Thanks for the memories!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Admirable film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

"Glen or Glenda" tells two stories. One is about Glen, who secretly dresses as a woman but is afraid to tell his fiancée, Barbara. The other is about Alan, a pseudohermaphrodite who undergoes a painful operation to become a woman. Both stories are told by Dr. Alton, who also delivers an earnest lecture on tolerance and understanding. I still don't get why Bela Lugosi was in this film plus the whole movie feels like a bunch of scenes coming out of someone's twisted minds and that's probably what it is right? Easily Wood's worst movie. (0/10)

Glen likes to dress in women's clothing. How will his fiancé Barbara react to this? Should he reveal his secret penchant, or should he stay quiet? "Glen or Glenda" is a well-intentioned, but unfortunately botched movie about cross-dressing. It was originally meant to be a biopic about Christine Jorgensen, who was well-known for her recent sex reassignment surgery. Producer George Weiss wanted to make a quick buck with a scandalizing story and hired newcomer Ed Wood to direct the movie. But Ed flouted Christine and curtly made the movie about himself – more specifically about his passion for angora pullovers. The result is a bizarre piece of movie history, and the beginning of Ed Wood's (undeserved) legacy as the most terrible director ever."Glen or Glenda" is a patchwork of bad ideas. It features Bela Lugosi (of "Dracula" fame) as a narrator delivering cryptic lines such as "Pull the string! Pull the string!" At the beginning, the movie feels like a documentary arguing that cross-dressing is completely normal. But this argument doesn't go anywhere, because a few minutes later Ed treats us with a mind-boggling dream sequence even Sigmund Freud wouldn't be able to decipher.With its surreal imagery and erratic style, "Glen or Glenda" almost becomes an art-house movie. It would certainly be an interesting subject not only for film history, but also for gender studies, as it tackles topics that are relevant and controversial up to this day. There is a bit more to it than sheer ineptness. You can tell that Ed Wood was a passionate director who wanted to make an earnest point about his sexual preferences. You've got to respect that, even if the result is a mess. At least it's a spectacular, hilarious and heartfelt mess.

The world of cross dressing took a beating in this Ed Wood debacle, the first to feature long faded horror star Bela Lugosi, still reduced to touring in wretched productions of "Dracula". In need of quick cash, Lugosi took what he could get to quote non-Edgar Allan Poe poetry that started off with "Bevare!" and concludes with his melodramatic cry of "Pull da strings!". Those who saw this film probably thought, hey that guy reminds me of that dead actor who played Count Dracula, not realizing that like Abe Vigoda, the actor was still very much alive.Lovingly recreated by Tim Burton for " Ed Wood", this film has achieved a legend all its own. Yes, it is wretched, the cross dressers (obviously the transvestites of their day) are sad looking and desperate. Times have changed for men who long to live as women, and in a sense, this film did more harm than good. Wood at this point wasn't the trollish looking man he would ultimately be a decade later, and his efforts to tell what he considered an important story is respectable if ill-advised.Lugosi stands out of course, as a shell of himself, but determined to have some sort of dignity, even if they just meant paying off creditors. In the first of his three Ed Wood appearances, he remains commanding even if the vehicle he prayed would be his comeback failed. Every serious moment Wood intended just brings on laughs, and ultimately, that is why Wood is remembered today.

I had a particularly masochistic day today, watching both Manos: The Hands of Fate and Glen or Glenda, both of which have at some point been claimed to be the Worst Movie Ever. Watching both movies in one day made Glen or Glenda look good by comparison, but it is, by itself, one of the most bewildering movies I've seen.I say this not because of its pleas for tolerance in gender matters. That might have seemed odder in the '50s, when homophobia was more mainstream. We've since moved on to debating whether gays can marry. What's really striking about this movie, rather, is the extended surreal dream sequences and the inexplicable narration of Bela Lugosi. Throw Satan in there! Why not? A herd of buffalo stampeding below Lugosi? Why not? Being trampled by the herd would symbolize being run over by society for an urge to cross-dress, wouldn't it? Symbolism! Except the symbolism goes on way too long, one sensing in an effort by Ed Wood to drag his movie over the 60-minute mark. Eventually, it becomes incomprehensible.And what of that narration? Bela Lugosi, "the Scientist," is kind of like a half-scientist, half-god character, who's also dark. He has skeletons around him for some reason. He says sinister things. Who or what is he? At the same time, a doctor is telling a police officer about Glen and Glenda. I'm reminded of the Nostalgia Critic's criticism of Rock-A-Doodle- who in god's name is telling the story? "The Scientist" or the doctor?You can find some elements of this style in a movie like Ingmar Bergman's Persona- random flashing of unpleasant things, apparent dream sequences, a kind of god-like "narration" (a boy watching a TV), but that movie was competently done. Glen or Glenda becomes a giant non sequitur- not the worst movie ever, but worth quite the WTF?