short takes (2)

Movies don't often live up to their billing, but I've found one that does, "I Led Two Lives," currently using the title Glen or Glenda, has been re-released by Paramount Pictures as a cinematic curiosity. Made in 1954, it has been identified by some critics as pehaps the worst film ever made, and I suppose it is. Lyle Talbot plays a policeman who wants to learn the facts about transvestism. He visits a physician, and hears the instructive tale of a young man whose hankering for women's clothing is eventually cured by a pretty wife and a lot of positive thinking. This yarn is acted out, with occasional dream sequences, and a narration by Bela Lugosi, who says things so pointless you wonder if he's watching the movie.