I Woke Up Early the Day I Died
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | I Woke Up Early the Day I Died |
| Original title | I Woke Up Early the Day I Died |
| Country of production | United States |
| Publishing year | 1998 |
| length | 84 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Aris Iliopulos |
| script | Ed Wood |
| production |
Aris Iliopulos , Billy Zane |
| music | Larry Groupé |
| camera | Michael F. Barrow |
| cut | Dody thorn |
| occupation | |
| |
I Woke Up Early The Day I Died (Alternative title: Ed Wood's the day I died , I Awoke Early the Day I Died ) is a comedy by Aris Iliopulos and Billy Zane from the year 1998 . It was based on an original screenplay by the B-movie director Ed Wood, who died in 1978 . The film has no dialogues and lives solely from the gestures and facial expressions of the actors.
action
A man (dubbed The Thief in the credits ) escapes an asylum by killing a nurse and walking out of the asylum in her clothes. But since he is too conspicuous in his clothes, he steals a suit from a clothesline and a pair of shoes from a street shop. After stealing a hot dog from a stall, he overpowers a parking lot guard and takes his gun and steals a car. He assaults a pawnbroker with a pistol. However, the man draws a gun, the thief shoots him and flees with a bag full of money. After a hair-raising escape, during which he bumps into each other with a housewife swinging a broom and her dog, among other things, he retires to a construction site and falls asleep there.
The next morning the thief finds a newspaper that reports on his attack and that the pawnbroker's employee recognized him. When he attended the funeral of the man he shot later that day, he first waited for the funeral service and then examined the coffin. In it, however, there is not the dead person, but a skeleton that is wrapped in cultic cloths. When the cemetery attendant begins to play the bagpipes in his dwelling, a pyramid-shaped crypt, the noise-sensitive thief is frightened, drops the bag with the money into the coffin, flees and finally falls into an open grave.
When the thief wakes up the next morning, he finds that the coffin and the loot have disappeared. So he goes to the cemetery keeper to look for the briefcase. However, he is caught by this and is forced to suffocate the guard with a pillow. In his files he finds the address where the coffin is now housed. There the thief finds the coffin and bag, but the money was stolen from it. Angry about this, the thief destroys some coffins, which calls the undertaker and his assistants to the scene. But the thief manages to escape and take a list with the addresses of the mourners.
First on the list is stripper Sandy Sands. After their show, the thief looks for her in her locker room and kills her because she starts screaming. Next on the list is alcoholic Tom Morris. The thief “persuades” him with the help of a bottle of alcohol to let him into his apartment (which only consists of cardboard boxes). When he doesn't find anything there either, he sets Morris on fire in his rage, whereupon it burns. After another chase with the police, the thief drives to Maylinda Austed, who lives in a house with an integrated lighthouse. After destroying all the picture frames in the house in search of the money, the deaf Austed notices him and kicks him at him. After the thief is on the ground, Austed flees to the roof of their house. But the thief follows her and throws her down (accompanied by music from Psycho ).
Since it has now become night, the thief goes to a shabby dump to spend the night there. After paying and moving into his room, the landlord sends a prostitute to his room who tries to rob him. When the thief realizes this, he throws her out and begins to cry. When he hears bagpipe music again, he remembers his plan to find the last one on the list, Robert Forest.
He follows his trail to a circus where Forest works as an art shooter. The thief tries to kill Forest with an iron bar, but with the help of the circus staff, Forest manages to drive the thief away.
The thief, pursued by the police, flees again into the pyramid of the cemetery keeper. There he hears the bagpipes again, freaks out, picks up the dead guard and the bagpipes on his shoulder and drags him across the cemetery. When he drops both of them, the bagpipes burst open and the stolen money is blown up. When the thief, overjoyed to have finally found his money, tries to catch the money, he falls backwards into a grave and breaks his neck. Two police officers later find him there.
Film bug
- When the thief initially gives the nurse the injection, one can clearly see that the arm into which he is injecting the poison is made of plastic.
- When the thief escapes from the hospital, you can see the cameraman's feet and a microphone in the picture.
- The time of day and night as well as the costumes change from scene to scene.
- Some scenes are clearly cut into the film from other films (mostly in black and white).
- A scene in which the thief throws away a newspaper is played back twice in a row.
- In the cemetery you can hear the sounds of monkeys and elephants.
criticism
“A film with excellent and prominent cast in the smallest supporting roles, but which is clearly shaped by the handwriting of its author. Subtle black humor and nonsense alternate, so that - depending on the point of view - cult or absolute nonsense is offered. "
backgrounds
- The film was released exactly 20 years after Ed Wood's death.
- During the film, excerpts from the script that describe the current film situation appear occasionally.
- Maila Nurmi (known as Vampira), who starred in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space , makes a brief appearance in the dump where she calmly lays cards while the thief negotiates with the landlord.
- The film intentionally uses many of the cinematographic errors that were a trademark of Ed Wood (see section on cinematographic errors ).
- Since the distributor of the film had to file for bankruptcy, the film only made it to a German video release worldwide. Therefore all texts in the film are in German. However, it was not planned as a direct-to-video production .