Review#225: Glen or Glenda (1953)
I’ve seen Ed Wood movies before. I knew what to expect, and my expectations were met. Bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, non-existent budget. I’m all for camp. Camp is one of my middle names, and yes, of course, this movie delivers. What surprises me about this movie, what makes this movie stand out from most B movies I am used to, is how unflinchingly progressive it is for it’s time.
With the exception of some surreal sequences, like every scene with Bella Lugosi, the film feels much like an educational film. However, while many films of the time, educational or otherwise, criminalize and demonize subjects such as homosexuality and gender identity, Glen or Glenda serves as the director’s voice saying “This is what it’s like for me.”
The first third of the movie involves the life of Glen, who is a transvestite, and his fiance, as well as a doctor and a police inspector. The inspector is dealing with the suicide of a cross-dresser and the doctor is explaining transvestitism to him, becoming a narrator of sorts, explaining everything very matter-of-factly.
The middle of the film begins to get weird. We see the internal struggle of Glen, who feels he needs to tell his fiance his secret. This struggle seems like a fifteen-minute-long acid trip. A lot of elements of his conflict make sense, like how he can’t save his girl from a fallen tree while dressed as a woman. A lot of the elements are just weird, like women gyrating all over a couch and Lugosi yelling things about big green dragons on your doorstep. Why is this mad scientist talking to us about cross dressers? Yes, there is still that crappy Ed Wood feel to it all.
The last part seems like another case study, adding to the educational film feel. It tells of a man who has had a sex change, how he musty adapt, and how he must continue taking hormones all his life.
If the bizarre subject matter of this film didn’t keep it out of the mainstream, it’s poor production value did. I was not alive in 1953, but I’m guessing this movie delivered a lot of facts in a manner that no other movie did at the time. It is informative, but it’s entertainment value is not much higher than, say, Bride of the Monster or Plan 9. I mean, now that I’ve seen it, and was taken in by it’s straight-forwardness, I doubt I would be entertained by it again.