Glen or Glenda? (1953)

 Edward D. Wood Jr. is widely remembered as one of, if not the worst, film directors in movie history. This reputation is heavily buttressed by Tim Burton's loving 1994 bio-pic 'Ed Wood', but rests principly on the extremely low budget 1959 aliens and the undead disaster that is 'Plan 9 from Outer Space'. Next to 'Plan 9' Wood's best remeberd bad movie would probably have to be 1953's 'Glen or Glenda?'.

Produced for "Z movie" icon and road show king George Weiss, 'Glen or Glenda?' is a film about cross dressing, transvestitism, hermaphrodites, and transexualism. While treated with unusual ernestness by writer/director/star Wood, himself a cross dresser, the film is a plea for tolereance that surely reasonates better now then it did in the early 1950's. So while the film is ahead of its time in some ways, like its plea for tolerance, it is also retrograde in others, Glen's crossdressing is attributed to a displacement disorder caused by a childhood with unloving parents, and as something that can (and probably should) be cured.

Setting aside the socio psychological aspects of the picture and their relative merits or lack there of, 'Glend or Glenda?' is a mess of a movie. It is explotation in a quasi-documtery disguise, a common approach for films of the 30's to 60's that wanted to discuss socially stigmatized sexual topics. It has dueling narritives devices, Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist torturing Glen's subsconcince, and a progressive doctor using him as an example in explaining trans issues to a police detective troubled by the suicide of a crossdresser.

The film makes heavy use of stock footage, presumably to create an illusion of production value. There are odd digressions and asides such as a discussion of men's vs women's hats, and a dream sequence featuring some borderline lesbian S&M. 

While the film is called 'Glen or Glenda?' that is not the only example explored. Glen has a cross dressing friend who councils him to tell his fiance (played by Wood's real life girlfriend at the time Dolores Fuller) about his other self before marrying, the friend made the mistake of not telling his beloved and it cost him his marriage. Also towards the end of the picture a separate story of an "Alan or Alice" is presented, this person, a World War II vet, does undergo "sex change surgery", but turns out to have been a hermaphrodite the whole time so the audiance is given permission to think this is okay.

It should probably be pointed out that the film repeatedly explains that cross dressing and homosexuality are not the same thing, and that most cross dressers are heterosexual. The film implies but does not state an opposition to homosexuality, which may indicate anti homosexual vews on the part of the film makers, or may just be a concession to the time.

A truly strange film, a bizarre cinematic artifact, it's legit entertaining and only 65 minutes long, so as Bela Lugosi's mad doctor character would say "pull the string" and give it a watch if your interested. The film is in the public domain. Full of odd, occasionally repeated dialouge, bizarre editing choices, and a cameo appearance by the devil himself. I kinda liked it. **