Glen or Glenda

Though I only give this movie a 10, rest assured that it is the best 10 I have ever given.

Wow. Take away the pointless stock footage, multiple framing devices, surgical documentary, rambling narration, and bewildering sequences of chubby girls gesticulating intercut with hilarious reaction shots from Bela Lugosi, and you're left with about 20 minutes of story about Glen/Glenda. This film is tragically naive and inept, but incredibly earnest and daring for its time.

Mind-breakingly terrible & still adorably funny in that unique Ed Wood way. Sincere with its open naivety & creative with its uncanny incompetence. Makes up for a total lack of plot with childishly direct moral pondering & stupefying surrealism closely tied to Wood's pronounced idiosyncrasies. Considering the subject matter both of these qualities come off somewhat groundbreaking for the time. I'd even call it radical if not for Wood's earnest & naive manner. The Lugosi inserts are perfection.

There's a shot in this movie, and if you blink, you'll miss it, of a radiator at a crime scene. It unsettled me. I thought I was watching Eraserhead, and it made me realize that Lynch does owe a lot to Ed Wood, particularly in the use of creepy, cheap pressboard tract housing.

At his heart Ed Wood was really a philosopher. But he wasn't very good at that either.

A singular vision. A singular, stupidly earnest, technically inexplicable, condescending, overlong (at 67 minutes!), offensively incorrect, batshit vision.

Technically incompetent to an absurd degree and horribly paced, so that despite its short length it just drags on and on. It is interesting in the sense that it's sympathetic to the plight of transvestites and transsexuals (even though it contradicts its own message a few times, and it's often factually wrong or naive), despite having been made in the fifties. Still, the only joy that can be taken from it is how completely out of place Lugosi is and how dumb his lines are.

More than his Plan 9 creation, this is perhaps one of the strangest and most honest in it's 2nd rate production manner to ever hit the screen. If you watch in the context of history and attitudes of the time it was an exceptionally brave film, autobiographical in more ways than not.

Exquisitely bad.

Features the legendary scene where bison roam across half of the frame, cut gently over a irrelevant soliloquy from the hideously miscast Bela Lugosi. Aside from this there are multiple blatant editing errors, a script that complements itself, literally and a bizarre dream/dance sequence that lasts quite a large portion of the film. Despite the low score that this kind of production value deserves, it comes with a recommendation as, as a comedy Glen or Glenda would be beyond perfect.

Ed Wood's most personal, touching and heartwarming film just sucks.

Well, didn't that heart-warming! Wood's direction is a little bland, so the forcefulness with which the message is conveyed (and its sincerity) is its vitality.

A legendarily absurd docudrama that wavers wildly between faux anthropology and bizarre confessional. Wood clearly had no clue how to realize his intensely personal vision or how completely ineffective his methods were. If he had reasonable technical skills, GOG could have been a genuinely inventive exploration of alternative lifestyles in a staunchly conservative time. As it stands, Wood's mix of stock footage, cod surrealism and stilted drama is strangely compelling without ever being good.

This is one of those ironically entertaining movies.

Underappreciated, genuinely courageous, sometimes trippily entertaining. The extension of the in-any-case-never-very-amusing culture of PLAN 9-ish 'so bad its good' smugness in the direction of this film, and of this director partly in relation to the theme of this film, is kind of revolting, really. Hoho he had no budget for the first US feature film to ever sympathetically treat this subject. Can there be a good reason for someone here to say the film is 'offensively incorrect'?

a must see disaster... like a traffic accident that you cant take your eyes off... very bold theme for 1950s

Means well, I suppose.

This is a film that is both intriguing and horrifying at the same time. It's horrendously put together, amateurish even, bewildering, daft and illogical. Some choices make no sense whatsoever. I doubt anyone but the director could tell what the hell he was trying to do, what kind of message he attempted to convey. His heart is in the right place, and he does portray transvestitism sympathetically. But he got his facts wrong and tried to turn the subject into a monster story. It's batshit crazy!

Impressively progressive, even now. It's fairly sincere and goofy and hard to hate.

Highly educational!

Obviously this isn't a good movie, but it was extremely entertaining. The odd inclusion of Bella Lugosi, the lightning strikes that have nothing to do with transvestism, the bizarre trip where Glen wrestles with his inner demons, and the narrator's stumbling and politically incorrect depictions of race and gender all make for a pretty entertaining film. Just know what you're getting into beforehand.

The last 10 minutes is the only part that really tested my patience.

Rich in campy narration and acting. This film delivers an impact of confusion...in ourselves? PULL DA STRINKS!

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The BDSM dream sequence is hilarious, lurid, ballsy and so stupid I couldn't help but laugh. It makes no fucking sense. Also, anytime Lugosi makes an appearance this is gold. PULL THE STRING! PULL THE STRING! BEWARE. Beware...beware of the big green dragon that sits on your door step. He eats little boys, puppy dog tails and big. fat. snails.

Superb bizzare

An hour that seems to go on forever. Inept in so many ways, but the inappropriate stock footage and hilarious use of Lugosi at least add some schadenfreude. Still, the subject matter is quite ballsy (pun not intended) for the time and it deserves a nod just for that. Pure trash otherwise.

Terrible, but also terribly sincere.

There's people out there who think Edward D. Wood Jr. was some kind of misunderstood genius who was ahead of his time. Those people are idiots. I've never seen a more pathetically inept attempt at film making. Every scene is written, shot, directed, edited, and acted in such a tragically wretched fashion you'll constantly be asking yourself "Did I really just see that?" Lugosi, WTF, dude? Ed Wood's ashes should be fished out of the sea, dragged out into the street and individually shot.

This is a bunchof shit which i would normally give a 10 but this film amde me laugh somany times and say wtf so many times ups it's rating to a 65%.

It's so crappy you gotta laugh at it. I've had a very nice time watching this delicious piece of trash.

Damn Ed Wood... Love it or hate it... Glen or Glenda is great.

Bela Lugosi's small part is bloody hilarious.

Naive--god, is it naive--and technically almost completely inept, it's touching in a weird--extremely weird--way.

Small parts of it are all right; there is real feeling in its call for tolerance. But overall, it's a mess.

Hilarious!!

blah

It's not a waste of time, it's just bad and pasted together in the adorable 50s Ed Wood way. Bela Lugosi's nonsensical interludes (the film Ed Wood gives you context for it) combined with the horrible acting and the PSA quality of the direction just make for a cute watching experience.

God awful.

I want that Angora Sweater

It is indeed amusing.

One of the most technically inept films ever to see release, and nowhere near as fun as other Ed Wood films. Still, you have to admire a plea for tolerance for crossdressers that was made in the 1950s U.S. of all times and places