From MGM
Directed by Blake Edwards
Starring
Julie Andrews
James Garner
Robert Preston
Lesley Ann Warren
Alex Karras
John Rhys-Davies
Graham Stark
Peter Arne
Picture it... Paris, 1934. Out-of-work coloratura Victoria Grant, weak and starving, is rescued by a just-fired gay cabaret singer, Toddy. He tells Victoria that she can sing (he heard her in a failed audition at the same club that fired him) and he will manage her. He advises that they're in the wrong place and time for an opera singer to make it but says the city is crawling with female impersonators. How can she pretend to be a female when she is one, she queries? Well, he muses, she will pretend to be a man pretending to be a woman.
Toddy cuts her hair and works with her to get her voice lower while she straps down her bosom and learns to act and think butch, the latter being something he's only marginally able to help her with. They team with a local impresario and come up with the new Victor, now claiming to be from Polish aristocracy, and push him into a starring gig at one of the in local hot spots.
Of course if everything went well, we wouldn't have much of a film (although I could have listened to two hours of Andrews singing all her hit songs), so enter King Marchand (in the boudoir known as Pookie), a rather stodgy Chicago nightclub owner; his tagalong floozie, Norma, and Mr. Bernstein, King's burly bodyguard. The trio commands front-row seats to Victor's show.
The best musical scene of the film is this performance. Victoria comes on, looking glamorous, belting out the film's most memorable song, Le Jazz Hot. King isn't sure that Victor isn't a real woman (men named King have extrasensory powers) and his face says he's attracted to her, which annoys the devil out of the whiny Norma, herself a nightclub star back home. When Victoria takes off the headgear and hairpiece and stands there triumphantly looking butch (well, hold on, on that one), Norma stands up and scream out her glee while King looks like he's done dukies.
So now, has King found himself a bit attracted to a femme dude and if so, what does that say about King? He must find out and hopefully get the testosterone pumping again... he must, um, know for certain whether it's Victor or Victoria. Some of the film's best comedy comes in his quest to find out... and he does. And his infatuation turns to amour.
At the same time, Victoria has fallen for King (I'm not sure why... Toddy seemed like a helluva lot more fun) and that, of course, brings Victoria to dealing with her deception. If she lives the truth, she's out of work which she's come to love. And again, what about King? He's pretty sure he doesn't want to be known as Victor's boyfriend.
Their relationship progresses just the way it should... remembering this is musical-comedy. And along the way it's such a fun ride. The comedy, some of it of the screwball variety, is fairly non-stop with sight gags, a couple of nightclub brawls, and has some very witty lines. And when that isn't happening Andrews is singing... sometimes alone and sometimes with Preston.
My favorite comedy scene is in the cafe where Victoria (having not eaten in days) and Toddy are stuffing it down, knowing they cannot pay the check. She has already wolfed down one order and second meal, beef bourguignon. Shortly, when the waiter returns with her two salads, she complains to the feisty waiter that the beef is a little tough. He drolly replies, perhaps with the way you are eating, your jaws are getting tired. It is inspired, their entire banter, and of course the scene turns into sheer mayhem when a cockroach (which she intends to slip into her salad, resulting in free meals) escapes and crawls up an imperious-looking woman's chunky leg.
Not only is the finger-poppin'-high steppin' Le Jazz Hot the best song in the film, it's one of the best in Andrews' career, although I think it has to be seen rather than simply heard. I admit I loved that song she sang among those white birches on that Austrian mountaintop, but Le Jazz Hot is also a visual treat of another kind. Andrews has probably never been so sexy and vivacious in a musical number. Additionally, the choreography and the singer/dancers who accompany her are on fire. When I haul out the DVD, I tend to watch this number several times.
We meet Preston with his campy singing of Gay Paree, providing the audience most everything it needs to know about his character. He also closes the film with The Shady Dame from Seville, in full drag, imitating Andrews who had sung it earlier. Another time the duo did a cute soft-shoe number, You and Me. Warren, as Norma, does a wild simulated striptease to Chicago, Illinois. All music was written by Henry Mancini and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. They won the film's only Oscar for their score.
Blake Edwards, who directed, wrote and co-produced, was a master of the smart comedy. He had a sensitive ear for romance as well. Along with a lengthy collaboration with Mancini, he worked repeatedly with the same crew. He was known, however, to have some explosive moments on his sets, although usually do to what he referred to as studio interference. During this period of his life, he seemed intent to do successful work with Andrews, his wife. They made nine films together and this was at the top of the critical heap. Perhaps their earlier 10 (1979) made more money, but her role didn't cause quite the stir that Dudley Moore and Bo Derek's did.
Andrews, always a pro who wanted to get things right and one would think especially for her husband, had a difficult time with her gender-bender role. She has said she felt she was not able to rely on her usual tricks and felt a little insecure. The funny thing... at least to me... is that she never really pulled off the Victor side.
King Marshand was right... she looked all-woman to us. I'm not sure that's so bad, however, because, really now, how often are these entertainers 100% convincing? I think that's part of the fun.
Certainly on the up side for Andrews is that she got to work for the second time with both Preston and Garner. With Preston she had just finished S.O.B. and she and Garner made The Americanization of Emily in 1964 (his favorite of all his films). Garner, as King, was the only one of the four top-billed to not get an Oscar nomination. I personally thought he was the least effective of them as well... he seemed like he was making another film or at least wasn't having as much fun as the others. (I'd always heard he wanted to play the gay role.)
All the attention went to Preston who comically nailed it as the gay Toddy. He and Andrews have a dazzling chemistry. Surprisingly, it was his only Oscar nomination in a long career.
The brunette Warren plays a delicious blonde bimbo. Her scenes are all slam-bang comedy. She hysterically freaks out handling the gay stuff that's suddenly been thrust upon her but it is her bedroom scenes with Garner (Pookey, I'm hooooorny) that one remembers.
Low-key Karras was perfect, too, as the loyal lummox bodyguard who ends up in a gay relationship with Preston.
In 1995, Andrews made not only a TV version of Victor Victoria but she opened it on Broadway that year as well.
Here's a look of my favorite number in this warm and funny film:
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