Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blake Edwards - Musical Gender Bending At It's Best!, May 14, 2004
This is most definitely musical gender-bending at it's best! Not many musical/comedies are produced nowadays, let alone good ones like Rocky Horror Picture Show & Little Shop Of Horrors to name a few that come to my mind. This 80's musical/comedy is set in 1934 GAY and I DO MEAN GAY Paree! This film is quite unparalled in the fact that Victor/Victoria was a movie BEFORE it made it to The Great White Way. Julie Andrews played Victor/Victoria in both movie and on stage. Great songs in - Julie's "Le Jazz Hot" & Lesley Warren's bimboesque "Kings Can-Can". The sexual chemistry is A+++ between Andrews & a sexually confused James Garner who plays "King Marchand" a Chicago club owner, who is so TOTALLY out of his element in Paris, let alone being sexually frustrated and confused over his crush on the beautiful, stylish and gay, Victor. Great cast, great songs and a greater storyline with lots of slapstick comedy make Victor/Victoria a classic of it's time! Happy Watching!
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Hollywood's Great Comedy Musicals, August 6, 2001
In the age of "Moulin Rouge" audiences would do far better by rediscovering this musical comedy gem, starring the incomparable Julie Andrews, Robert Preston, Leslie Ann Warren and James Garner. Rarely has Hollywood captured the essence of great music with outstanding performances as it has in "Victor/Victoria." There are literally a dozen or so scenes that will leave you hysterical, as in gasping-for-breath hysterical, something many films aspire to, but few ever deliver on. But more than funny, this is a poignant, character driven film where every principal is allowed to shine. Andrews permanently sheds her "Sound of Music" virginal skin in the title role, embodying the man-pretenting-to-be-a-woman-pretending-to-be-a-man part in a way noone has ever done before or since. Of course, the audience is in on the joke, but it never becomes tired or anything less than fresh. Robert Preston is the antithesis of his former "Music Man" personna, a gay-Paree emcee who discover's Victor's startling 8-octave vocal range and turns him/her into the rage of Paris. These two performances, along with Leslie Ann Warren's unforgettable floosy - all three Oscar-nominated - are drop dead fabulous. These are actors at the very height of their form....funny, passionate, real and endearing. The musical highlights are truly phenomenal, certainly better than other "best loved" musicals like "Singing In the Rain" or "An American In Paris." Andrews scores on "Le Jazz Hot" and shows an indelible comic flair few people knew she was capable of in the legendary cafeteria sequence, which literally had the audience I viewed this with ROLLING in the aisles. It's a movie where even the insects - cockroaches in this case - are memorable. But more so, its also a lesson in what Hollywood USED to do so well in its tradition of movie musicals....and what its forgotten to do over the past two decades since Victor/Victoria was released. In a nutshell, Hollywood forgot that the power of song and music is their ability to HUMANIZE a character and progress the plot, but also lend depth and color to the principals. For me, "Victor/Victoria" IS Hollywood's last great musical, and certainly one of the most visually stunning, fully realized films of our time. This ranks far and away as Blake Edward's crowning masterpiece - high above SOB or the Pink Panther flicks. And the supporting performances are some of the best ever caqptured. Just try and forget Warren's cooing to James Garner ("pooookie....I'm horny) or Alex Karras' gay gangster falling in love with Preston. From roaches to royalty, "Victor/Victoria" is quite simply one of the best films of the 80's or any other decade. I am anxiously awaiting its release on DVD, and secretly hoping that the currently available Broadway show version silently goes away as it cannot hold a candle to the film. Rent it, buy it, LOVE IT.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"She's a winner!", November 22, 2003
This Blake Edwards film is a sort of valentine to the many gifts of his amazing wife Julie Andrews more than ten years since her last musical, and wouldn't you know it, it was a gigantic hit. It helped that the book poked a great deal of fun at the homophobia of the nascent Reagan era, that James Garner, Alex Karres, Robert Preston and (especially) Lesley Ann Warren (in her funniest role ever, as the idiot dancehall bimbo Norma). But the real reason the film takes off is because of Julie Andrews. She may be utterly unbelievable passing as a man, but she does get to show her great gift for dry humor, and she sings several fine, fine songs, including what may be one of her absolute careeer highlights, "Le Jazz Hot." No one has ever been less appropriate for a jazz number than Julie--she of course sings every single note exactly on the beat, and with her signature perfect diction--, but she gives the number so much zing and warmth and excitement it just doesn't matter. When she's up there in her Josephine Baker outfit snapping her fingers and smiling expansively, and showing off her astonishing and perfect vocal range, she is every bit as showstopping and iconic as when she was spinning round the Salzburg mountaintops in THE SOUND OF MUSIC: she's up there in movie history heaven. And if that weren't enough, you also get to hear her pronounce the word "heterosexual" (several times!) like no one before or since.
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