Oh boy. So it's come to this. I had my fun last week with the pleasant surprise, and sleeper cult classic that was Assassinaut but it's time to get back on track with the main project; that being work my way through the extensive list of films considered to be the worst in Cinematic history. And we are now moving into the 1950's with what will be my first experience with Ed Wood, or Edward D. Wood Jr, in a largely derided, and -at the time- almost universally disliked film on gender identity; Glen or Glenda.
A Police Detective (Lyle Talbot), so disturbed by his attendance at the scene of the suicide of a young Trans man; Patrick / Patricia, goes to visit a Doctor (Timothy Farrell) who famously made headlines with his controversial opinions on gender re-assignment in hope that he may understand the nature and psychology of Trans individuals, or "Transvestites - a man who is more comfortable wearing girl's clothes"... the Doctor then proceeds to tell 2 stories: the first of a Trans Male - Glen / Glenda (Ed Wood) engaged to wed his fiancée Barbara (Dolores Fuller), however Barbara is not aware of Glen's Trans identity and has began to notice the feminine aspects of Glen's appearance with Glen struggling to reveal to her his dual identity. Glen confesses to a friend, Johnny that he doesn't know how to tell Barbara and Johnny reveals that he was once married and discovered by his then Wife wearing Women's clothing, resulting in the marriage ending and urges Glen to make the right decision. Continuing to agonize over telling Barbara, Glen then has an hallucination where he is not able to save his fiancée as Glenda but is as Glen... then... then there is this weird scene where Bela Lugosi, who has popped up from time to time to deliver the occasional short monologue, appears to be watching burlesque porn, with women dancing and undressing... then a woman lounging on a sofa gets tied up by another woman.... then a woman on a sofa gets sexually assaulted by a man wearing a mask... I think... I'm not sure if all of that is supposed to symbolize Glen / Glenda's deteriorating mental state, or not, but anyway... in the next scene Glen / Glenda hallucinates about struggling with his identity feeling trapped as a Male and emerging free as a Female only to then be rejected by Barbara, and when he returns to consciousness he rushes into the bedroom ripping his wig away and appears to have made his decision. He tells Barbara everything about his dual personality and at first Barbara does not take it well but then decides that together they can work it out, handing him her jumper as a gesture. We are then back with the Doctor and Detective, where the Doctor makes some... interesting (outdated) observations on Transsexualism and how "it can be cured" by "finding the source" of the "character" that the Trans individual has created and "killing it" (I'm slightly paraphrasing but that's literally his observation) and they then move on to the second case, 20 minutes from the end, which is that of Alan / Anne, a Trans Male who embraced more 'feminine' aspects rather than 'masculine' who was evidentially drafted and served in the Air Force before being discharged, learning of the potential to undergo gender re-assignment surgery, and ultimately chose to become a Woman, which the movie refers to as being a "correction of a mistake by nature", and goes on to live a happy, normal life. The Doctor then returns to Glen's case where he ultimately diagnoses Glen's alternative gender identity to be as a result of psychological damage caused by having unloving parents and encourages Glen to continue life as a Male and transfer his feminine feelings into his love for his fiancée which Glen ultimately does. The movie closes with another Bela Lugosi monologue because of course it does.
There are some things in life that, and I am well aware of this, that I am ultimately not well equipped for and as a heterosexual cisgender white Male I'm probably not the most prominent poster-person for gender identity... but it is certainly an issue in the last handful of years that has come to be more prominent and although I wasn't a raging transphobic, or homophobe before, I have changed my attitudes to be more accepting to people of trans-identity and have, where I can, lent my voice in support of trans issues. For no other reason really, than it feeling -to me- to be the right thing to do. And I will continue to do so. And it is on that tangent that this film gets a nod of... recognition... (not sure I'd go as far as respect...) for at least handling the matter of gender identity with an open, and almost to a degree - accepting interpretation. The movie is at least considerate enough to present gender identity in a positive light, albeit with the same hamfisted, insensitive, blundering approach that Reefer Madness took with smoking weed, but at least with a more positive approach and not demonizing it, or calling the characters trannies or something.
In the 50's, the concept of a Man identifying as a Woman, and even to as go as far as undergoing an operation to become a Woman must have been a horrifying taboo (I've looked it up and negating the 1930's operation, the first gender re-assignment operation took place in 1952) but watching the movie retrospectively in 2021, I found it pretty amusing that any scenes where Glen - labelled as a Man, whilst looking at Women's clothing in a shop window, or walking down the street as a Woman, is soundtracked by horrifying music, the same kind of music that plays when the lumbering monster is closing in on the damsel in distress.
The movie, as mentioned earlier, mainly portrays a open minded, if not almost positive opinion on gender identity and Transsexualism but in doing so also acknowledges and highlights some of the more negative attitudes that are presented with the issue, but in credit to the movie, it at least acknowledges these negative attitudes as incorrect or misinterpretations. There's a kind of sick irony that nearly 60 something years later the very negative issues portrayed in this movie are still ones that Trans people face today, as the movie paints them as outdated attitudes (which they are) that need to be erased.
Anyway, this post is in danger of getting massively off topic, so with the underpinning theme of gender identity discussed and discounted, how does the rest of the movie stack up. Well, unfortunately, not very well. Everything about it feels very low budget. It's painfully obvious that only some 30-40 minutes of footage was actually shot, covering the development of Glen / Glenda's storyline and the conversation between the Detective and the Doctor. The rest of the movie is stock footage (some 5 - 10 odd minutes at the end is just war footage?) and the same stock footage scene of cars on a highway is used a whole bunch of times, and a whole handful of scenes that just make no sense and do nothing really to develop the plot of the movie and are just confusing? Obviously shot and spliced in to pad things out and extend the runtime whilst not really contributing the development of the picture whatsoever.
Bela Lugosi brings nothing to this film. Nothing. I don't even fully understand what part of it he actually plays. He's portrayed as some kind of omnipotent being, who occasionally chips in, occasionally alot, to deliver a rambling monologue, and then disappears. He plays no part in the central formation of the plot and it's obvious is cast on name value only. Ironically top billing despite not playing either of, arguably, the 2 central characters: Glen/Glenda and the Detective.
The above being said, the film did employ some particularly interesting techniques and I was especially impressed with the split double exposure scenes sometimes played out, usually with something happening on the bottom half of the frame and a scowling Bela Lugosi presiding over things in the top half. And other such scenes especially those chronicling Glen / Glenda's psychological battles, although they largely made no sense, were shot really well. It's clear that Mr. Wood Junior had a flare for using Avant Garde techniques when putting his movies together and wasn't afraid to go against the grain.
However fundamentally, despite having a mostly positive approach to gender identity (which honestly surprised me as I fully expected this to be a goofy, campy, over-the-top rib on "cross dressers") this was just a not very good film, shot not very well with some frankly distasteful phrases and language used when discussing gender identity and gender re-assignment, with borderline exploitation of Bela Lugosi, and just was nothing more really than a pseudo-intellectual opinion-piece on gender identity put to motion picture film. 1 out of 5.
