This movie was exactly what would be expected of an Ed Wood film. In todays standard it would be considered a terrible movie but there is something intriguing about this movie that keeps you confused and entertained.
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skmarine25 October 2019
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Benedict0216 January 2018First off, Bela Lugosi has an eerily wonderful portrayal of the "Scientist" i was always left waiting for his next scene.
The films score is fantastic, the music really helps set the scene, especially during silent scenes.
Ed Wood has a very emotional portray of both sides of his character, the film is still relevant in today's society as Wood's beliefs are rarely found. His message is emotional at times and the film never fails to catch your attention or entertain.
Certainly not Wood's best movie but one that has a more visible, deeper meaning. -
This movie is so ineptly made, that it winds up being great. If you have seen the movie "Ed Wood" then with "Glen or Glenda" you can see how idiotic Ed Wood really was and how well "Ed Wood" captured the essence of his films. Crossdressing was undoubtedly dear to Ed's heart and with "Glen or Glenda" he was trying to make an important statement about it. However, even if he had been competent enough to manage that, I doubt that 1953 was ready for any statement about crossdressing. The film is so badly made that it's a hoot! Definitely a lot of entertainment value in this one even if it is a colossal failure. For a better made commentary on crossdressing, which is also quite entertaining, watch "Ma Vie en Rose".
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Infofreak1 June 2003Ever since Tim Burton's wonderful 'Ed Wood' raised Ed Wood Jr's profile and made his seriously bent movies movies better known than they have ever been, some cult movie fans have gotten their noses out of joint. Wood's reputation as the worst director ever pushes some buffs buttons as it marginalizes already marginalized film makers like Ray Dennis Steckler, Ted V. Mikels, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Al Adamson and other "so bad it's good" directors. I leave more knowledgeable fans than me to argue over who REALLY is the worst, but there's no denying that Wood's movies are quite unlike anything made before or since. 'Glen Or Glenda' is his best movie, or if the term "best" misleads, his Ed Woodest. I've lost track of how many times I've seen it over the years but it never loses its power to amuse and astound. Every single time I watch it I am flabbergasted! It literally has to be seen to be believed. Wood plays the title character, a man wrestling with his transvestitism. His girlfriend is played by Dolores Fuller, the cop by Lyle Talbot, the psychiatrist by Timothy Farrell, all three familiar faces from other Wood classics like 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' and 'Jail Bait'. But the real reason to watch this is the utterly bizarre performance from horror legend Bela Lugosi, credited on the version I watched as "scientist", and on the IMDb as "The Spirit", who may or may not be God. His rantings of "Pull the strings! Pull the strings!" and nonsensical stuff about "Green dragons" and "puppy dog tails" will stay in your head for YEARS, if not for the rest of your life! Wood intercuts this with nutty stock footage like buffalo stampedes, and one of the most wacked out nightmare sequences ever seen, which includes lots of chubby gals in states of undress, some S and M, and and an appearance by Satan. Believe the hype - everything you've heard about this one is true! Fifty years on it's STILL one of the weirdest movies ever made. If you haven't seen 'Glen Or Glenda' you just don't know what you're missing!
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ironhorse_iv19 January 2013For the 1950's Edward Wood was incredibly brave to make this movie about transvestites and sex change - dealing with two taboo subjects. It was made with real passion by someone who understood the issue, but it can be quite off the wall and dull, but its a hell of a lot more intelligent than a lot of the rubbish made today and costing millions of dollars to make. The opening message of Glen or Glenda reminds me of the opening message of Tod Browning's classic 1932 horror film Freaks. The first part of the film begins with a narrator (Bela Lugosi) making cryptic comments about humanity. In a way, Bela Lugosi plays the creator, watching the people moving by their own, making their own decisions. "Pull the Strings' meant everyone (puppeteer) is the master of their own destiny (puppets), by pulling the strings so as to control your destiny and bring it wherever you want it to be. These theological ruminations Ed Wood gives us are right up there with Ingmar Bergman's greatest films on the purpose of life and faith in our world. Edward Wood wanted to keep it open to religions who don't believe in the commonly accepted "God", or do not call their god(s) "God". "The Creator" is an umbrella term that doesn't offend any particular religion or belief set, nor does it truly suggest religion in the first place ("The Creator" could be anybody or anything). This way, he doesn't directly accuse religion for people not accepting transsexualism and transvestism, rather he accuses people's stubbornness. The Bela Lugosi portions of the movie seem like such an afterthought to the central story, which is too bad considering that they are also the most compelling. He put Bela in the film, because, at the time, the old man was sick, addicted to drugs, and badly in need of money, and he loved Lugosi so he tried to help him whenever he could. Sadly Bela wasn't in any shape to memorize the ingredients for an ice cube, let alone a movie script, even a bad one. The lines were feed to him, but some lines still didn't match what was being produce half of the scenes (Bisons running around in stock-footage is a example). Maybe a example of not being trampled by life or others. Another one is 'The Dragon at the doorstep' is maybe the mockery, people must fight against to be what he wants to be. Puppy dog tails and big fat snails are the transvestites of the world getting eaten (destroyed) by the Dragon, (mockery from people). The examples of people excuse for sex change, intro-cut with having cars and planes