Arnold Layne

I have seen several thousand films in my life, and many of them were terrible. It's not that I have trouble spotting a turkey beforehand, only that I tend to pursue them with glee. There have been only a handful of movies I've seen where the awfulness snuck up on me ( I'm looking at you, Godzilla and Armageddon). In my quest to lay witness to the worst movies ever made, I have certainly seen many that qualify. These include the Billy Ray Cyrus action pic Radical Jack (in which the audience must endure a scene where he pours water over himself and his mullet in slow motion), the Italian/Mexican/Spanish zombie movie City of the Walking Dead (where the end of the movie is just the first 15 minutes of the beginning repeated), the 80s horror movie The Invisible Maniac (his escape scene in particular), 1970s free love movie Feeling Up (in which a man climbs over top of the camera sans underwear), and of course, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, labeled by many as the worst movie ever made. Until yesterday, I would have agreed. But then I saw Wood's other infamous movie, Glen or Glenda. The mind reels.

I'm not even sure if I can adequately describe what I watched last night. It almost defies description. One could describe the movie as Wood's call for tolerance for transvestitism, something he found within himself. Yet that description doesn't describe probably 50% of the movie, as much of it seems to have nothing to do with anything.

The first six or seven minutes is just stock footage of traffic moving along a highway and people walking up and down city streets, intercut with, or superimposed over, shots of Bela Lugosi as "The Scientist," reciting lines such as "People...all going somewhere...all with their own thoughts...with their own ideas...with their own personalities." He also takes the time to mix a few beakers of liquid in his laboratory, and exclaims "The source of all life," as smoke rolls out of one. These things, however, seem normal in comparison to what unfolds later.

The actual "story" begins as police are called to the scene of a suicide of a transvestite. In an attempt to understand where this person was coming from, the police inspector visits a psychiatrist familiar with the condition. The inspector is supposed to be sympathetic to the victim, but at one point refers to them as "a four time loser." Anyway, the psychiatrist then tells the story of Glen, who also dresses like a woman and is called Glenda. Glen is played by none other than Wood himself, for whom the role was semi-autobiographical. His conundrum is whether or not to tell his fiance about his habits before the marriage or after.

It's at this point when the movie ceases to be comprehensible. The stock footage of traffic is repeatedly shown, along with Lugosi reciting lines such as "Pull the string! Pull the string!" all while superimposed over shots of stampeding buffalo. Then it gets really weird. What follows is easily the most bizarre stuff I've seen this side of a David Lynch movie. It's easier to just show you than to try and describe it.



To top it all off, the last 10 minutes or so is another story entirely, although still narrated by the psychiatrist. Wood still manages to include massive amounts of stock footage, only this time it's WWII instead of heavy traffic.

Plan 9 From Outer Space may still be the worst acted movie, and possibly the most unintentionally funny, but Glen or Glenda is far more convoluted and strange. If it were any other director, I might accept that these devices were intentional, an internal mechanism to echo Wood's own struggles with transvestitism. But this is Ed Wood, full of earnestness and desire to make great movies, yet lacking in almost any skill to actually create them. Yet what is great about his movies, besides the "so bad it's good" quality, is that his earnestness is so very palpable on the screen. If only we all had the courage to strive for greatness, even if we know we may never attain it.

Oh, and by the way, this has to be one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.


Transmission out.