Julie Andrews & James Garner in a Blake Edwards
Notorious for his trademark farcical style, Blake Edwards directs his wife (Julie Andrews) who stars as a starving British entertainer Victoria Grant in a shrewd musical comedy. During a near starvation fainting spell outside a 1930's Paris restaurant, in pounding rain, Victoria is revived and befriended by a scheming, gilted, gay entertainer with a cold, Toddy (Robert Preston).
During a vision he has for her to earn money, he changes her image from a woman to a man; then presents her to the gay Paris cabaret world as a female impersonator: Victor/Victoria. Victoria becomes a soprano woman pretending to be a castrati gay man who is pretending to be a straight woman! She's doing double-reverse drag! S/he is the toast of the town.
Lesley Anne Warren plays a perfectly farcical blonde-bimbo slut, Norma, who knows and accepts more about gender and sexuality than most would guess. She is barely tolerated and shunned by her big time gangster "boyfriend" King Marchan (James Garner) of Chicago's mob scene. And she has a humorous wild tendency to through violent fits.
During their visit to gay Paris and the underworld nightclub scene where transvestites, transsexuals, gays, lesbians, and liberal straights all mingle peaceful and merrily together, Marchan takes special notice of Victor/Victoria, not being able to believe that s/he is a man; mostly likely because he finds he/r attractive.
Since Marchan seems nearly obsessed with trying to understand his attraction to a transvestite, he begins to investigate Toddy and Victoria's suite. Squash (Alex Karras), Marchan's bodyguard, also investigates the highbrow Paris suite of Victoria and Toddy, who remain friends and roommates living together with Toddy as Victoria's mentor and best friend.
As both Marchan and Squash try playing bumbling detectives to discover who or what really is donning those gay cabaret ultra-femme costumes, their farcical acts make Blake's trademark score another hit.
Throughout this show Blake brings into question the meanings of gender and sexualities, what attraction is based upon, what class and status are all about, and what comprises friendship. Well ahead of its time on the big screen and long before it was ever on DVD, he got away with it by making it a farce instead of an overtly serious social critique.
For farcical effect, Blake's signature work with actors like Peter Sellers is usually willing to let the breaks in his direction be evident. However, this time, in Victor/Victoria, Edwards' style shifts to silky smooth, thereby nearly being repentant for his earlier films that have mercilessly mocked gender and sexual variance.
Preston's playfully queer performance as Victoria's mentor is dead on point and takes the cake among the all-star cast of men. But without question, Julie Andrews surpasses every other musical she's done, while Blake brings out her talent as a dancer and singer who can cross genders with farce. Victor/Victoria is a timeless classic, most especially since Andrews will not be singing those ultra high soprano notes again since her surgical vocal chord accident permanently lowered and rasped her gorgeous voice.Read full review