are just out there. This film has artistic merit to it with those lines. With Bela on film, the audience has a hard time figuring out who is the true narrator, due to another narrator later in the film. So it's felt like a story within a story. This part seem like a horror film, while the rest of the film seems like one of those "better ways towards clean living" type of short films made in the fifties that they showed to kids in school, only instead of promoting personal hygiene, this one is showing you how to justify your life as a transvestite.The film proper opens with Inspector Warren finding the corpse of a male transvestite named Patrick/Patricia, who has committed suicide. Wanting to know more about cross-dressing, Warren seeks out Dr. Alton, who narrates for him the story of Glen/Glenda and the viewers. Ed Wood himself was a transvestite playing Glen under the pseudonym 'Daniel Davis'. Glen is shown studying women's clothes in a shop window. Dr. Alton points out that men's clothes are dull and restrictive, whereas women can adorn themselves with attractive clothing with outrageous/ bizarre claims. Women's clothes comfy? In the days of the Iron Bra and the panty girdle? Glen is getting married to Barbara (Ed's real life girlfriend Dolores Fuller) who questioning if Glen is with another woman. Glen is being force to admit to Barbara about his wanting to wear women clothing. A bizarre dream sequence, containing some BDSM pornography, follows with Satan. Not really need. It ruins the film. Glen then decides to tell Barbara the truth. She proffers her angora sweater as a sign of acceptance. The second part of the story about Alan/ Annie is a letdown, not worth noting. The acting is quite poor, with different actors you can spot Ed Wood's trademark dialogue style.It's this type of pseudo-intellectual verbal non-stop talk that erupts from their mouths for no reason at all. Much like a person reading a book out-loud; there is an unnaturalness to it because we know, deep down in the depths of the human mind, that humans, such as us, do not talk like characters in a audio book. The random shots of things, like dramatic radiator are just odd to be in the film. Looking through the opening "credits," it included a "Music Consultant," rather than "composer," or "director." I have no idea what a "consultant" would be needed for, unless the music he used in this movie was canned or public domain. Found out it's the old theme song as the old Lassie TV show. The dub lines in post-production is funny. That phony "granny voice" is one thing that's laughable. Unfortunately the film doesn't broach the subject that gender Diaspora & transvestism aren't the same thing. Ed Wood who was probably a very nice man, but a not that good film maker. Working with what he had on a low budget, with a script he had to write in less than 2 days with production starting not long after- to say this was horrible is a understatement. It wasn't that bad. It actually seems pretty progressive for 1953. Rather watch a flaw film made with lots of enthusiasm than a mundane manufactured movie anyday. Just my opinion.
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Tobias_R30 September 2006I agree with one commentator who says that it's really impossible to review Glen or Glenda? objectively. If one does so, the film on its merits would have to be rated as fairly terrible given the hilarious, convoluted dialog, the generally mediocre to poor acting by the cast as well as the zero production values. Yet, such an assessment does not capture the absolutely riveting experience of watching this film as it unfolds. It isn't the fact that the subject of the film is transvestitism and that it was a controversial lifestyle choice in the 1950s. It's not even the plea for tolerance of people who embrace alternate life choices that fascinates except as an historic relic.
No, what makes Glen or Glenda? still a fascinating film after 50 years is that Ed Wood laid his psyche bare in a way that so-called auteur directors like Hitchcock or Godard, despite their vastly superior talents, never did. In Glen or Glenda, Wood isn't afraid to reveal his own deeply conflicted feelings about being a transvestite despite the plea for tolerance for it through out the film. Indeed, the conclusion of the film suggest that Ed Wood's Glen character will be able to "kill" his Glenda female counterpart by transferring the feelings of love and affection Glen has for his feminine counterpart to his future wife, Barbara. The psychiatrist even reassures Glen and Barbara that as Glen makes that psychic transference, Glenda will disappear. So, while Wood could plead for tolerance of transvestites in general, he wasn't so sure of desiring it for himself.
Moreover, Wood wasn't afraid of throwing everything else that crossed his mind on the screen. He did it with whatever stock footage he could get his hands on. If it didn't cohere, so what? What the viewer saw in Glen or Glenda especially was Ed Wood's imaginative world in all of its fundamental strangeness.
The only comment I wish to add to my comment above is that my two-star rating is based solely on the objective evaluation criteria cited in the first paragraph. The oddly memeric effect the film has despite its technically atrocious qualities I don't think can be rated. -
gizmomogwai23 November 2013I had a particularly masochistic day today, watching both Manos: The Hands of Fate and Glen or Glenda, both of which have at some point been claimed to be the Worst Movie Ever. Watching both movies in one day made Glen or Glenda look good by comparison, but it is, by itself, one of the most bewildering movies I've seen.
I say this not because of its pleas for tolerance in gender matters. That might have seemed odder in the '50s, when homophobia was more mainstream. We've since moved on to debating whether gays can marry. What's really striking about this movie, rather, is the extended surreal dream sequences and the inexplicable narration of Bela Lugosi. Throw Satan in there! Why not? A herd of buffalo stampeding below Lugosi? Why not? Being trampled by the herd would symbolize being run over by society for an urge to cross-dress, wouldn't it? Symbolism! Except the symbolism goes on way too long, one sensing in an effort by Ed Wood to drag his movie over the 60-minute mark. Eventually, it becomes incomprehensible.
