Note: For a pretty good biopic about Wood, often referred to as the “worst director ever,” check out Tim Burton’s great Ed Wood, which memorably parodies Glen or Glenda. Random shots of Bela Lugosi-who was close friends with Wood-were interspersed into the action apropos of nothing, in which Lugosi yells, “Pull the strings!” Glen or Glenda (originally titled I Changed My Sex!) would be a masterpiece if Wood knew how to make a movie. He’s terrified his girlfriend will find out. Wood’s film, which was autobiographical, uses Patricia’s story as a backdrop for Glen’s struggle for acceptance: Like Patricia, Glen enjoys wearing women’s clothing. In 1945, he was rated 2 Box Office Star in America, and in 1946, he was rated 3. Their private intensity (& working class origins) contrast with the middle-class, inhibited, stuffy. The relationship between Richard and Natalie proves dangerously obsessional. The film opens after Patricia, a transgender woman, has taken her own life, citing years of harassment. His accident prevented him from serving during the War. After some years of tension, Richard begins a sexual relationship with his sister Natalie, who is now married. Two years after Christine Jorgensen became the first transgender woman to transition in the public eye, Wood’s groundbreaking 1953 feature explores the difficulties of being trans in pre-Stonewall America.
ever made, Glen or Glenda is both brilliantly transgressive and unbelievably terrible.
