Glen o Glenda

Like in "plan nine outer space" ,Ed Wood tries to put a message across in his film.In his sci-fi flick,he made his E.T. blame the human race for their self-destruction :it was not unlike Robert Wise's "the day the earth stood still" and not more naive than the latter.The main difference lies in the fact that Wood had a shoestring budget with his cardboard flying saucers and his shower curtain in the "plane"

"Glen or Glenda" is anything but stupid.Just tell me the name of a director (in the USA or elsewhere) who dared to treat such a taboo subject: the transvestites -not necessarily homosexual- and even the transsexuals.His film ,with voice over galore,although dated today of course was a plea for tolerance.The fact that Ed Wood himself used to dress himself as a woman (see Tim Burton's eponymous movie) is proof positive that he knows what he is taking about.

Bela Lugosi's part,on the other hand,gets in the way.Is he a scientist? a puppeteer who plays with humans? or "simply" God Himself?(do not laugh at him!when Agnes Varda ,an intellectual director of the notorious French Nouvelle Vague , films such drivel ("les Creatures",1966) ,the highbrows praise her to the skies )

Despite ludicrous special effects ,terrible acting and poor lines,Ed Wood's film is anything but derivative.

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. Wood saw newsreels about Christine Jorgenson (the subject of the first sex-change operation), realized that he had a few things in common with Jorgenson, and made this... um... documentary about it. Lugosi plays, as always, a mad scientist, whose storyline barely ties in with the rest of the movie. Wood himself pseudonymously plays Glen, who enjoys dressing up in angora sweaters. Two policemen investigate Glen's apparent suicide, and... well, the plot sort of lost me between Lugosi's bizarre rants, the stock footage of buffalo herds and the elementary-school-filmstrip-quality acting. It really doesn't make any sense, but it is entertaining by virtue of its profound awfulness.

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.

Surprisingly, the movie's neither good nor bad-- it just doesn't register on the conventional spectrum. Instead it's just plain weird, terminally weird. It's like a highschool hygiene lecture wrapped in soft porno, all tossed into a surrealist dream. Really, Wood had all the guts in the world to lecture a 1950's audience on the subtleties of gender bending. That part is genuinely informative and worth a salute. I also liked the soft porn with the squirming girls in semi-undress. But I'm still wondering how that got released in 1953. Then there's Lugosi sitting in some corner of the surrealist universe, telling us to "Bevare of puppy dog tails…" and other hammy nonsense. I figure he was added for marquee value since the rest of the cast are a bunch of unknowns. But what's this thing Wood has for lightning bolts. It's like he says, "Stop the action, it's time for a lightning bolt", and makes just about that much sense. One thing for sure—you never know what's coming next. It might be a stampede of buffalo or a stroll down Ventura Blvd. in drag. And, my gosh, Wood (Glen and Glenda) looks so normal, you'd never guess he makes Salvador Dali seem absolutely conventional. I don't know what part of planet Wacko Wood hails from, but I do know it's no part of the known universe. Nonetheless, here's a fuzzy angora Oscar to Wood for just plain weirdness.

As probably many other viewers I decided to see "Glen or Glenda" to verify if it's really what was hinted in the brilliant biographical "Ed Wood". And indeed, I stared with my mouth open at Bela Lugosi's recitations and the random buffalo scene. It was all there. Some honestly unintended avant-garde.

Yet the movie is not half as bad as the legend holds it. The important fact is that it isn't an actual story, it's more of a semi-documentary, party educational picture. Behind the really weird editing the movie tells a lot about transvestitism, transsexualism, relationships, sexual identity and social roles. It's hard to believe that it was made in early 1950s! Not only it was produced significantly before the so called "sexual revolution" of the '60s, but also certain gender issues that were carefully covered in the movie seem to be still beyond the understanding of certain narrow-minded and prejudiced people today.

I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to get to know Edward Wood and his work and also to people interested in the history of approach to gender studies and the society.