And what of that narration? Bela Lugosi, "the Scientist," is kind of like a half-scientist, half-god character, who's also dark. He has skeletons around him for some reason. He says sinister things. Who or what is he? At the same time, a doctor is telling a police officer about Glen and Glenda. I'm reminded of the Nostalgia Critic's criticism of Rock-A-Doodle- who in god's name is telling the story? "The Scientist" or the doctor?
You can find some elements of this style in a movie like Ingmar Bergman's Persona- random flashing of unpleasant things, apparent dream sequences, a kind of god-like "narration" (a boy watching a TV), but that movie was competently done. Glen or Glenda becomes a giant non sequitur- not the worst movie ever, but worth quite the WTF? -
bsmith555210 July 2007"Glen or Glenda" was Edward D. Wood Jr's first attempt at directing a feature film. For this he chose a topic near and dear to his heart...transvestism, the "art" of a man wanting to dress in women's clothes. To his credit, Wood tried to deal with subject matter that was largely taboo in 1953. Unfortunately, Wood had neither the budget nor the know how to make the film.
The story opens with a prologue by Bela Lugosi that makes little sense and then moves to the discovery of a dead transvestite Glen/Glenda (Daniel Davis aka Ed Wood). Inspector Warren (Lyle Talbot) with the help of psychiatrist Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell) tries to understand why a man would want to live (and die) this way.
Glen is engaged to Barbara (Dolores Fuller) and is reluctant to tell her of his obsession. And that's it. We see endless stock footage shots of anything from freeway traffic to soldiers landing on the beach, interspersed with shots of Wood walking down the same street dressed as either Glen or Glenda and looking longingly at women's clothes in a store window. Poor old Bela, who was down on his luck and befriended by Wood, keeps popping in throughout the story. I'm not 100% sure but I think Bela's scenes were added for his name value after the body of the movie was completed.
To add to the confusion of Lugosi's narration, Farrell as Dr. Alton also provides off screen narration. Lugosi keeps saying, bevare, bevare...take care, take care, as well as, some gibberish about snakes and snails and puppy dog's tails.
The story also deals with a transvestite who has a successful sex change operation and tries to explain the difference between that person and Wood's character(s). The dream sequences are laughable. A wedding sequence in which someone dressed as the devil appears is a good example. Wood also gives us an apparent rape scene with the actors(?) fully clothed but leaving little to the imagination, risqué for 1953.
This film along with Wood's other "classics" were so bad that they became embraced by the public as cult classics over the years. For that reason, they have survived to this day. -
Hey_Sweden6 February 2021Edward D. Wood Jr., a filmmaker renowned for his lack of finesse or panache, nonetheless created films that have a compulsive watchability about them. Here, he indulges in a heartfelt plea for acceptance as he explores the male fetish of dressing in women's clothing. A psychiatrist (Timothy Farrell) relates to a police inspector (Lyle Talbot) two stories, the primary one being that of Glen (Wood, acting under a pseudonym), who needs to work up the courage to tell his fiancee (Dolores Fuller, Woods' real-life squeeze at the time) that he'd like to wear her outfits. Meanwhile, a demented old scientist (star attraction Bela Lugosi) sits in an Old Dark House, forever uttering things like "Pull ze string!", "Bevare!", and "A new life has begun!"
I'll give Wood some credit here: for whatever slickness he did not possess, he makes this classic B as artful as he can make it. Granted, it fades a little in the stretch, with a bit too much padding, but "Glen or Glenda" is overall an interesting oddity, an appealing mix of the sincere and the sordid. It attempts to shine light on males with different inclinations (including a kid who is referred to as a "pseudohermaphrodite") and implores that the viewer not judge these characters until they hear their whole stories. And they do have back stories that offer some insight into why they grew up the way they did.
Going in, most people know to expect less-than-stellar acting in a Wood epic, although the cast, up to and including Wood himself, do earn points for earnestness. Lugosi is just a total hoot, and seems to delight in some of these quotes that he utters. He has one great moment early on during use of split screen where he comments on denizens of an unnamed city and their lives.
There is nothing quite like an Ed Wood film; while they may not be considered "good" by most peoples' standards, they have an unmistakable, quirky charm.
Five out of 10. -
Call me deranged, but I feel there's a little more worth to this movie than it is mostly given. Ed Wood's infamy in the film world leads to a particular form of expectation in cult circuits that sometimes gives prejudice in places where it's not due (though I'm not going to argue that Plan 9 from Outer Space isn't terrible... I'll write a review of that one next), but I think Glen or Glenda? shows that there may be a lot from Wood we're taking for granted.
Not to say this is a good, or even great, film by any means. It's real problem lies in the fact that despite Ed Wood's own well-noted transvestitism, this movie was made in a time when such issues were taboo enough to be misunderstood even by those who "suffered" from it. Glen or Glenda? is Ed Wood's personal journey into his own double-life, which involves, among other things, questioning woman's role in society, gender politics, and psychoanalysis. The absurd and random cutting through different viewpoints, narratives, and devices actually work FOR Wood's own confusion... the movie itself is as schizophrenic as people's opinions about the subject the movie is portraying.
