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Victor Victoria [1982]

Starring: Julie Andrews, Alex Karras, Robert Preston, James Garner, Blake Edwards
Director: Blake Edwards
Format: Dubbed PAL Widescreen
Released: 29 Jul 2002
RRP: £13.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Excellent! - By: Mr. Nicky G. Woodward, 23 Oct 2008
This is a very funny & very clever film. If you're a fan of Julie Andrews, you have to see it!
Julie Andrews has an exceptional vocal range - By: B. Chandler, 17 Sep 2005
This movie is pretty much a remake of Viktor und Viktoria (1933) which is still available on DVD from amazon.de. However there is a character (Blake Edwards as Charles Bovin, Private Investigator hired by Labisse) that distracts from the movie by using too many slapstick scenes that do not fit the story.

Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) a starving out of work legitimate female singer. She meets also out of work singer Carroll Todd (Robert Preston). Due to an extraordinary event a plan hatches in Toddy's mind he suggests that Victoria pose as a man pretending to be a woman in order to get work. Victor Grezhinsk (Julie Andrews) the Polish aristocrat female impersonator meats promoter (James Garner) who is at odds as to his/her gender. After a sneak peek he knows the difference but what about his big time gangster buddies?

Many top actors & singers. You find singing ranges that very few people can match in Julie Andrews. Leslie Ann Warren is like a shiny toy. There are way too many great actors to mention in this review.

You will like the story. You will like the singing "Crazy World" outshines the movie. You will want to watch this over & again.

Everyone will know he's a phony - By: Kurt Messick, 01 Dec 2004
Blake Edwards had a unique style of film; alll the films seemed to have a certain atmosphere while each maintaining an individual character. Of course, Julie Andrews was a frequent actress in his films - Edwards & Andrews are married, & have been since 1969, an astonishing longevity for Hollywood.

In 'Victor/Victoria', Edwards returns to a Parisian settings familiar to fans of his work in the Pink Panther series - there is some minor elements of slapstick (the clutzy waiter, the bumbling detective, perhaps a nod in the direction of the Pink Panther films), but the real narrative plot is drawn along by the stylish comedy of Julie Andrews (Victoria Grant/Victor) & Robert Preston (Carroll Todd), in one of his last films.

The film is actuallly based on a much older piece, from 1933, written by Reinhold Schünzel, a German actor & writing, known in Europe primarily from the 1920s to the 1950s (perhaps English-speaking audiences would know him best from his role in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Notorius'). This was not the first, nor the last remake of this piece.

Preston plays an aging, gay, musical theatre man-about-town, who we take it is various a performer, talent scout, & director. Through a strange set of circumstances, he happens to be in a restaurant with a down-on-her-luck singer, who has just flopped at her last audition, & was willing to sell her virtue to the hotel manager for a meatballl. She has captured a cockroach, & intends to plant the bug in the salad, thus avoiding payment of the bill - Carroll Todd ('Toddy' to his friends) & Victoria escape the restaurant, & come to share a room together while figuring out what to do.

Toddy comes up with the idea of dressing up Victoria as a man to then present her as the greatest drag queen, with the absurd name of Count Victor Grezhinski, a gay Polish count. 'Who would ever believe it?' Victoria protests. 'A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be woman.'

'It's perfect!' Toddy insists.

'Everyone will know he's a phony,' Victoria insists.

'Exactly! Everyone will know HE's a phony.'

Victoria as Victor auditions for Andre Cassell (John Rhys-Davies), the greatest talent & booking agent in Paris. He schedules Victor to open in a grand venue, & the deception seems complete. That is, until King Marchand (James Garner), a Chicago gangster & nightclub owner, arrives, complete with bodyguard (Alex Karras) & moll in tow (Leslie Ann Warren). He doesn't believe the act, & is determined to discover the truth.

