Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

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.

Ah!... To be a transvestite, or to not be a transvestite - That, of course, is the #1 question here in 1953's "Glen or Glenda?".And if director/writer/actor, Ed Wood (who starred as this film's title character) had actually shown some signs of having a real personality - Then, maybe, just maybe, this dead-end psycho-drama about "angora sweater" fetish, and such, may have been worth a serious view.Filmed in just 4 days (and, didn't it show it?) on a budget of $20,000 (it looked more like a budget of only $200 to me) - I cannot believe that back in the paranoid 1950's - This demented, little tale highlighting the whining and snivelling of a heterosexual, male, transvestite actually got theatrical release at all - (It sure is beyond my comprehension) - But theatrical release it certainly got.... (Perhaps "Glen or Glenda?" was marketed as one of those "stranger-than-fiction" novelty pictures, or something) Anyway - For anyone who's at all interested in viewing this cross-eyed soap opera about exorcising one's cross-dressing demon - It certainly does contain its fair share of unintentional humour - And (as an added bonus) - A "Happily-Ever-After" ending that's hastily thrown into the mix, for good measure.

GLEN OR GLENDA is a hilariously conceived mockumentary that comes to us courtesy of bad film director extraordinaire, Edward D. Wood, Jr. While not as iconic as the director's own PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, it's certainly a remarkable - and memorable - film with plenty of jaw-dropping content to see it through. It's a film that deals with the then-controversial topic of transvestism, although I'm sure the exploitational handling of the subject matter would make this offensive in these politically correct times.GLEN OR GLENDA is a mish-mash of various sub-plots and random footage which has been edited together. There's a narrator trying to make sense of the proceedings and the stories of two different cross-dressers who are trying to come to terms with their 'problems'. When one of the characters joins the army in WW2, five minutes of stock war footage fills the screen. Elsewhere there are cops, bizarre dream sequences that offer tame stripteases, and plenty of wooden acting, not least from Wood himself who plays the titular character. My favourite part of the film involves Bela Lugosi playing a crazy scientist who sits in his study and has no interaction with other cast members. He intones various lines such as "Pull the strings!" and is a real hoot, sad as it is to see him in the midst of his drug addiction.

I feel really bad for Ed Wood. Not only was this movie a way for him to express his feelings, but it was also an attempt to get people to open their minds and accept people for who they are, which is a fantastic concept for a movie that was made in 1953. However, instead of getting an emotional narrative on the life of the transvestites and how they struggle to get people to accept and understand them (as well as their internal conflicts), we got a horribly narrated documentary type movie with abysmal acting and lazy writing. I don't even blame the concept of the film, because this (like I said before) could have been incredibly powerful and have more of the characters interacting with each other and trying to cope with society's hatred toward them, which in turn would get intolerant people attached to the characters, therefore causing them to question their beliefs. In fact, I think that this could have been one of the greatest movies of all time if the writing was not so dull and lifeless, if the acting was not laugh out loud ridiculous, and if it was not a god damn documentary type movie. Think about it, if more effort and editing was done to the script, if the actors had even a shred of talent (except for Bela Lugosi), and if it was more of a narrative than a documentary, it could have been a masterpiece.