El transexual

Sympathetic look at the tragic life of cabaret singer Lorna, who was born a man but really just wants to be a woman. She meets a man who loves her but she can't tell him the truth and decides instead to get an operation so she'll be all woman. This is all framed with the plot device that Naschy is a reporter who needs a big story, and he has set his sights on an expose about transsexuals, with Lorna giving him all the inside dirt he needs. Before Lorna can deliver the goods though, she goes missing. There are endless flashbacks throughout the film ( way too many ) and almost every one of them is accompanied by a musical number from the club Lorna sang at. Painfully, nearly a third of the films' 77 min run time is devoted to these grade C musical numbers .Naschy's character Sergio doggedly tries to locate Lorna when she turns up missing, tracing her movements and slowly uncovering the answer to her whereabouts. Insert cabaret song # 4 here.... That's really all there is, it's very slow, thoroughly uninvolved and Naschy is pretty much on the sidelines ( mostly having a drink in the club watching a bad performance ). There is a little nudity, some briefer violence, ( Naschy almost gets castrated at one point ), but it's all incredibly tame, the most notable aspect is the decent way the transsexual characters are handled. The copy I watched was widescreen and begins part way through the opening credits and has been fan subbed in English. I initially thought this might be a TV broadcast, but the incomplete credits and the lack of any on screen logos seems to indicate otherwise. An interesting but mostly forgettable footnote to Naschy's filmography.