Trivia / Glen or Glenda

• Absurdly Short Production Time: Filming took three days.
• Billing Displacement:
  • In the opening, Bela Lugosi's name appears not only before any other actor's, but even before the title itself. It's also nearly as big as the title. Despite this, Lugosi only plays a narrator with little relevance to the actual plot who only appears occasionally. Ed Wood's name is not even mentioned among the cast, despite him being the lead. (Though he is credited as the writer and director.) "Tommy" Haynes, who plays Alan/Anne, manages to get his name in there, despite having far less screentime than Wood.
  • This is continued in the end credits, where Wood is credited (under the psedonym Daniel Davies), before Haynes but after Lugosi and Dolores Fuller, who is only playing a supporting character in Glen/Glenda's story.
• Executive Meddling: The long striptease/burlesque sequences were interpolated by producer George Weiss to pad the films's running time. A rare example of meddling resulting in an increased running time.
• Money, Dear Boy: Bela Lugosi initially rejected Ed Wood's $500 for the role. His wife urged him to do it because they needed the cash, and so Lugosi accepted the role for $1000.
• No Budget: Wood was only given $20,000 to make this movie, however it was because of producer George Weiss's supervision that it managed to be one of Wood's more competently made films.
• Reality Subtext: Aside from the obvious, Glen or Glenda? had Ed Wood doing a rare second take. In the first take of the scene, Dolores Fuller's character basically tossed the sweater at Glen with some hostility. Fuller wasn't exactly pleased with Wood at this point.
• Science Marches On: Our understanding of gender issues and the science surrounding transgender people as well as crossdressers has changed and improved substantially based on six decades' worth of research, making much of the dialogue in the film sound dated if not outright wrong or offensive.
• What Could Have Been: Christine Jorgensen was approached to make an appearance in the film, but she declined.
• Write What You Know: The movie started off as being loosely based on the life of Christine Jorgensen, who was the first documented trans woman, but then it transformed into a film based on the life of its writer-director-star Ed Wood.

---