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| FUN FACT: In Spanish, Ed Wood is known as Eduardo Madera. |
You might not believe this, but I used to be a Spanish teacher in a former life. Don't ask me to speak any of the language; what little I knew, I've long since forgotten. But I did take a few Spanish courses in college and memorized just enough to teach (uninterested, borderline hostile) middle schoolers some basic vocabulary words and common phrases. Beyond that, I was hopeless. The smarter kids in my classes must've known I was bluffing.
I don't have any nostalgia for my brief, benighted teaching career, but I do have some fond memories of those college courses. That must have been what possessed me to buy a set of Mexican lobby cards for Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) at auction a few years ago. I never did anything with those cards, by the way. They arrived in a large binder in 2015, and they're still in that binder now. Just a dumb, regrettable purchase all around.
I got to thinking recently about Eddie's movies playing in foreign countries, particularly Spanish-speaking ones. South of the border, down Mexico way, Plan 9 was known as Espectros del Espacio and was distributed by a company called Peliculas Coloso S.A. de C.V. (That name translates roughly as Colossus Films, Stock Corporation.) As far as I can tell, this was the company's only release. Or the only one people still remember. I'll have to assume Plan 9 was dubbed into Spanish back then, so that version of the film must exist somewhere. I'd be curious to hear what voice they gave Tor Johnson. Or Bunny Breckinridge.
In 1961, Eddie's debut film, Glen or Glenda, was released in Argentina under the name Yo Cambiè Mi Sexo. I managed to find two versions of the poster: one with its own unique artwork and one that used the artwork from the American poster. I can't decide which one I like better.
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| Two Argentinian posters for Glen or Glenda. |
I can't let you go today before showing you yet another Argentinian poster, seemingly from the 1960s as well. This time around, Glenda was part of a triple feature alongside the infamous exploitation classic Mom & Dad (1945) and the Finnish drama Bewildered Youth (1957), billed as El Origen de la Natalidad and El Tercer Sexo respectively.
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| A strange night at the movies in Argentina. |