History Film / GlenOrGlenda

''Glen or Glenda?'' (title changed from ''I Changed My Sex!'') is a 1953 exploitation film written by, directed by and starring Creator/EdWood, and featuring [[{{Creator/BelaLugosi}} Bela Lugosi]], and Wood's then-girlfriend, Dolores Fuller.

** Barbara also gives Glen her angora sweater as a sign of acceptance. That is, the sweather she is currently wearing, leaving her standing with her back towards the camera in only her bra.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Barbara's "I'd like to tie you in knots." line would probably have qualified if two actual bondage scenes hadn't been added later, albeit featuring other characters.

* HollywoodNatives Played straight. A tribe of these {{Noble Savage}}s in masks and grass skirts is presented as an example of the "state of nature" in which the male is expected to adorn himself, in opposition to present-day Western society where male clothing is rough in texture, and drab.
* HopeSpot: In Glen's dream, there is a moment where {{Satan}} teleports away, all the people who harassed him disappear, and Barbara enters the room ready to embrace him, having accepted his feminine side completely. Nope! Turns out she is {{Satan}} in disguise. His entourage retrns and they continue to mock Glen even more.

** Right from the beginning of the film, this trope is in full force. The opening caption promises among other things that "this is a picture of stark realism"... and then cuts to Lugosi sat in a haunted house going on the first of many nonsensical monologues.
** The most famous of the film's many examples has to be when Glen and Barbara are having a serious, frank discussion about their relationship, with Barbara concerned to the point where she thinks Glen might be cheating. Smash cut to a herd of buffalo stampeding, with a superimposed Lugosi bellowing "PULL THE STRING! PULL THE STRING!"

* TheRemake: A porn remake in 1994 (the same year ''Film/EdWood'' came out)

* ShamelessSelfPromotion: Dr. Alton says "Glen/Glenda should consult a competent psychiatrist" while showing us footage of... Dr. Alton.
* ShoutOut: [[OlderThanTheyThink The Scientist's "Big Green Dragon" speech is actually based on]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywcugcb1D1g a much older song]] [[BeamMeUpScotty called The Green-''eyed'' Dragon.]] [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext Knowing this doesn't make its placement in the film any less bewildering.]]

* TakeOurWordForIt: "Would you be surprised to know that this rough, tough individual is wearing pink, satin undies under his rough exterior clothing? He is."
* TemptingFate: "Nothing could be as bad as all that. I love you, and you love me, and nothing on Earth can change that."

** The question is avoided entirely with Anne, who never shows a romantic intrest in anyone. The alternative would have been to have her be gay either before or after her transition [[TakeAThirdOption (or making her bisexual.)]]

-->'''Dr. Alton:''' [[BreakingTheFourthWall "You're doing it now, laughing. Yet, it's not a situation to be laughed at."]]

* {{Transsexual}}: Anne is one.

* [[ButNotTooGay But Not Too Transgendered:]] This might be why it was decided to make Anne a pseudohermaphrodite, as this makes her transition seem less like her changing her sex and more like her choosing one.

* ContemptibleCover / NeverTrustATrailer: Both the poster (pictured above) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24OT5OTDE90 and the original trailer]] basically claims that Glen gets a sex change at some point. He doesn't. There is a transgendered character in the film, but she is a completely different person named Alan/Anne [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer (who isn't mentioned at all in either.)]]
** The TwoFaced, half-man half-woman on the poster seems more like a portrayal of gender dysphoria in general than a portait of any actual character from the film. Their female half mostly resembles Barbara, who isn't transgendered, they are more well-built than either Glen/Glenda or Alan/Anne were, and they are blonde, whereas both of the protagonists have dark hair (though Glen wears a blonde wig when dressed as Glenda.)

* QueerPeopleAreFunny: Defied. At one point, footage of a bearded man in a dress is shown. [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Dr. Alton is clearly expecting the audience to laugh,]] [[YouBastard and calls them out for doing so.]]

