and wife team who stage a jailbreak and hold a state trooper hostage, in the hopes of regaining custody of their son who is currently in foster care. Because nothing says "I'm a stable influence in a child's life" like breaking someone out of prison and holding an officer of the law hostage. Where does our man Walcott fit in? He plays a patrolman. Not the kidnapped one (that would be Michael Sacks), but rather Ernie Mashburn. A minor role compared to his lead in Plan 9, to be sure, but it echoes the question first raised by Milton: is it better to be a mere follower and supporting cast member in Spielberg's movie heaven? Or to have the lead in Ed Wood's movie hell?