Edward D. Wood Jr. has long been called "the world's worst movie director," a label which perhaps has been great for getting him and his films posthumous recognition, but is most assuredly not true. The poor guy died alcoholic and impoverished in 1978, about two years before his movies started to find audiences again, audiences that were entertained by his penchant for weird dialogue, off-kilter editing rhythms, peculiar performers, and crackpot plotlines that were half-dream, half pulp fiction.

I was feeling blue the other day and picked up a budget two-disc set called The Ed Wood Collection, A Salute to Incompetence, on a label called Passport Video. I thought the subtitle was on the cruel side, since for all his so-called "incompetence" he managed to write and direct movies that people are still enjoying almost thirty years after his death. Truly "bad" movies are boring, and Wood's are not. So for ten bucks I got six movies and bits of interviews about Wood and his circle. I figured it might cheer me up to see Bela Lugosi in Wood's Bride of the Monster, which is always good for a chuckle or two.

I have to say that Bride of the Monster, which is about Lugosi trying to create a race of "atomic supermen" in his laboratory with the help of his barefoot assistant "Lobo," perked up my spirits with its general silliness. Lugosi is fun to watch, never for a moment slumming in his standard mad doctor role, and it's enjoyable also to see the rest of the cast gamely go about their business. There is of course an important plot element involving angora, for which Wood had a fetish, and the actresses also wear those sexy 50s bullet bras under their blouses.

I felt so much better after watching Bride that I stayed on to watch Jailbait, which is about a criminal getting plastic surgery so he can elude the police. The only "jailbait" in the film are the guns that thugs illegally carry, risking arrest. Once again, threadbare sets, dialogue that seems to recall older and better movies even as it assumes a Woodian ring of its own, and an interesting cast of actors including old Hollywood pro Lyle Talbot, a young pre-Hercules Steve Reeves, and Wood's then-girlfriend Dolores Fuller, made Jailbait a diverting viewing experience. The ending of the movie, for example, is supposed to be a surprise, but it is so telegraphed that its lack of surprise almost becomes a bizarre asset, as you savor Wood's delight in thinking his O. Henry twist really couldn't be foreseen. Wood seems to have loved the movies of his youth in the 30s so much that all he really wanted to do was make them again himself, so films like Jailbait and Bride of the Monster, in imitating the old styles and scenes of 1930s Hollywood, seem older than when they were actually made, the 1950s. Or maybe they're the first examples of "retro" culture in the cinema?

I've seen some of the greatest films ever made and I appreciate them. For example, the night before I treated myself to a repeat viewing of Akira Kurosawa's 1960 samurai classic Yojimbo. But although I wouldn't class Wood with Kurosawa, I will say he is as much a solid part of our world film heritage as the late "emperor" of the Japanese cinema is. They both clearly loved the medium in which they worked, and a love for filmmaking is one of the things that motivates and makes their films memorable.

True, Kurosawa's films challenge us, while Ed Wood's are perhaps more comfort food. So what? Nobody can subsist on filet mignon alone.