Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 197: Comparing multiple prints of 'Glen or Glenda' (1953)

Here we see a side-by-side comparison of two prints of Glen or Glenda.

If movies are made in the editing room, then Ed Wood's debut feature, Glen or Glenda (1953), was made, unmade, and remade several times over. I can't keep track of how many different versions of this film there are, and each one is as unique as a fingerprint. (Notice how fingerprints look pretty much the same from a distance but reveal their differences under scrutiny.) Over the decades, this movie has been released under innumerable titles, including I Led 2 Lives, Transvestite, and He or She. In the Ed Wood canon, perhaps only Orgy of the Dead (1965) has more aliases.  The content of the film has also changed noticeably from one edition to another, with certain lines or even whole scenes being added or omitted. 

Still my favorite edition of Glenda.

This phenomenon is as old as the film itself. Producer George Weiss infamously added saucy burlesque footage to an extended dream sequence late in the film, apparently without consulting Ed Wood. He did this for a number of reasons: to pad the run time, to add some sex appeal, and to reuse footage that he already owned. As a result, I don't think that there is any such thing as a "definitive" or "complete" cut of Glen or Glenda. As much as I'd like to see Criterion release a director's cut of this significant (and still shockingly relevant) motion picture, I don't think such a thing is possible.

The first version of the film that I ever saw was the one released by Rhino Video in 1996 as part of its Ed Wood Collection series of VHS tapes. This was the edition that I meticulously transcribed decades ago, and as far as I know, it's the lengthiest cut of Glen or Glenda that you can buy. Even here, though, are what some may consider impurities. Rhino's edition contains the Weiss-added burlesque footage, for instance, which irks certain Ed Wood fans. And the title card was obviously doctored—and crudely at that—by distributor Wade Williams. (My guess is that Williams' print carried one of the film's lesser-known alternate titles.) Nevertheless, Rhino's Glen or Glenda remains my preferred edition of the film. 

I was rather dismayed that, starting in the 2000s, the most commonly-available Glen or Glenda DVD on the market (included in popular sets like The Worst of Ed Wood and The Ed Wood Box) was from Image Entertainment and mastered from a censored, shortened print of the movie that lacked several key moments! When Legend Entertainment released its colorized version of Glen or Glenda in 2012, they used this censored cut of the movie. Even Rob Craig's exhaustive book Ed Wood, Mad Genius (2009) used the bowdlerized Image Entertainment version of Glen or Glenda for reference.

How do you know if the version of Glenda you're watching is the censored version? There's an easy test. Fast forward to the first conversation between Inspector Warren (Lyle Talbot) and Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell) until you get to this bit of dialogue:

DR. ALTON: Most of us have our idiosyncrasies.

INSPECTOR: This fellow's was quite pronounced.

DR. ALTON: Yes, but I wonder if it rated the death warrant it received. I don't think so.

INSPECTOR: Well, that's why I'm here today, Doctor. What do we do about it?

If Dr. Alton's "I don't think so" is missing, you have the censored Glen or Glenda. Again, I humbly refer you to my transcript of the entire movie. I've highlighted all the missing and excised material in red.

You may also remember that, back in 2020, there was some hubbub about a restored 35mm print of Glen or Glenda that received some theatrical showings and was briefly available as a digital download from the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA). Any fans hoping for a "definitive" or "complete" edition of Glenda quickly had their hopes dashed when they saw the results. As Greg Dziawer pointed out in his article, this was the shortest edition yet of the film, even shorter than the Image DVD! 

I didn't even bother to screen the restored print of Glen or Glenda in 2020, figuring it wouldn't be worth my time and wouldn't show me anything new. Nevertheless, it nagged at me. It was an itch unscratched. Recently, reader Brendon Sibley shared his copy of the AGFA edition with me, and I finally sat down and watched it. In fact, I screened it alongside the longer cut of the film to determine how they differed from one another.

Fortunately, when I transcribed the Rhino Video version of the movie, I numbered all the scenes from the film. This made it easier to denote exactly what was missing from the AGFA print. Here is a list of the changes that I noticed. Please note that all scene numbers refer to my transcript; I have never seen Ed Wood's original screenplay for this film.

