ANDY FISH

ANDY FISH is a comic book artist

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Glen or Glenda?


"Glen is not a homosexual. Glen is a transvestite, but he is not a homosexual."

Once we get this information from the narrator of the film we are ready to roll on what is perhaps one of the most bizarre movies I've ever seen.

Infamous movie director Ed Wood is often credited as the worst filmmaker of all time-- and I think this is not the case. The job of anyone in the entertainment field is to entertain, and say what you will about this mish mash of stock footage and a script that appears to have been written in a drunken stupor underneath the rear booth at an all night Denny's, this movie was certainly entertaining.

Bela Lugosi is the star of this little feature, playing the puppet master who apparently something to do with all the other characters in the movie but for the life of me I don't know what. He occasionally intones some words of wisdom such as

"Beware! Beware of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys... Puppy dog tails, and BIG FAT SNAILS... Beware... Take care... Beware!"

I think I may just put that on my tombstone.

Lugosi looks better than I remember him from this period and Wood himself is better than some of the actors I've seen in supposed A or B pictures over the years. He's certainly less wooden than Kevin Costner and he's miles above GOG co star Lyle Talbot who I'm pretty sure they were repeatingly hitting over the head during filming which would account for his glassy eyed stare.

There's a Existential dream sequence in this which I think might have inspired Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL (HEY IT'S POSSIBLE!!!), which goes on far too long, but then when you make a movie with 20 minutes of real footage and the rest stock, you sometimes have to milk out the bizarre stuff.

As Wood himself tells us "My mind is in a muddle. Like... thick fog. I can't make sense to myself sometimes."

Couldn't have said it better myself, Ed.
Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of bad cinema. I liked it enough to buy a copy after seeing it and adding it to my Plan 9 and Bride of the Monster DVDs.