31 Days of Cheese - Day 21: Glen or Glenda

Ed Wood.

Hoo boy, you knew that name had to surface at some point yes? While probably not the “Worst Director” ever the names Francis Coleman and William ‘one shot’ Baudine come to mind as well. Surely he was one of the strangest to labor in Hollywood’s poverty row grade z movie mills.

While his later films would attempt storyline and plot, 1953’s Glen or Glenda show’s Ed’s vision in its truest form- what reality looks like from the other side. Things happen, and then happen again and then there is stock footage.

Ed plays the title character of Glen ‘who is Glenda’ a man who wears women’s clothing and has an obsession with Angora sweaters. I think. Again it’s so hard to talk about this like it’s a film, it really just sort of wanders around and around and then ends.

And then there is Bela Lugosi as the Scientist. I’m fairly sure he didn’t really have the slightest idea what he was talking about because lord knows I don’t.

The plot such as it is involves the story of Glen who is engaged to be married and his struggle to decide if he tells his fiancé about his wearing women’s clothing or not. This is mentioned several times. Almost everything is mentioned more than once. There are also stock shots of everything including steel mills. Why? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

There is also a sidebar about a transsexual (which I think the film was intended to be about in the first place but Ed had other ideas) but the major focus is on Glen.

If your only contact with Ed Wood is the Tim Burton movie, I have to say that Johnny Depp was a lot better looking in a dress than the real Ed Wood, who was kind of built like a linebacker. He made a very boxy looking woman at best.

Anyway, I do rewatch these films before I do this. And I have to say watching Glen or Glenda was a real slog. I kept finding things to do, like put away everything I own, wash behind the refrigerator, sort my receipts and so on cause lord this hurt.

Two moments – one is the iconic moment where Glen’s fiancée hands him the angora sweater. It’s a mark of how weird this film is that it shambles on for another 20 minutes before ending, with any other director anywhere in the world you roll credits after that shot. But not Eddie.

And then there is the sequence where Glen is struggling with telling his secret, at which point his fiancé asks “Glen, is it another woman?” (It is, but not in the way she thinks). This is followed by a stock shot of a Bison stampede then Bela is superimposed and starts yelling “Pull the String! Pull the String!”. For the life of me I can’t figure out what any of this has to do with the other things. It’s just cosmic weird moment and you have to let go at that. To try to understand would be to hurt your head.

Enjoy with String Cheese.