The second real reason why Glen or Glenda? fails simply has to do with the horror genre itself. Wood uses horror tropes to express himself, when this movie would be a lot more successful as a drama with most of the same dialog... though nothing changes the fact that the dialog could have been delivered much better. Bela Lugosi's role especially stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the film, which at times goes through documentary or cinema verite-like, melodramatic, war, and psychoanalytical concepts at a dizzying pace. Actually, as I see it, Lugosi's character is comparable to The Man in the Planet from Eraserhead or the Emcee from Cabaret, a separate, somewhat metaphysical entity that comments in its own way upon the more diegetic elements of the rest of the film.
Otherwise, despite a very vague sense of misogyny, Glen or Glenda? is remarkably successful at detailing the anxiety and confusion felt by transvestites of various personalities. It's not-so-subtle arguments for transvestism are laughable, but they're more reasonable than I think many people are willing to admit. Had this movie been done by more capable hands, it could have become an immensely important document, but on another level Wood's own campy quality reflects the sort of underground sentiment and misassociation inherent in its own subject matter.
--PolarisDiB -
Sterno-28 May 2000Bela Lugosi as God? Transvestites discussed in a movie in the straight-laced 1950s? By golly, this must be an Ed Wood film.
Watching this movie, I felt a combination of guilt, pleasure, and nausea all at the same time. The story is about Glen (Ed Wood himself) and his cross-dressing alter-ego Glenda. Somehow, if this movie were made now, I could see Kevin Kline playing Glen/Glenda. Notice how all the cross-dressers' alter egos are versions of their male name (Glen/Glenda, Robert/Roberta, etc.). It attempts to sympathetically portray it as the mental disorder that it is, rather than as a graphic perversion.
Somehow, Wood manages to sneak in bondage and S&M sequences into his initial story of Glen/Glenda. Along with these racy scenes, Satan himself shows up, obviously having a bad hair day. The dialog and pace are nonexistent, but the film is enjoyable in its context -- the weird world of Ed Wood.
Sterno says put on your favorite lace panties for this one. -
Ed Wood was one of the greatest moviemakers in film history. Could he direct? Not really. Were his movies technical masterpieces? Could his actors act? Did he have huge budgets? No. We're here fifty years later, talking about him, because he created worlds on film nobody had ever seen before or since. His characters talked like nobody we've ever heard before (though there are strong echoes in the works of Hartley and Lynch). And unlike every Hollywood movie ever made, Ed ripped open his heart and poured it out on the screen. Never more so than in "Glen Or Glenda," his original avant-garde masterpiece.
Avant-garde? You heard me. What is the definition of avant-garde film? Some attributes are unconventional narrative, unique visual style, radical rejection of artistic or social norms, an often willful disregard for reality. Gloria Floren said "Avant-garde films are often iconoclastic, mocking conventional morality and traditional values; the filmmaker's intense interest in eccentricities and extremes may shock viewers. Indeed, the avant-garde film maker's purpose may be to wake or shake up the audience from the stupor of ordinary consciousness or the doldrums of conventional perspective."
Imagine if people viewed "Un Chien Andalou" or "Meshes Of The Afternoon" or "Eraserhead" with fratboy derision instead of holy reverence. They'd be viewed as unwatchable nonsense too. Everybody'd have a good snark watching for continuity errors and bad camera moves. Does "Glen or Glenda" rise to the level of those classics? Time will tell, but try this experiment: watch it as if it were, and see. The results may surprise you.
Here are some hints. Lugosi is not a mad scientist--he's God, looking down upon twisted human morality and "pulling the strings". The "green eyed monster" that "eats little boys"? Envy. Envy of women and in this case, their clothes. That envy has "eaten" vast amounts of Glen's life, it's been a torture to him. There are numerous references to that torture and misery. There's also an entire section devoted to judgment--human judgment versus that reserved to God.
The "nonsensical" stock footage of buffaloes and the army? It signifies the rush of adrenaline, fear and anxiety as "Glen" tries to confront his identity and "come out" to his girlfriend. Far from random, it's actually used with ingenuity and skill.
The symbology of scenes in which "Glen" battles his female self and resists the devil should be obvious. But then again, a generous viewing of "Glen or Glenda," rather than a beer-fueled "let's watch a crap movie" viewing, would reveal a great deal. Even the campy scene at the end, when Dolores Fuller relents and gives Glen her sweater, comes with the always-missed segment where God absolves Glen of his misery. There are a dozen moments like this. Sure, there are a dozen technical flubs and random nonsense too, but all good art is organic. There's a guy wearing a Timex in "Ben-Hur," for god's sake.
The "narrator" seems comical and dated to us, but in 1953 he was standard-issue, and the lines we now take as campy were then revolutionary, almost treasonous. A plea for tolerance for sexual and gender differences? Condemning the police for arresting gays and transvestites just for existing? During the McCarthy era, when all homosexuals were presumed to be communists? A film like that is bound to make some enemies. Especially a film that featured, not actors playing "deviants," but the deviants themselves, in their own words.
