Greetings!!!
I am critiquing movies listed on Wikipedia's "List of films considered the worst". I'm trying to avoid movies that were direct to video because I can't live long enough to watch all that crap. I will not be doing this daily, because some nights I do actually sleep, but on the nights I can't... I'm here to help you better differentiate sucky movies from the truly shitty movies.
My very first "Worst Film Ever" review had to be an Ed Wood film. HAD TO BE. The 1994 movie "Ed Wood" is one of my favorite movies. I really identify with Ed, the dude never gave up on his dreams... and while he was no Cecil B. DeMille, people still talk about his movies. They may have sucked, but we are still talking about them, so I guess it proves that you're really good at doing sucky stuff, you're still a success.
So, from the minor research I did into the story behind this movie, I can give you some idea of we are up against prior to watching. First off, George Weiss was a dude who really knew how to grind out the crappy, campy movies for the drive-ins that targeted the teenage and none-too-intellectual demographic. At the time "Glen or Glenda" was filmed (over FOUR grueling DAYS, oh the dedication!!), Weiss wanted to actually make a film about Christine Jorgensen, one of the first and more outspoken people to have gender reassignment surgery in the early 1950's. She pretty much told him to GTFO. Along comes Ed Wood Jr who convinced Weiss that him being a transvestite made him an authority and the perfect person to direct a movie about transsexuals. Weiss figured "eh, good enough for government work." and agreed. At that point, Ed rewrote everything and made a semi-autobiographical movie about cross-dressing and then tossed in a short story at the end about sex change surgery. I'm sure Weiss was kind of pissed off, so he threw in some dream sequences that had nothing to do with either cross-dressing or gender reassignment. It was mostly some stripping, a little BDSM. some autoerotic suggestion and rape fantasies, which frankly tells us more about what a kinky guy Weiss was, and oh by the way.... screw the Hayes Code..... remember folks this was 1953. Even though Christine Jorgensen refused to have anything to do with the movie, some of the promotional posters and crap claimed it was about her. Whatever, they were not going for Academy Awards.
This movie had been ripped to shreds by most film critics over the years, called the worst movie ever made. I'm sure that a lot of people who paid money to see it were sitting in their cars after the movie was over, mouths agape with a "What the fuck was that?" expression on their faces.
BUT I LOVED IT!!!!!
I am drooling over all that mid-century modern furniture!!! Squeee!!! The couches, nay, davenports! The side tables and the big Philco radios!!! and the slate fireplace!!!! WANT WANT WANT!!!! Once all my kids move out of my house, mama's going to redecorate!!
So, Ed totally idolized Bela Lugosi. Like, when he was a kid he saw all the Dracula movies and was just enamored of the old guy. Of course, by the time he and Eddie were hanging out, Lugosi was flat broke, older than dirt, and had a crippling heroin habit. But Eddie was a kind-hearted kind of guy and wanted the world to experience Lugosi in all his glory..... So he is some sort of scientist guy who tries to explain how the world works. Okay, except his accent is so thick, or maybe the smack was bit too strong that day, I couldn't understand half of the things he said. So I turned on captions. THAT was even funnier, as it made even less sense than what Lugosi was saying. Every so often the camera would leave the narrative and come back to Lugosi, I guess he was watching along with us, like a YouTube reaction video. Who knows. I got the feeling that Eddie was like the dorky kid who becomes yearbook editor and fills his senior yearbook with pictures of his skeevy basement dwelling friends that no one remembers. Yeah, I think that is how Lugosi got put into this thing.
Aside from the freaking AWESOME furniture, the sets were akin to high school play set designs. The walls kind of shook when the doors were closed, IF they actually closed. Basically, all expense was spared in this epic four-day production.
The film has an actual narrator besides Lugosi, so we can at least understand what the hell he is saying. After the initial scenes with Dracula the scientist, there is a pathetic suicide scene with laughable dialogue. No, I take that back. The dialogue and character interaction was almost as good as anything George Lucas ever wrote. Almost.
Now here is where the story actually gets good. And it is definitely about 30 years or more ahead of its time. It is narrated like a documentary. And does a fairly good job of explaining the reasons why a guy would want to wear women's clothing. I did kind of take note that male pattern baldness was blamed on hats men had to wear that were too tight and cut off their circulation thus causing hair loss. Um, why not get a larger hat then?
Remembering that being gay was a criminal offense back in 1953, it was made sure on several different occasions that transvestites were not homosexuals. Sitting here at 2am in 2018, I could give a shit if a dude was gay or not, but back in the day, this was some really taboo stuff! I gotta give Eddie props for being so open and explaining the reason for his/Glen's desire to wear women's clothes. Honestly, it was explained in such a matter of fact and gentle tone, this could have been a PSA or After School Special in the 1980's/
Most of the acting is pretty shitty, except for Ed (who was credited as Daniel Davis) because he WASN'T acting. His real-life girl-friend, Dolores Fuller, played his fiancee in the movie. She got more comfortable with the concept of acting, so probably on day 3 of filming she could actually almost sound believable. I damned near cried when she stood up and handed Glen her angora sweater, signaling that she accepted him for the man he was, silk panties and all. Now that is love, people!!!!
The narrative goes on to another story explaining the difference between transsexuals and transvestites, making sure to let everyone know that neither would hurt a fly or turn your kids into communists.
The real problem with this movie, other than the production values, the shitty acting, the crappy dialogue, and pathetic plot, is that it was too short. Weiss insisted that it needed to hit at least 70 minutes for some reason. Maybe so people would think they were getting their money's worth of movie, like they would feel swindled if the movie was only 59 minutes. Hmm, the already thin plot is stretched to transparency, what could they do? OOOO! OOOO! OOOO! Mistah Kotter! I know!! OOOO!! OOOO!!! I know! A 12-minute dream sequence that MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!!!!
What better way to flesh out a movie than seeing weird old men watching women rolling around on a couch, and people walking around like zombies while poor Ed and Barbara are clutching their faces in some dark and dank void. Oh! yeah, let's toss in some girls tying each other up and whipping each other, and then the rape scene where the actress is laughing her ass off. Well, maybe she was screaming, in a happy way. We would never know because why have dialogue when you can just loop some overdramatic piano music for 12 FUCKING MINUTES!!!!!
So basically, the movie would have been an okay little film, a plea for tolerance and perhaps even educational. And Ed being the nice, gentle, caring dude that he was, he wrote some freaky part for his washed-up, broke, junkie hero, so that the old guy would be a washed up old heroin addict with a paycheck. That part of the movie was sweet, and I liked it. I don't think it was a bad movie if you skip the Lugosi parts and the dream sequence. But then it is more like the length of a sit-com.
Oh, My, GAWD!!!!
"Glen or Glenda" is really the basis for the 1980's sitcom "Bosom Buddies"!!!!
Was this the Worst Movie Ever Made? Amy says no. Amy says you need to stay up late and watch this ..... sober.
Just skip the dream sequence, unless you're into that.
And if anyone knows what the hell Lugosi was saying, please let me know.
I give this a solid 3 out of 5 on the watchable poo-moji scale. If you skip the Lugosi and dream sequences, I could even extend that to 3.5 out of 5. This movie isn't that bad, there are vast, vast, vast numbers of shittier movies out there.
💩💩💩
