Trailer
Glen or Glenda
Sat
18
Sat 18 Nov 6:45 PM
Cinema Nova - Cinema 10
Wheelchair
Allocated Seating
65 Mins | USA
This landmark exploitation film (aka I Changed My Sex! and I Led Two Lives!) was conceived by producer George Weiss to cash in on the sensation surrounding Christine Jorgensen, an American G.I. who had a “sex change” operation in Denmark and returned to America “a blonde beauty”. Supposed to dramatise her story, it famously became more a plea for acceptance of director Edward D. Wood Jr.’s own angora-philic gender non-conformity.
The name Ed Wood is a byword for campy ineptitude in filmmaking, yet it’s clear the derision dished out to his directorial feature film debut, and to his reputation overall, was always superciliously transphobic. Glen or Glenda is sincere and tremendously entertaining – not least for its intermittent, gnomic pronouncements from an addled Bela Lugosi and a nightmare sequence with charming, primitive special effects that would have done Georges Méliès proud.
The name Ed Wood is a byword for campy ineptitude in filmmaking, yet it’s clear the derision dished out to his directorial feature film debut, and to his reputation overall, was always superciliously transphobic. Glen or Glenda is sincere and tremendously entertaining – not least for its intermittent, gnomic pronouncements from an addled Bela Lugosi and a nightmare sequence with charming, primitive special effects that would have done Georges Méliès proud.