It's telling that the extreme-religious-conservative Medved brothers were the ones who named Ed Wood "worst director of all time." They must have thought they were really sticking it to Ed Wood for making all those subversively weird films involving crossdressing and homosexuals and society's outcasts. Thankfully, irony remains the most powerful force in the universe, and their mean-spirited declaration made Ed Wood a household name. Whether they admit it or not, a lot of this movie's detractors are laughing at the subject, not the movie. Many others are baffled by the unconventional narrative. Just because you don't get something, doesn't mean there is nothing to get.
It's easy to give any movie the MST3K treatment, especially ones that veer into uncomfortable or seemingly absurd territory. If you're looking for the worst movie ever made, go watch "Armageddon" or "Crossroads." If you're looking for THE pioneering moment in GLBT film history, the greatest and most underrated American DIY avante-garde feature of its time, or an experience that just might change the way you view movies and the world at large, start right here. -
Now don't get me wrong; this film is truly loaded with all sorts of hilarious moments owing to Wood's bizarre and inept filmmaking. Moments including; baffling dialogue, poor acting, disjointed editing, hella stock footage, confusing sequences, and times where I'm really not sure what's happening at all.
But, after watching "Plan 9" first and being kinda bored at some points, I was surprised to find this was not the case at all with "Glen Or Glenda". I was engaged throughout the entire film and also found it to be a much funnier experience than I my first time watching "Plan 9".
Also, at more than one point through the runtime, I genuinely felt empathy for Wood himself and his plight regarding his own transvestism as depicted in the film. It was genuinely touching and I honestly look forward to seeing this film again.
I dare say this could potentially become a kind of favourite of mine in a way. But for reasons unlike any for any other film I would consider a favourite. It's safe to say I would actually recommend this film, whereas I wouldn't as readily recommend "Plan 9". -
TOMASBBloodhound3 February 2016Over half a century before Bruce Jenner decided to step out as a woman, Edward D. Wood Jr. came out with this daring, yet incompetently filmed would-be documentary about cross-dressing and sex changes. Wood, a notorious cross-dresser, insisted he was the perfect director for this subject, and with a budget smaller than the amount of change in a normal person's couch cushions, he sort of made a little movie about these themes. At just over an hour, this hodgepodge of stock footage, poorly written and acted scenes, odd fantasy sequences, and old Bela Lugosi rambling on about life and death is truly a finished product that defies a typical synopsis. "Pull the stringk!!" Lugosi shouts, and he theoretically represents some sort of a puppet master presiding over the human condition.
Though Wood should be applauded for his courage in dealing with these subjects, one cannot forgive the incredible ineptitude with which this thing was thrown together. Some of its more interesting and racy moments were apparently thrown in post-production by the producer who obviously wasn't expecting any attempt at a thoughtful documentary from his director. The dramatic scenes deal with a young man (played by Wood under the pseudonym Daniel Davis) engaged to be married, but he's hiding a huge secret. The man loves to wear women's clothing, particularly angora sweaters! Should he tell his fiancée? How should he tell her? What if she doesn't want to marry a guy like that? The horrors! The scenes dealing directly with this plot make up about a third on the screen time. The biggest chunk of time has a doctor narrating about the differences between transvestites/homosexuals/hermaphrodites among many other things while at the same time explaining them to a police detective. It is in these scenes where some of the most laughable use of stock footage ever can be found. The funniest is perhaps where Wood has inserted footage of a steel mill and two off-screen blue collar types are talking about transsexuals while railroad rails are being forged out of molten steel and sparks are crashing all around! Other random shots of traffic and stampeding buffalo are thrown in. There is a suggestion that some random guy changing a light bulb in a rail yard might be wearing pink satin panties or something... hilarious!! The fantasy scenes go on for about 15 minutes, and make very little sense.
Finally, we see the story of a WWII veteran who goes through a sex change. I'm sure they thought this was graphic back then, but its mostly a shot of doctors looking down at the patient while the narration explains in very general terms what is taking place. And the WWII veteran angle only gives Wood even more chances to throw in stock footage of soldiers in battle. The film's conclusion would probably not satisfy the militant LBGT (or is it LGBT?) community of today. It seems the doctor thinks and recommends that the young transvestite man can somehow be cured from his fetish, but I forgot how. Somehow his wife ends up taking the place of Glenda (his cross- dressing alter-ego) and they live happily ever after. Whatever. Anyway, give Wood some serious props for attempting to take a thoughtful look at trans-gender and transvestite issues at a time when they were probably only hinted at within the moldy pages of dime detective novels. 4 of 10 stars.
The Hound -
I am a huge fan of Ed, after seeing "Ed Wood", and I have since bought the book "Nightmare of Ecstacy". Also, I bought all of the films that he had made that I could get my hands on.
Like it or not, "Glen Or Glenda" was a landmark film!
This particular film was made WAY AHEAD of it's time!! While I was first watching Tim Burton's fantastic film, recreating the making of "Glen Or Glenda", I noticed that there were things in it that seemed rather familiar to me, even after 30+ years have passed, and that is what partly interested me in looking into both the book, and Ed Wood's films. What I discovered was, I had seen this film when I was in GRADE SCHOOL!!
After viewing the REAL "Glen OR Glenda" film, I realized that I had had seen this exact same film before, although heavily edited!
