Arguably Tim Burton’s masterpiece, ED WOOD (1994), contains this wonderful moment with the shoestring director filming Bela Lugosi versus a limp octopus for his epic BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Besides Johny Depp’s giddy portrayal and Martin Landau’s towering performance — one of the greatest in film history — the scene captures the serio-comic tragedy of Hollywood’s back stages; a proud actor struggling with his career as well as a giant rubber squid. It’s a poignant representation of the silver screen paradox, as is the whole amazing movie.
Landau really nails this sequence because less than ten years earlier, he was starring in a series of low budget (but not uninteresting) horror films such as WITHOUT WARNING and ALONE IN THE DARK. His screaming grapple with the octopus reduces me to tears of laughter, but Burton’s stark, objective staging invokes empathy for Lugosi in his monster movie twilight.
Technicolor Dreams 