• Scene 1: The credit sequence and opening disclaimer ("You are society...") are missing.

• Scene 2: Bela Lugosi's first speech ("Man's constant groping...") is missing.

• Scene 5: A title sequence identifying the film as Twisted Lives has been added after Scene 5. This is the only material unique to the AGFA print.

• Scene 6: Bela's "new day/new life" speech is missing.

• Scene 26: The shot of a woman's left ear with added voiceover ("We certainly would have been born boys!") is missing.

• Scene 27: The shot of a man's left ear with added voiceover ("We certainly would have been born girls!") is missing.

• Scene 28: The closeup of a woman's eyes and nose with voiceover by Dr. Alton ("Are we sure?") is missing.

• Scene 44: The beginning of Glen's childhood flashback—a shot of a dress hanging on a rack—is missing.

• Scene 59: A long, pivotal conversation between Glen and Barbara is missing. In this scene, Glen is distracted and Barbara asks what is bothering him. Glen acknowledges that he has a problem but cannot be more specific.

• Scene 60: Stock footage of a buffalo stampede is missing, accompanied by voiceover ("Pull the string! A mistake is made!") from Bela Lugosi.

• Scene 61: A brief scene of Bela in his laboratory is missing. Bela tells us, "The story must be told!"

• Scene 62: A scene in Glen's apartment, with voiceover by Dr. Alton ("He's not had the nerve to tell her") is missing.

• Scene 63: Stock footage of highway traffic, accompanied by narration from Dr. Alton ("All these cars, all going someplace..."), is missing.

• Scenes 74 and 75: The end of the conversation between Joe and Jack is missing. We don't get Joe's final line ("See you tomorrow, Jack!") or Jack replying in a female voice. A stock shot of lightning is also missing.

• Scenes 94 through 129: The entire burlesque sequence is missing from its usual place in the film. At first, I thought that it might be gone entirely from the movie, but the AGFA print shifts this sequence to the middle of Scene 131, the long closeup of the Devil's face, accompanied by voiceover. When it finally appears, the burlesque sequence has been shortened by about half.

• Scene 161: This scene is almost identical to the Rhino version, but after Dr. Alton gives his speech about hermaphrodites and pseudo-hermaphrodites, the AGFA print removes a shot of Timothy Farrell walking back to his desk.

• Scene 173: A brief scene set in Dr. Alton's office ("If the papers had not gotten hold of this story...") is missing.

• Scenes 174 through 176: A sequence of Alan/Ann getting acclimated to being a woman is missing, along with narration by Dr. Alton. In these scenes, Ann learns to do her own hair and makeup and learns to walk like a woman.

You might think that the AGFA print of Glen or Glenda is missing a lot of material, and you'd be right. In addition to the cuts listed above, this version of the movie has some missing frames along the way. Generally, these glitches last less than a second, but some scraps of dialogue are absent or garbled as a result. 

As much as I cherish every frame of Glenda, some of the cuts are understandable from a distributor's point of view. Ed Wood does labor the point a bit during the "If the creator..." sequence, for example, so it doesn't really damage the film to trim this just a little. The removal of scenes 59 through 63, however, effectively rips the heart out of the film and deprives it of some of its most iconic and poignant moments. (No buffalo stampede? Perish the thought!) And I was irritated that the iron foundry sequence was truncated and missing its punchline, since this is also censored in the widely-distributed Image Entertainment DVD.

So why should anyone watch the AGFA version of Glen or Glenda? Because it is—and I do not use this word lightly—sumptuous. There is a level of clarity and detail here that I have never seen from any other print of the film. As I was performing the side-by-side comparison described above, I found my attention constantly diverted by the AGFA print. My eye wanted to scrutinize each corner of each frame. 

More than anything, I felt that this print brought me one generation closer to Ed Wood himself. I doubt that the original camera negative for Glen or Glenda still exists anywhere, so this 35mm print is as close as we are liable to get. Someday, someone will have to assemble the longest-possible edition of the movie from the best-possible sources. When they do, the 2022 release of the film should be the main source of footage, supplemented by material from the Rhino and Legend editions.