It was shown as a part of our sex-ed class!! I can hardly believe it that they showed us this back then, but they did. No
thanks to the school I went to, and the horribly incompetent teachers, but they did show it!
Now, fast forward to today, the reason for all of the extra scenes near the end of the film, such as the 'Devil' sequences, and the rest of the rather abstract looking scenes, were not originally part of the screenplay. Those scenes (baffling and dumbfounding), were NOT part of the film as Ed had written. His script left the running time short of what George Weiss had told him he wanted, a 7 reel, 16MM film, which was what he needed to sell it. A 16MM reel runs about 10 minutes, and George needed a 70 minute film (at least), because he pre-sold it in several states as a "Feature", before he actually found out what it really was. He wasn't too pleased with what Ed had made, but he was able to distribute it to his clients, after all of the extraneous material was added at the end. George did eventually make his money back, and he and Ed worked on a couple of other projects, unlike what is shown in the "Ed Wood" film.
Even today, though, I think that this film was made way before it's time, and Ed Wood should deserve some credit for trying to bring a sense of understanding to what was then a totally misunderstood way of life for a select few. -
Lechuguilla25 December 2006Sitting in a big wing chair with a huge book in his lap, the one and only Bela Lugosi looks into the camera and, in a dreadful vocal delivery that sounds as if he were mocking a reading of Shakespeare, intones sloooow-ly: "Man's constant groping of things unknown, drawing from the endless reaches of time, brings to light many startling things; (snicker); startling?, because they seem new (Lugosi's eyes now bulging, with raised eyebrows, and mouth sneering, he continues) but most are not new, the signs of the ages" (cue a visual of lightening, accompanied by the sound of thunder which then continues to rumble for an astonishing 86 seconds).
And so begins what is arguably the worst film ever made. This "movie" almost defies description. Told in semi-docudrama style with an unseen narrator explaining the plot ... such as it is ... the story revolves around the vicissitudes of a man named Glen (Ed Wood, Jr.) who cross-dresses; hence the reference to Glenda. The film has no real structure. Instead, it consists mostly of a random assortment of vignettes that may ... or may not ... relate to Glen or to the cross-dressing motif. One long sequence consists of some unknown woman wriggling on a sofa, followed by a man whipping a woman in what we would today refer to as S&M.
Then, at odd moments Bela reappears, for no apparent reason, and babbles more inane dialogue, like: "When he's wrong because he does right, and when he's right because he does wrong; pull the string, dance to that." Huh?
About twenty percent of the film's visuals consist of stock footage, accompanied by a VO that relates to the story motif but not the visuals. Hence, we see stock footage of: bustling city streets, freeway traffic, a thunderous herd of buffalo, and a playground full of kids. But it gets worse. In a film about cross-dressing, we have 58 consecutive seconds of stock footage of a foundry furnace making hot steel, and 84 consecutive seconds of battle scenes from WWII.
Even the simplest items are botched. In one scene we see a newspaper headline that reads "Man Nabbed Dressed as Girl". Underneath the headline, which has clearly been glued or pasted on, the article is about ... taxes. In one of my favorite scenes, an off-screen woman spouts out: "airplanes, why it's against the creator's will", in a voice that sounds like she's just inhaled helium.
Except for the performance of Lyle Talbot, the acting is uniformly horrendous. Production design is cheap looking and drab; (but you gotta love that tacky wallpaper). The editing is sloppy. Most of the background music is suitable only for 1950 style elevators. The B&W cinematography has way too much contrast. And the costumes look like something that came from a thrift store.
This film is so bad it makes "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Citizen Kane", by comparison. I just don't know how one could make a film any worse than Ed Wood's "Glen Or Glenda". But thankfully, it's got Bela Lugosi in it. Every time he opened his mouth, and gazed into the camera with those big, bulging eyes, I about fell on the floor laughing. -
mentalcritic23 July 2006and generally speaking, you will eventually have to research this little gem. When describing I Changed My Sex, or Glen Or Glenda as it is better known, I must echo the thoughts of Andrew Smith, who so hit the nail on the head when he wrote "If you haven't seen any of Ed Wood's other movies, this one is a completely bewildering experience. If you have seen any of Ed Wood's movies, this is still completely bewildering". The film is both hilarious and tragic, yet it moves with a strange rhythm of its own that leaves one in no doubt that its author knows and means every word he is saying during its running length. Wood, bless him, had some of the loftiest ambitions as a director, wanting to promote peace, understanding, and even acceptance, in the 1950s of all times. When Tim Burton recreated a viewing of Glen Or Glenda by studio execs for his biopic, he showed the execs laughing and telling each other that this had to be a put-on. More than fifty years later, there are still people fighting just to be given the kind of respect that the "normal" take for granted, so I say it most certainly is not.
No, the real comedy in Glen Or Glenda is the sheer ineptitude Wood displays in composing his message. Directors frequently use stock footage when they can find some that suits their purposes, and can be edited to fit with their own footage. Ed Wood used stock footage indiscriminately, and Tim Burton's biopic celebrated the fact with a scene in which Wood as played by Johnny Depp bets that he could make an entire film out of stock footage. Sadly, the real Ed Wood died before he had a chance, but Glen Or Glenda is the closest he ever came. The IMDb states that twenty percent of this sixty-something minute film is stock footage, and it is never difficult to guess which footage. Footage of busy highways, planes flying overhead, poor lightning effects, soldiers doing their thing, they're all used in a haphazard manner, sometimes repeatedly, and they often only have a loose connection to the story Wood is trying to tell. Had Wood been able to sit back and think about what he is trying to do for a while, there is no telling what kind of heights he could have achieved.
