Glen or Glenda
“He Loved Women So Much, He Dared To Dress Like One!”
About Glen or Glenda
Inspector Warren asks Dr. Alton about the suicide of a transvestite, Patrick, also called Patricia. Alton tells him about Glen, played by Ed Wood under the credit Daniel Davis, who borrows a dress, hides the habit from his fiancée Barbara, and talks to a friend whose wife has already walked out. A storm knocks Glen down. After a long dream he tells Barbara, and she stays, offering her angora sweater. Alton then tells of Alan, a veteran who has surgery and lives as Ann. Between the stories Bela Lugosi, as the Scientist, speaks lines that do not follow either plot.
Cast & crew
More about Glen or Glenda
George Weiss, who also produced Test Tube Babies in 1953, wanted a picture off the Christine Jorgensen headlines. She turned the job down. Wood shot the film in four days. Weiss later cut in striptease and bondage scenes, taking a 65-minute cut to 71. Screen Classics distributed it.
Themes
Background
Christine Jorgensen’s surgery was national news in the United States in 1952. Weiss ordered an exploitation film that could be sold on that name. The picture went out through Screen Classics, not a major studio.
In film history
Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994) restages the Lugosi session from this production.
Making
This is the only film Wood directed and did not also produce. Lugosi’s scenes were shot at Jack Miles Studios. One account puts his pay at $5,000 and another at $1,000. Posters still said the story came from Jorgensen. The Alan/Ann section is the shorter half and leans on stock footage, added because a distributor wanted a sex-change picture.
Reviews
Leonard Maltin called it possibly the worst movie ever made. Reviewing the 1981 Paramount reissue in the New York Times, Janet Maslin called it a half-mad old movie the studio had disinterred, and noted the constant talk of underwear. Richard Barrios later called it one of the funniest and worst movies ever made.
Audiences
The 1981 theatrical reissue is the screening Janet Maslin was writing about. In 2020 Something Weird Video and the American Genre Film Archive put a 60-minute HD version on the short-lived Alamo Drafthouse on-demand service.
Look
William C. Thompson shot the film. Lugosi’s material was confined to Jack Miles Studios in Los Angeles.
Music
William Lava wrote the music and did not receive a credit. Timothy Farrell narrates as Dr. Alton.
Preservation
Image Entertainment’s 2000 DVD was taken from a censored print and is missing several of the sex scenes. In 2009 Legend Films colorized a restoration, the last film that company colorized, and put it on DVD. The 2020 Something Weird / American Genre Film Archive edition runs 60 minutes.
Notes
- Wood is billed as Daniel Davis, not under his own name.
- Domestic ads also used I Led Two Lives, He or She?, and I Changed My Sex.
- In France and Belgium the title was Louis ou Louise; in Argentina, Yo Cambié Mi Sexo.
- It had a short run in the Republic of China.
- The British Board of Film Classification refused a certificate on February 26, 1958.
- Paramount reissued it in 1981 with about six added minutes, including Glen turning down a pass from a man.
- Captain DeZita plays the Devil. Conrad Brooks is a banker, a reporter, a pickup artist, and a bearded drag.
- A trailer shows Barbara tossing the angora sweater; in the release cut she hands it over.
Scenes
- Lugosi leans in and shouts for someone to pull the string.
- Glen collapses in a storm and the film cuts to a dream with the Devil, buffalo, and bound women.
- Barbara hands Glen her angora sweater and stays.
- Alan’s operation is told mostly through stock footage.
Influenced by
- Christine Jorgensen's 1952 surgery
Influenced
- Ed Wood (1994)
Also available
- Internet Archive (glenorglenda_201305)
- Image Entertainment DVD (2000)
- Legend Films DVD (2009, colorized)
- Something Weird Video and American Genre Film Archive (2020 HD print)
Quotes
Pull the string! Pull the string! A mistake is made. A story must be told.
Beware of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys, puppy dog tails, and big, fat snails.