While Victor/Victoria is not a musical in the sense of 'Cats' or 'Showboat', it does have some reallly stunning musical numbers, as one would expect from a Julie Andrews production. 'Le Hot Jazz' & 'The Shady Dame from Seville' are excellent numbers (Preston does his own reprise of 'The Shady Dame' for the big finale), & other numbers are fun; Leslie Ann Warren does her own over-the-top tribute to Chicago. The original music is done by Henry Mancini, & thus another Pink Panther connection.

The costumes (done by Patricia Norris, a very experienced & wide-ranging costumer) are perfect, both for the stage production numbers (dramatic & with flair, as might befit a drag queen, then or now), & off the stage - the period setting of inter-war Paris, with the genteel poverty of some & the opulence of others side-by-side is very well done.

This is the first film in which I recalll major gay figures - it was a popular film in part because the primary actors were well know, & the issue of gay life was presented both in a distant & a non-controversial manner. If there are politics in it at alll, it is that sex shouldn't be a political issue. King Marchand, a bit upset at being identified as someone who might date a man (Victor) has one scene in which he re-affirms his masculinity (by going to a seedy bar & picking a fight), only to discover that people aren't always what he thought they were.

This could be a theme throughout the whole film - people are never what you think they are, & life never turns out as expected. The tone of the film is rather lighthearted throughout, & the situations play very well. Does King Marchand get the girl/guy? Does Carroll Toddy become the toast of Paris? Does Chicago get an airport?? See the film & find out.

Le Jazz Hot!!! - By: Mark Clegg, 03 Nov 2004
Although he has just recieved an honorary Oscar, Blake Edwards is often looked upon as a purvayer of low comedy. Although he is the genius behind such sparkling classics as The (original) Pink Panther & Breakfast at Tiffanys, many people frown upon him for his later films such as S.O.B., Blind Date & Switch (let's not mention the post-Sellars Panthers). Victor / Victoria fallls, chronologicallly, between the two sets of films and, in my view, is Edwards at his peak.
Edwards directs his wife Julie Andrews (never better & that includes being a nanny & a nun), in a tale of a [woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman]. The central plot serves as an excellent backbone on which to hang a wonderfully farcical script, some hilarious set-pieces & the fantastic song-and-dance numbers (Bricuse & Mancini's score makes you wish they'd worked together more often).
Andrews, as I say, is flawless coming somewhere between the innocence of Poppins & the lewdness of S.O.B. & giving a fantastic performance. From under her very nose though, the film is stolen by the ever-watchable Robert Preston as Toddy. Preston brings great depth & love to a part that could quite easily have been, as he is refered to in the film, 'a pathetic old queen'. James Garner commendably plays the straight-man (in more ways than one!) with a twinkle in his eye & Lesley Ann Warren hilariously chews every bit of scenery she lays her hands on.
The script, which bears Edwards' name as a co-writer, is as witty & moving as anything written in Hollywood's 'Golden Era' & the musical elements have as much vibrancy as MGM's in their hey-day. Musical highlights include Le Jazz Hot & The Shady Dame from Seville (not to mention the riotous reprise as performed by Preston for the films finale). One-liners don't come much better than "A lot of men can't get it ... up to now, you've been fine", "You look like a raccoon" (you need to see it) & the entire scene in the restaurant that leads to the line "It is a moron who takes advice from a horse's arse" (Edwards regular Graham Stark at his dead-pan best).
The extras on the DVD are limited to trailers & a commentary. The commentary by Edwards & Andrews is informative, if a little disappointing considering the wildness of the film & mainly consists of Edwards enjoying watching the film & Andrews making sure that alll of the on & off-screen talent is name-checked.
A real unsung gem that deserves to be seen as often as possible. Tell your friends!
Brilliant! - By: , 28 Sep 2003
The whole movie is thrilling to watch & the performances are alll marvelous. Dame Julie Andrews inparticular, as she takes over in this movie with her tremendous type of acting that can leave you heartbroken or on a high, on a hill with a lonely goat heard!
The musical numbers are alll powerful & unforgetable, especiallly "Le Jazz Hot" & "Chicago illinois"
Very entertaining, fantastic & absolutely Supercalifragalisticexpialidoucious!