Glen or Glenda

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Movie
Original title Glen or Glenda
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1953
length 68 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Ed Wood
script Ed Wood
production George Weiss
music William Lava
camera William C. Thompson
cut Bud Schelling
occupation

Glen or Glenda ( 1953 ) is a documentary drama by and with Edward D. Wood Jr. Other actors are Bela Lugosi and Wood's girlfriend at the time, Dolores Fuller . The film deals with transvestism and transsexuality . Wood, who was himself a transvestite, campaigned with this film for more tolerance for these preferences . Because of its low budget production and its peculiar style, Glen or Glenda became a cult film .

content

The film has no continuous storyline. The various plot elements are "supplemented" several times by incised foreign material. Bela Lugosi embodies a "scientist" who does not play a recognizable role in the film. He acts as a kind of narrator, but without providing relevant information. This is done by the film's main narrator, Timothy Farrell . The "scientist" is shown surrounded by stylistic elements from horror films, such as skulls and test tubes, while he admonishes the audience to watch out for "the big green dragon sitting on your doorstep". In one scene the scientist is overlaid with images of galloping buffalo for no apparent reason. There are also several long, surreal dream sequences in which Glen is haunted by a devilish character. It is emphasized several times in the voiceover that Glen is a transvestite, but not homosexual . A transvestite who has committed suicide is the subject of police investigations. A long conversation takes place between one of the police officers and a psychiatrist. Glen "confesses" his affection to his girlfriend and that he feels drawn to angora clothing , whereupon she immediately takes off her angora sweater and gives it to Glen.

background

1952 saw the sex reassignment surgery of Christine Jorgensen made headlines in the United States. That was the inspiration for George Weiss , a Hollywood low-budget producer, to commission a film that addressed this topic. Ed Wood convinced Weiss that as a transvestite he was the right director for it. Wood got the job and took the money, but made a film about transvestites. After the finished strip was judged to be too short and too deviating from the original arrangements, Wood shot a few extra scenes about gender reassignments. Weiss added two completely independent softcore scenes, one of them with bondage , into which reactions from Wood and Lugosi were cut. The film was only released because it had already been sold to several cinemas in advance.

Wood persuaded Bela Lugosi , whose fame had faded over the years and whose life was overshadowed by age and drug addiction, to star in the film. Wood himself played under the pseudonym 'Daniel Davis'. starring Glen / Glenda. His girlfriend, Dolores Fuller , played Glen's girlfriend. Fuller was unaware that Wood was a transvestite, nor was the contents of the film fully explained to her, and Wood avoided wearing women's clothes when she was on the set. The truth was only revealed when the finished film was shown, Fuller claiming to have been humiliated by the experience. It was the only film that Wood directed without being a producer.

In the cinema trailer, which is also on the laser disc and DVD , the final scene in which Fuller gives Wood a sweater is a different version than the one in the film. In the trailer she angrily tosses it to Wood, in the film she hands it over in a more accepting way. There is also a recording of Wood in “ Fummel ” as he articulates the word “Cut!”.

Quirks

Leonard Maltin describes the film in his Movie and Video Guide as "probably the worst film ever made", a rating that was later given to another of Wood's films: Plan 9 from Outer Space .

Reviews

“Scenes from the double life of a bourgeois man and a transvestite are combined with enigmatic images of a diabolical scientist and" man who controls mankind "as well as the explanations of a psychiatrist to create a bizarre and curious appeal for more tolerance and understanding. A cheap and provocative badly "staged" film that occasionally soars to its own surreal dynamic and at least reveals some contemporary prejudices about transvestites and sex reassignments. "

- Lexicon of international film

reception

  • Wood's novel Killer in Drag also features a transvestite named Glen. He is executed in the sequel Death of a Transvestite after battling for the right to use the electric chair as Glenda .
  • Tim Burton's film Ed Wood describes the production of the film and contains some reconstructed scenes with Johnny Depp in the role of Ed Wood.
  • Glen or Glenda was republished in 1982 with 6 minutes of additional material. The restored scenes included one in which Glen rejects a gay man's advances.
  • In 1994 a pornographic remake was made entitled Glen & Glenda . The script was largely the same as the original, but expanded with explicit sex scenes.
  • The film is ranked 50 on The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made list .

Alternative titles

  • He or she?
  • I changed my sex
  • I Led 2 Lives
  • The transvestite

See also

Web links

Commons : Glen or Glenda  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Danny Peary: Cult Movies 3 . Simon & Schuster Inc., New York 1988, pp. Pages 97-101, ISBN 0-671-64810-1 ..
  2. ↑ Glen or Glenda. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 6, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ IMDb