Glen or Glenda

Bela Lugosi was broke and an addict at the time so readily took on a role in the film, even though, according to Delores Fuller, he hated transvestites. Reportedly, he was paid $5000, but it was probably closer to $1000.

Surrealist filmmaker David Lynch called this one of his favorite films. He used the "howling wind" sound effect in Eraserhead (1977).

The film includes almost 14 minutes of stock footage, including the end credits, and 73 seconds that run concurrently with new footage of Bela Lugosi. The stock scenes include "Fake Lightning" (used 6 times), "Pedestrians" (3 times), "Highway Day" (3 times), "Highway Night" (twice), "Playground" (twice), "Superior Court" (twice), "Ridiculous Soft Core", "Natives", "Bison Stampede", "Parking Lot", "Steel Foundry", "WWII", "Ambulance", "Airplane", "Signalman", "Milkman", and "Girls with Fuzzy Hats or Sweaters."

In March 1981, Paramount placed a full-page page ad in the New York Times announcing the reissue of Glen or Glenda. It was heralded as a lost trail-blazing masterpiece in the tradition of Citizen Kane (1941), Freaks (1932), The Godfather (1972) and Napoleon (1927). A big New York premiere was scheduled for the reissue, but the date, April 1st, made film buffs suspect that the whole thing was an April Fool's Day joke. Paramount abruptly canceled the premiere the night before, citing the attempted assassination of then-president Ronald Reagan on March 30th. The film was quietly put into limited re-release the next month, and started appearing in TV "bad movie" film festivals soon after.

Shot in just four days.