The Christine Jorgensen Story

The biggest problem with this movie is that the lead actor, John Hansen, looks more like a man when he is a woman and he looks more like woman when he is a man...Go figure?

It's hard to believe that the director of the classic 'Now Voyager' directed this wastebucket. The story of the world's most famous sex change recipient (THIS WAS NOT THE FIRST SEX CHANGE! NOT EVEN CLOSE! Sex change operations had been happening since the 1920s at least! Can't people research things? Jorgensen was the first Sex change celebrity for sure.) is so very bizzare. We are first introduced to little George Jorgensen Jr. played by the uber creepy Trent Lehman (Butch on 'Nanny & The Professor', Who later at the age of 20 commited suicide by hanging himself with his belt from a middle school fence) Little Georgie grins like a maniac while looking at a eye rolling doll through a toy shop window and endures the taunts of his pudgie playmates who proclaim that his name is "Georgette" while making stereotypical limp wrist gestures (This is very odd, given that nothing in Lehman's mannerisms is particularly effeminate!) After abandoning his erector set (!?), Georgie decides he would rather play with his sister's dolls. After being discovered with a doll at school, his parents start to worry. Years pass and Creepy Trent has grown into a Hetero Surfer dude who seems to be doing a mediocre wispy gay imitation (Inconsistent with Lehman's performance). Chubby playmates give way to bitchy fashion models and taunting prostitutes. The burly bleached blonde George decides to consult with some kind of hormone expert and soon is off to Denmark to be changed into Grace Kelley's stunt double. Our hero/heroine soon finds brief romance with a handsome tabloid reporter (Quinn K. Redeker, a few years after his riveting tour de force in 'The Three Stooges Meet Hercules') Poor Christine finds the people back home in America to be ignorant, simple minded and insensitive (As does most of Europe). I have to stop here, as words are inadequate to describe this overly melodramatic soap opera/train wreck. I will say this, it is never boring!

This is the first time that I have seen this film, and, having expected to see something along the lines of an Ed Wood camp classic, I was a bit surprised to see a film which was made with some care and professionalism, and an earnest approach to it's subject. John Hansen does okay in the acting department, even if he is a little bulky to be playing this convincingly. (I kept seeing Jethrene from The Beverly Hillbillies). The supporting cast are all good and the direction is excellent. In all, when one considers the year this was released, (1970) this is not a bad film. The print shown on Netflix was in excellent shape and the sound was excellent. Some brief nudity gives this an R rating.

This attempt at a serious presentation of the story of Christine Jorgensen, the first person to undergo a sex-change operation, comes across now as unintentional camp. The movie traces the life of George Jorgensen, a confused young man who has always had the impulses of a female, from his difficult childhood to his army stint and success as a fashion photographer to his journey to Scandanavia and the subsequent operation. Along the way we're dished up a brain-broiling stew of equal parts overripe soap opera and freakish psychodrama. As a child, George secretly dresses up in his sister's dresses and plays with her dolls. As he grows older, George tries to suppress his feminine impulses by joining the army. During basic training, he hallucinates that the sandbag he is supposed to practice bayonetting is a doll he once pined for in a shop window as a child. After the military, he becomes a photographer. While on a location shoot, he is nearly raped by his closeted boss and finds sympathy in one of the models("The only people we can confide in are strangers," she informs him). Seeking answers to his problem, he becomes a research assistant to a biologist doing work in hormone studies, from whom he learns he has higher than normal levels of estrogen--big surprise! Under the guise of a photo shoot, George travels to Denmark, where he stays with an aunt who is(conveniently)a dressmaker, and confides in her his real reason for coming to visit. Auntie is understanding and graciously agrees to create a new feminine wardrobe for George/Christine. The movie now descends into soap opera territory, as Christine falls for a reporter who is sent to interview her for a newspaper, and we're treated to shots of the two kissing, shot throught the flames in the fireplace.

I saw this precurser to brain seizures on TNT's 100% Weird and had the foresight to tape it, and am I glad I did. Otherwise nobody would believe such a film exists. It's hard to believe that this movie got made, given the subject matter, which really couldn't be made in any way that wasn't exploitative. Star John Hansen sports bleach blonde hair with long bangs, speaks in an effeminate whisper, and wears tons of pancake makeup. Even weirder are the scenes post surgery, where he puts on a blonde wig, squeezes himself into a corset that pushes his pectoral muscles up in a most voluptous manner, and sashays around in filmy dressing gowns and heels. This guy looks good in drag! Along the way there are various humiliations, including an army shower scene("Hey George, what are you going to do tonight?" asks an army buddy. "Line up with all the other girls!" howls another in the shower), a botched visit to a prostitute, and the aforementioned attempted rape. This last scene comes as a total surprise: it's hard to believe the censors(or what was left of them in 1970)let that pass, seeing as how such a scene would have trouble playing even now. My only explanation is that this film must have had a limited release, or one that only played to the grindhouses. Definitely a film to see if you're tired with the mediocre bad films playing perpetually on cable and pine for a true JOLT!! John Waters, have you caught wind of this one?

In the early 1950s, George Jorgensen transitioned from a guy to a woman. I noticed some reviewers said he was the first to do so...but he was not, as some such surgeries were performed in Europe in the 1930s. Instead, he was the first to go public and openly admit they'd gone through the hormone replacement and operations. Now renamed 'Christine', she spent much of the rest of her live advocating for transsexual acceptance. Here in this 1970 film, Jorgensen's autobiography is brought to the big screen...with a caveat. The film was highly fictionalized according to several sources I read and I have no idea what was and what wasn't true. Sure, they wanted to make the film profitable and embellishing would make the project more cinematic...but it really calls for a more faithful film about her life. And, at this point, if you want the best version of Christine's life, try to find the book--and it is at Amazon (among other places).

As far as the film goes, it seemed from the beginning that the filmmakers really didn't try all that hard to get the look of the film right. Much of the movie is set in the 1940s...yet the hairstyles and clothes look like they're from 1970! In particular, the models George was photographing looked nothing like a 1940s or 50s woman. The guys in the film were dressed in clothes closer to the period...which seemed a bit odd. Also, the cars shown in 'Copenhagen' (circa 1950) are mid to late 50s American cars. As a retired history teacher, I tend to notice these things...perhaps most others won't. I can only assume they either didn't care to get it right or the project was so low budget they simply couldn't afford the extra cost of getting the details right.

The film stars John Hansen as George/Christine. He's not a particularly famous actor and only has a small number of film credits. But he was pretty good as the title character--rather feminine as a male but not campy or over the top. Once the transition's been made, Hansen does a fair job but looks more like a guy than Christine actually did-- modern makeup would have made the character more believable--but it was 1970 when they made the picture.

As far as the rest of the film goes, it worked pretty well because it did not come off as an exploitation film--something that could have happened very easily. Sensitively made, it is interesting to watch though I also know it's not a film for everyone! My only big regret is that I wanted the film to be a true biography...not a film with occasional embellishments and changes for the sake of marketing.