The film "Glen or Glenda" was written, directed, and even starred in by the man named by critics "The Worst Director of All Time" and a "Z" movie director. Ed Wood Jr. has been maligned by many as unimaginably bad and completely devoid of talent.

Wood's primary offense, according to his detractors, is the complete lack of concern Wood had for traditional conventions.  As evidence they cite the infamous fill-in for Bela Lugosi who finished Plan 9 from Outer Space swathed in a cape, the wacky, cheaply made sets, and, of course, the painfully bad acting.  However, fans and more generous critics see in Wood a certain genius.  Without money, sets, costumes, or even semi-talented actors, Ed Wood created films.  All he had was passion.  And it is in this raw energy and excitement that they see his gift.  Critic Jim Morton called Wood's films dada-esque in their complete disregard for convention and almost single-minded concern for revelation -- no matter how poorly delivered by the actor. (For positive commentary on Wood see Jim Morton's "Ed Wood Jr." in Research # 10 and "Celebrating the Outsiders: Tim Burton's 'Ed Wood'.")

Wood got his inspiration from comic books and Orson Welles; he kept himself going by writing.  He wrote screenplays to subsidize his film work, but perhaps his most prolific work was in pulp fiction.  He wrote hundred of titles under his own and assumed names such as Woodrow Edwards or Dick Trent.  No accurate count exists as there is no full record of all of his pseudonyms.

In his pulp fiction -- Killer in Drag; Diary of a Transvestite Hooker; It Takes One To Know One -- the reader often gets a glimpse into Wood's not-so-private passion -- cross-dressing.  The film "Glen or Glenda" is perhaps the most raw and intimate of Wood's works precisely because it deals with this subject.  Wood wrote and directed the show and even acts the lead part of Daniel Davis.

The film, also known as "I Led Two Lives," "I Changed My Sex," and "He or She: The Transvestite," is actually two stories with a narration by "Scientist" Bela Lugosi and an educational commentary by a psychologist to tie them together.  The first story is of a cross-dressing man who must reveal to his fiancé his passion for ladies lingerie and the occasional angora sweater.  The second story is of a surgically transformed transsexual.

In the DVD version a middle "dream sequence" is included with writhing women in bondage situations and a young woman ravaged by a pirate/gypsy. This was probably inserted to appeal to the average audience of a sexploitation picture -- a group of men waiting for the next stripper to take to the stage.

The raw energy with which Wood pursued filmmaking would eventually burn him out.  After "Glen and Glenda," Wood went on to make more movies, including a dip into the porn industry in his later years ("Take it Out in Trade" and "Necromania"), but in 1978 at the age of only 54 Wood died of a heart attack after a slide into alcoholism.  He died just two years before being dubbed the worst director of all time by Michael and Harry Medved, a move that actually caused a surge of interest in Wood and brought to him the fame that he did not enjoy in life.