Wood himself appears in the film as the titular character, a confused transvestite who imagines himself as a woman named Glenda. Aside from the daring manner in which he attempts to make his point, Wood makes one hideous woman. Having found myself out on the fringe of a society that thinks I am "disabled" and need to be "cured" myself, I honestly found myself hoping for the best outcome for Wood's character. In order to make his point, however, Wood weaves in short stories of two other transvestites. One of them takes the extreme step of enduring a sex change in order to become a woman, the other finds himself so disenfranchised that he fears being arrested again so much he commits suicide. The scary thing about this film is that if you edited out the transvestism and substituted such disenfranchisements as my position on the autistic spectrum or such things as schizophrenia, very little of the film would even need to be changed. That is how little society has learned since Ed Wood was a boy.
The other significant personality in Glen Or Glenda is Bela Lugosi, whom Wood shoehorned into the film. Speculation varies upon Wood's motives, but the accepted theory is that Wood wanted to help revive Lugosi's career, and would do anything in order to achieve this. With the exception of taking his time to carefully construct a good film, that is. In Glen Or Glenda, Wood makes usage of Lugosi that was best described in Flying Saucers Over Hollywood as "bizarre". Lugosi plays a character billed as The Scientist, but comes off more as an omnipotent puppet master. People who have not seen Ed Wood films before the biopic will think Tim Burton made up the "beware of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep" speech. If anything, Burton was being restrained about which bizarre speech to use in depicting Wood-ian dialogue. Nothing can prepare you for seeing the speeches in their original context, not even Criswell's hilarious ranting during Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Observant types will also note the presence of Delores Fuller, Wood's girlfriend at the time. Again, Burton dramatises her reaction to seeing the script for the first time, whereas the film portrays her as being accepting and forward-thinking. I cannot help but feel that Burton's portrayal is more accurate, as Fuller looks extremely uncomfortable in her role. She only appears for about fifteen minutes, but her delivery seems so mechanical, so lifeless, that she somehow manages to seem less talented than her cast-mates, if such a thing is possible. Whether Wood's direction was better-focused in this case than usual is hard to determine, but if the ability of the support cast to leave the stars (with the obvious exception of Bela) in the dust is any guide, then it should come as no surprise that Fuller would only appear in a very small role within one other Wood film. That she went on to write a number of hit songs tells you she made the right decision to stay behind the camera. While Wood would appear before the camera again, it was never as more than a cameo, a walk-on, or a bit-part.
I gave Glen Or Glenda a one out of ten. I generally only give this rating to films that are so bad they become entertaining as a result. Bold and well-intentioned as it was, Glen Or Glenda fits that description to a T. -
wbwolf18 February 2000First of all, Ed Wood Jr. is not the worst director ever, Plan 9 From Outer Space not withstanding. Coleman Francis deserves that title. I present Exhibit B, Glen or Glenda.
The first half of the movie consists of a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of crossdressing, especially since it was made in 1953. The last 15 minutes of movie are also not bad as well.
This is not to say the movie doesn't have problems. Bela Lugosi was totally extraneous, intoning odd lines. Poor Bela looked like even he wasn't sure what was happening at times. The acting was decidely wooden, though no worse than a period Universal B movie. The long dream sequence that makes up the middle of the film was totally bizarre; more like a vaguely menacing stag film than a dream sequence. The Alan/Ann story, the supposed original focus of the film has a tacked on quality about it.
No, Ed Wood Jr. is not the worst director ever. He was able, at least for part of this movie, to make an earnest social statement. When Coleman Francis tried to do that in Night Train To Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba), it just ended in chaos. Glen or Glenda is at least watchable without Robot help. -
Sandcooler19 November 2010When he's not using paper plate spaceships, unconvincing zombies or rubber monsters, you might wonder what the point is to Ed Wood. He made being terrible at science fiction into an art form, so it's a bit weird to see him doing a throughly non-supernatural drama, even if it is about cross-dressing. However, this movie has a trigger somewhere. At one point, all of Wood's overall weirdness becomes so irresistibly overwhelming that you just give in to it and have a great time. I'm talking about the little segment where he gets creative with the devil, tie-up games, looped dialogue and Bela Lugosi. Had David Lynch directed these scenes, well let's not go there. As for the rest of the movie: it's charming, it has a heart, it has incoherent Bela Lugosi speeches, but I can't deny it bores sometimes. The dialogues are just too long and provide little to none classic Wood lines. I mean sure, there's "pull the strink, dance to that!" but again, that's Lugosi. He's not part of the story in any way, and the actual characters are rather dull. Still worth a watch though.
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Keltic-212 February 2000I approached this movie with the understanding that it was one of the worst flicks ever made. I sat down to watch it with this mindset, and was pleasantly surprised.
