“I think the right woman could reform you, too”

    Victor/Victoria (Motion picture). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents; screenplay by Blake Edwards; produced by Blake Edwards and Tony Adams; directed by Blake Edwards. Original music, Henry Mancini; set decoration, Harry Cordwell; director of photography, Dick Bush; choreography, Paddy Stone. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, c[2012]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1982. Special features: feature-length audio commentary by Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards.
     Performers: Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Lesley Ann Warren, Alex Karras, John Rhys-Davies. Summary: a man impersonating a woman on stage? Piece of cake. But a woman whose livelihood depends on pretending to be a man who pretends to be a woman? Now you've got problems! An out-of-work singer conspires to pose as a female impersonator in order to get work on the Paris cabaret circuit.

    Viktor und Viktoria (Motion picture). UFA presents; production company, Alfred Zeisler; screenplay, Reinhold Schünzel; producer, Eduard Kubat; directed by Reinhold Schünzel. New York, NY: Kino Classics,c[2020]. 1 DVD (99 min.). Originally released as a motion picture in 1933. Special feature: audio commentary by film historian Gaylyn Studlar. Photography, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Werner Bohne; music, Franz Doelle. Performers: Renate Müller, Hermann Thimig, Hilde Hildebrand, Friedel Pisetta, Frtiz Odemar, Aribert Wäscher, Adolf Wohlbrück.
    Summary: a young woman, unable to find work as a music hall singer, partners with a down-and-out thespian to revamp her act. Pretending to be a man performing in drag, Victoria becomes the toast of the international stage. But she soon finds that her playful bending of genders enmeshes her personal and professional life in a tangle of unexpected complications.


    This year marks the fortieth anniversary of one of my favorite movies, Victor/Victoria [1]. Ergo some thoughts on this gender bending, and in its modest way, revolutionary work. I was lucky enough to catch it on the big screen when it was originally released, and since then a few times on DVD. As theatrical releases of VV are probably not in the offing, I suppose we must make do with the DVD for now. Thus I confess a certain disappointment at my last viewing. The content was as warm and compelling as ever, but something gets lost on a small screen, especially the glorious sounds and visuals in the big production numbers. And for all the scrumptious, extravagant look of the aforementioned set pieces I couldn’t help wondering whether the film might have been more effective in (gasp!) monochromatic black and white. It certainly would have conjured up the Depression era better and added to the hovering melancholy of the story. Indeed, for all that VV is, at least on its surface, an exuberant explosion of the joy of living, there’s something very sad, even profoundly so, about the story and its characters, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. It might be an unconscious reaction to the era, in which everyone was either struggling or, if temporarily doing okay, always on the edge of disaster. As a result there was an overriding sense of doom and futility. Perhaps it’s the opening scene of the snowfall on the ramshackle, albeit beautifully evoked, Paris streets, and especially Victoria’s sense of desperation and loneliness as she trudges on and does her best to keep a stiff upper lip.
   As for the many qualities of the film itself, our nominal leads do yeoman service: James Garner is fine as the constantly bemused King Marchand, but it’s Ms. Andrews who really shines in what might well be the performance of a career. Victor/Victoria reminds us just how talented she is: sing, dance, act, comedy, drama, slapstick. Still, and with no disrespect to our two leads, the real show stoppers of VV are the supporting players, especially Alex Karras as Squash, the tough guy bodyguard with a heart of gold; Peter Arne as the scowling cabaret manager Labisse; Lesley Ann Warren in full-on Jean Harlow mode as the squeaky voiced Norma; and best of all Robert Preston as the irrepressible, unapologetic Toddy. A little quibble, though: Toddy’s performance in drag at the end of the film didn’t really work for me, maybe because it went on a bit too long. Second, related quibble: at 133 minutes, the film comes perilously close to overstaying its welcome. In any event Henry Mancini’s score is classy as always, and for all the brassy flamboyance of the big scenes the real musical and emotional high point of the film is the song ‘Crazy World,’ which Ms. Andrews renders with true pathos. Alas the tune departs much too quickly but is brought back in instrumental guises throughout. Likewise kudos for the sets, choreography, costumes, production design, and of course the brittle script, which requires perfect timing delivery, and which it gets from the principals.
     In between all the farce and frivolity, there are some legitimate issues – what really is ‘manliness’ and ‘womanliness,’ and how much of it is surface and how much of it is ‘real.’ But these and like questions are interspersed so effortlessly, smuggled in as it were, that they’re almost gone before we know it. Ergo if you’re looking for a realistic, historically accurate depiction of gay sensibilities, gender definitions or even Paris night life ca.1934, look elsewhere, and so be it. For at heart VV is a polished, high-level Hollywood fantasy representative of the best qualities of its era. It evokes prior eras while in its limited way is ahead of its time. In a word, Victor/Victoria holds up exceptionally well. It manages the high wire act of balancing pie-in-the-face comedy, musical numbers, dance, costume, clever repartee and even a touch of wisdom with true grace, an understated panache, if you like. As an old-fashioned comedy romp with musical numbers and lots of jokes done in a supremely secure style technically, VV is arguably even more on the money today than when it first appeared in its slightly shocking glory four decades ago. Victor/Victoria then is the complete entertainment package. Considering the talent involved in all aspects of production, it really couldn’t miss, and it didn’t.

   [1] The 1982 Victor/Victoria is a remake of a German production, Viktor und Viktoria (1933), which stands on its own pretty well and actually compares favorably to its big budget namesake. Renate Müller is terrific in the title role. In fact I think she’s more convincing impersonating a man than Julie Andrews. In any case sources cite no fewer than five remakes of Viktor und Viktoria, but the number grows to seven if we add the 1934 UFA French language George and Georgette and the 1995 Broadway play. A curious bit of history is that the original 1933 VV had its premiere on 23 December 1933. It’s little short of miraculous that the film even survived, much less inspired the above-mentioned French version. The National Socialists had been in power for almost a year, and to say the least, they didn’t approve of anything even vaguely sympathetic to LGBTQ.* This initial incarnation of VV then may be seen as the last gasp, if a toned down one, of the Weimar era entertainment zeitgeist in all its exuberant, life-affirming, decadent excess, all of which was anathema to the strait-laced Nazis. As for a queer subtext in the film, the story – and characters – literally flirt with the idea a couple of times, and just as quickly abandon it. As an interesting aside, in this original take on "Victor and Victoria," many of the conversations take place in rhyme, either quasi-sung or in recitative, in the manner of Sprechstimme. This is a feature that didn’t carry over into the Hollywood redo.
    Aside: the second time I watched Viktor und Viktoria I enjoyed it even more, and was struck by how American it looks, paralleling as it does Hollywood essays on the backstage musical like 42nd St. and Footlight Parade. There's even a Busby Berkeley-lite number, that, while not as good as the genuine item, isn't bad.      

   * Then again, maybe the censors were so straight (in all senses of the word) that they simply didn't catch the (however subtly presented) gay innuendo in the story. A delicious bit of irony is the casting of Anton Walbrook (here billed as Adolf Wohlbrück). Walbrook was a gay man, but here he takes the role of Robert, the conspicuously hetero male romantic lead.