Glen Or Glenda has to rate as one of the most personal films ever done by any director, anywhere, even if that director happens to be Ed Wood. He not only wrote and directed it, he acted in it himself and told his own story of cross dressing. It's sad that Wood did not have the talent or the budget to bring this off.
As we all know now thanks to Johnny Depp's biographical portrayal of Wood that Wood liked to wear feminine attire. So given the accepted knowledge of the time, no doubt gleaned from his many visits to a psychiatrist, Wood fashioned Glen Or Glenda and gave himself the title role.
The film is done documentary style as police detective Lyle Talbot investigates the suicide of a man found dead in women's clothes. Seeking information for future encounters, Talbot meets with psychiatrist Timothy Farrell who talks about two cases of men dressing as women one of those being Glen/Glenda the other being Alan/Ann.
Knowing several transgender individuals as I do they and I both see this thing as laughable in its ignorance. Not to mention the acting and writing was on the level of a high school play. Bela Lugosi has a part in here as an overall narrator who is given to saying cryptic things in a sinister fashion that you will search in vain in trying to figure out what they mean. No one talked sinister better than Bela Lugosi, but this was Bela's first association with Wood and Wood being so happy to have a box office name of sorts for his project just shoehorned him the best way he could. Why he just wasn't playing the psychiatrist is beyond me.
Wood was a terrible actor to add to being a terrible writer and director. But he was not alone as the rest of the cast is pretty bad as well.
Yet in his own clumsy untalented way, Ed Wood was giving us a glimpse of his world and how people in general saw individuals like him in 1953. No doubt most who see this especially transgender folks will think this as bad a film as I do, but it's an incredible insight into the world of its creator.
As we all know now thanks to Johnny Depp's biographical portrayal of Wood that Wood liked to wear feminine attire. So given the accepted knowledge of the time, no doubt gleaned from his many visits to a psychiatrist, Wood fashioned Glen Or Glenda and gave himself the title role.
The film is done documentary style as police detective Lyle Talbot investigates the suicide of a man found dead in women's clothes. Seeking information for future encounters, Talbot meets with psychiatrist Timothy Farrell who talks about two cases of men dressing as women one of those being Glen/Glenda the other being Alan/Ann.
Knowing several transgender individuals as I do they and I both see this thing as laughable in its ignorance. Not to mention the acting and writing was on the level of a high school play. Bela Lugosi has a part in here as an overall narrator who is given to saying cryptic things in a sinister fashion that you will search in vain in trying to figure out what they mean. No one talked sinister better than Bela Lugosi, but this was Bela's first association with Wood and Wood being so happy to have a box office name of sorts for his project just shoehorned him the best way he could. Why he just wasn't playing the psychiatrist is beyond me.
Wood was a terrible actor to add to being a terrible writer and director. But he was not alone as the rest of the cast is pretty bad as well.
Yet in his own clumsy untalented way, Ed Wood was giving us a glimpse of his world and how people in general saw individuals like him in 1953. No doubt most who see this especially transgender folks will think this as bad a film as I do, but it's an incredible insight into the world of its creator.