Are there any original ideas anymore, or are we all just recycling leftovers from years previously? While this may prompt a critique about art, it’s been the cause for great concern in the entertainment industry. Plenty of accusations have been thrown regarding stolen film ideas, with a handful of them ruining blossoming careers.

But this isn’t a new idea in Hollywood.

Ed Wood is best known for films like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) and Night of the Ghouls (1959). But in his memoir, Wood’s widow, Kathy Wood, revealed that her husband believed that he had originated the idea for what eventually became How to Make a Monster (1958). Specifically, Woods harbored a grudge against AIP producer Sam Arkoff, whom he believed stole his idea.

“All through his life, Eddie condemned Arkoff,” said Kathy Wood, according to Ed Wood: Nightmare of Ecstasy (The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.) by Rudolph Grey. “He really hated him, and he was bitterly unhappy about what happened. Eddie gave him a script on approval, and they changed the characters; they changed it a little bit around. Eddie had written it for [Bela] Lugosi; it was about this old horror actor who couldn’t get work anymore, so he took his vengeance out on the studio. The idea they took, from Eddie’s idea, was about a make-up man who takes revenge on a studio.”

Arkoff told a different story. “How to Make a Monster was Herman Cohen’s picture for us and his writer [Kenneth Langtry and Herman Cohen],” said the producer. “Let me ask a question. Where did Ed get his idea? You see, here’s the whole thing with everything: Ed probably saw a picture before How to Make a Monster, so he got the same idea, and he changed it around. That's the way everything's done in this town anyway."