It's not great. It's not even that good; in fact, it's pretty poor. However, it's not as bad as I had been led to believe, by a long shot. It's pretty inept, and, evidently as a cost cutting measure, a lot of stock footage is pressed into service, a lot of which has no apparent relation to the narrative.
What it is, however, is an intensely personal movie made by a man who evidently did not have the skills or the funding to do his idea justice. Before you discount _Glen or Glenda?_ out of hand, examine your own artistic skills. Me, I'd love to be able to draw, but anything I try to sketch comes out like stick men. I'd love to be able to sing, but all I do is frighten young children.
Wood had an idea, and unfortunately he didn't have what it takes to make it work. However, this was an incredibly daring movie for the puritan 50s, however exploitative or incoherent it may appear at first glance. -
gavin694212 February 2016A psychiatrist tells two stories: one of a transvestite (Glen or Glenda), the other of a pseudohermaphrodite (Alan or Anne).
Ed Wood is often seen as a bad director, and this is often seen as a bad film (though not his worst). As I type this, IMDb gives it a 4.4 out of 10. Not atrocious, but still low. In my opinion, much too low.
Yes, it is campy and is bloated with stock footage and scenes of Bela Lugosi that make no sense. But it also happens to be fun. And even if the science is not necessarily correct (I have my doubts about "curing" transvestites), it does have a favorable and progressive approach to gender that had to be unequaled in 1953. -
bkoganbing23 February 2012Glen Or Glenda has to rate as one of the most personal films ever done by any director, anywhere, even if that director happens to be Ed Wood. He not only wrote and directed it, he acted in it himself and told his own story of cross dressing. It's sad that Wood did not have the talent or the budget to bring this off.
As we all know now thanks to Johnny Depp's biographical portrayal of Wood that Wood liked to wear feminine attire. So given the accepted knowledge of the time, no doubt gleaned from his many visits to a psychiatrist, Wood fashioned Glen Or Glenda and gave himself the title role.
The film is done documentary style as police detective Lyle Talbot investigates the suicide of a man found dead in women's clothes. Seeking information for future encounters, Talbot meets with psychiatrist Timothy Farrell who talks about two cases of men dressing as women one of those being Glen/Glenda the other being Alan/Ann.
Knowing several transgender individuals as I do they and I both see this thing as laughable in its ignorance. Not to mention the acting and writing was on the level of a high school play. Bela Lugosi has a part in here as an overall narrator who is given to saying cryptic things in a sinister fashion that you will search in vain in trying to figure out what they mean. No one talked sinister better than Bela Lugosi, but this was Bela's first association with Wood and Wood being so happy to have a box office name of sorts for his project just shoehorned him the best way he could. Why he just wasn't playing the psychiatrist is beyond me.
Wood was a terrible actor to add to being a terrible writer and director. But he was not alone as the rest of the cast is pretty bad as well.
Yet in his own clumsy untalented way, Ed Wood was giving us a glimpse of his world and how people in general saw individuals like him in 1953. No doubt most who see this especially transgender folks will think this as bad a film as I do, but it's an incredible insight into the world of its creator. -
Maciste_Brother22 October 2003GLEN OR GLENDA is uniquely bad. Suffice it to say, one has to witness it in order to really believe it. There's almost no point of writing a sensible review of this "movie" because it's beyond wonky. It's so bad that it's almost pure genius. Bunuel couldn't have created a more surreal film than Ed Wood's treatise on the merits of cross-dressing. The "movie" is 70% stock footage or stuff that has nothing to do with the main "story." A huge chunk of the amazing dream sequence is just a nudie cutie. The "acting" is abysmal. Dolores Fuller wins the award for worst actress of all time. The dialogue is so hilarious that it's endlessly quotable. But the whole thing is oddly frank and earnest and because of this, this kooky disaster of a movie actually has a heart, which is more than you can say about most movies out there. I love it. There's almost nothing like it.
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daniel-mannouch9 August 2020Shine on you crazy D.Wood. Forget plan 9, this is the benchmark for so bad its good filmmaking. A favourite of David Lynch's as well as mine, this is Wood's most sincere and personal effort as well as his most surreal. Part informative documentary, part exploitation, part WTF extravaganza. Love it!
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GLEN OR GLENDA is a hilariously conceived mockumentary that comes to us courtesy of bad film director extraordinaire, Edward D. Wood, Jr. While not as iconic as the director's own PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, it's certainly a remarkable - and memorable - film with plenty of jaw-dropping content to see it through. It's a film that deals with the then-controversial topic of transvestism, although I'm sure the exploitational handling of the subject matter would make this offensive in these politically correct times.
GLEN OR GLENDA is a mish-mash of various sub-plots and random footage which has been edited together. There's a narrator trying to make sense of the proceedings and the stories of two different cross-dressers who are trying to come to terms with their 'problems'. When one of the characters joins the army in WW2, five minutes of stock war footage fills the screen. Elsewhere there are cops, bizarre dream sequences that offer tame stripteases, and plenty of wooden acting, not least from Wood himself who plays the titular character. My favourite part of the film involves Bela Lugosi playing a crazy scientist who sits in his study and has no interaction with other cast members. He intones various lines such as "Pull the strings!" and is a real hoot, sad as it is to see him in the midst of his drug addiction.