3. Glen or Glenda? (1953)
A down at heel Bela Lugosi makes a flying visit to this film to add 'gravitas'. It Initially concerns a cross dressing transexual man called Patrick/Patricia who commits suicide because society back in the 1950s would have been totally outraged by his lifestyle. A narrator fills us in on the life of another transexual - Glen/Glenda - in order to have a policeman on the suicide case understand the intricacies and mysteries of cross dressing. Glen is seen peering in a women's clothes shop window - according to the narrator men's clothes are boring but women's are fancy and exciting. He also reads about sex changes and hides his secret from his girlfriend Barbara who is convinced he is seeing another woman. Inexplicably Bela Lugosi shouts out 'Pull the strings!' and a stampede of bison fills our screens. Whatever this means is left up to our wildest interpretations. There's a few mild BDSM sequences and Glen tells Barbara about his secret fetish and she duly hands him her angora sweater as a signal of acceptance. Awwwwww! Widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, Glen or Glenda? arouses more affection in the viewer than scorn. The film is so demented and shabby, it is hard to hold back the sniggers. However, the film is so heartfelt and obviously meant a lot to Ed Wood, who was himself a secret cross dresser and acted the role of Glen, that a warped kind of sincerity shines through. Yes it is atrocious, but Ed Wood can be viewed as a pioneer in the world of films about transvestism and transsexualism - a taboo topic in his day - long before Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. There are a multitude of different versions of the film with different bits added and removed but all concerning the heart warming antics of Glen/Glenda.