** The tagline ''"STRANGE LOVES... of those who live and love but can never marry!"'' is an outright lie. Anne is never given any kind of love interest, and nothing is stopping Glen and Barbara from getting married. He is just worried that she will leave him when she finds out about his crossdressing, as this had happened to a friend of his (who had already gotten married to his girlfriend at that point.) Barbara doesn't lesve him. The movie actually ends with their wedding.

** Dr. Alton also implies that she has more of a right to transition than Glen has, [[{{Hermaphrodite}} as she is already part woman.]]

** The line "STRANGE LOVES... of those who live and love but can never marry!" is an outright lie. Anne is never given any kind of love interest, and nothing is stopping Glen and Barbara from getting married. He is just worried that she will leave him when she finds out about his crossdressing, as this had happened to a friend of his (who had already gotten married to his girlfriend at that point.) Barbara doesn't lesve him. The movie actually ends with their wedding.

-->'''The Scientist:''' Man's constant groping of things unknown... drawing from the endless reaches of time... brings to light... many startling things. Startling? Because they seem new... sudden! But most are not new... in the signs of the ages.

* UnderstandingGirlfriend: Barbara becomes this by the end, where she says that she will always love Glen, no matter what.

* DivineDate: One of the girls in Glen's dream tries to hit on the Scientist, who is implied to be {{God}}. He isn't interested.

** Barbara also gives Glen her angora sweater as a sign of acceptance. That is, the sweather she is currently wearing.

** A scene where some characters claim that transgenderism is unnatural is also strange, as it consists entirely of closeups of their eyes and ears.

* NestedStory: Dr. Alton is telling the story of Glen - which Glen presumably told him personally - to Inspector Warren, but Dr. Alton is himself a character in a story told to the audience by the Scientist. Glen is also told a story by a friend of his who was divorced by his wife when she found out that he was crossdressing, giving us four layers of narration in total.

* FauxlosophicNarration

* {{Transsexual}}

* WholesomeCrossdresser

* DreamSequence: A good quarter of the movie is taken up by a long dream sequence by Glen featuring women in lingerie, light bondage, etc.

** The Scientist is also one, as he is telling the story to the viewers, but also meets both Glen and Anne, reacts to the girls in Glen's dream, (One of them even seems to hit on him.) and even adresses the Big Green Dragon, [[UpToEleven a character who only seems to exist as a methaphor in the Scientist's own ramblings.]]

* InteractiveNarrator: Dr. Alton.

* BookEnds: The movie begins and ends with a scene of Bela Lugosi sitting in a chair, [[{{Main/BreakingTheFourthWall}} talking directly to the audience.]] The first scene begins with the camera moving away from Lugosi, and the last scene begins with it moving towards him again. A litteral example, since he is actually reading a book in both scenes.

** The line "Glen is engaged to be married to Barbera, a lovely intelligent girl." is spoken twice by Dr. Alton, while talking to the same character. You'd think it would be enough to say it once.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: While disembodied, gossply voices talk about the "scandal" of a man dressing like a woman (or getting sex-reassignment surgery), we see a film of a steel mill in which molten metal is extruded into bars and then ''chopped off''.

* HollywoodNatives Played straight. A tribe of these {{NobleSavage}}s in masks and grass skirts is presented as an example of the "state of nature" in which the male is expected to adorn himself, in opposition to present-day Western society where male clothing is rough in texture, and drab.

** This movie is said to have at least partially inspired DavidLynch's ''Film/{{Eraserhead}}''.

--> Many of the smaller parts are portrayed by persons who acually are, in real life, the character they portray on the screen.

-> ''[[BigLippedAlligatorMoment "Pull the string! PULL THE STRING!"]]''
-->-- '''The Scientist''' ([[{{Creator/BelaLugosi}} Bela Lugosi]])

* BillingDisplacement: 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.

* ExecutiveMeddling: 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.

* ScienceMarchesOn: 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.