VICTOR/VICTORIA is, in the final analysis, a gender-based farce.

Julie Andrews, a legitimate singer, has had such poor luck in her auditions that she is in danger of being evicted from her rooming house for nonpayment of rent. In fact, she feels it necessary to attempt to sell her virtue in exchange for the rent, and promptly follows that up with the most hilarious theft of restaurant meals ever put to the silver screen.

While snitching several different meals from the local diner - at which fellow diner Robert Preston (who attended Andrews' audition earlier that day) states that "it would be event if a place like that didn't have cockroaches" - the two diners become close friends. They escape together in the hubbub following Andrews' theft of the meals, to go in a pouring rainstorm to Preston's apartment.

The next morning, Preston's lover - who has been supported by Preston, almost as if he were Preston's private gigolo - comes into their apartment to retreive his things after Preston had evicted him. Anderson literally pops out of the lover's closet, landing a hard right on his nose, breaking it in the process.

Seeing this incident, Preston concocts an idea - Andrews shall become a female impersonator, "a woman pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman." They go to visit a friend of his, John Rhys-Davies, a Parisian impresario famed throughout the country for his representation of top talent. They are able to convince him that Andrews is a Polish count, famed in his home country of Poland as a female impersonator, who just moved to Paris and took up where Preston's former lover left off. In other words, this Polish count is as gay as Preston's character is - only she's straight and played by Julie Andrews.

Victor/Victoria's opening night comes six weeks later, at a local upscale nightclub of the type familiar to 1940s clubgoers. It is attended by James Garner, a Chicago mobster; his homosexual bodyguard Alex Karras, and Garner's bleach-blond ditzy moll, Lesley Anne Warren.

The rest of the movie is spent in trying to get out of a variety of scrapes, crazy situations and fights while hanging onto the lie as long as possible. In the meantime, there is seemingly a revolving door of partnerships in the background, and a scene which is widely considered to be Warren's most prominent nude scene (although she doesn't take off one stitch of clothing while in bed with Garner).

Although VICTOR/VICTORIA has taken a lot of heat over the years due to the way in which homosexuality is ultimately portrayed, I think those activists need to get a grip. It's a farce, already, never intended to be realistic in the least. Every single scene is so obviously filmed on a soundstage that I'm surprised few people picked up on that; when this movie was released, the vast majority of motion pictures were filmed on location, making the VICTOR/VICTORIA scenery seem even more unusual than it would have in the 1940s. The characters are clearly not intended to be realistic; the anachronistic double meaning of the word "gay" in certain nightclub sequences, in a movie set in the early 20th century, further encourages us to believe that this is a fantasy.

Having said that, I feel strongly that this movie would be enjoyed by those who like sophisticated farce. That's what this is - a sophisticated farce with enjoyable characters, and a pleasant way to spend two hours, rather than fine-arts moviemaking. It is also enjoyable if you like movie musicals - and that is another way of classifying this film. In fact, I'd recommend buying the soundtrack, if only to hear the tune Crazy World, a bittersweet love song rivaling the best of Cole Porter, in my opinion.

Just don't expect to see multidimensional characters, either gay or straight. If they were multidimensional, the farce aspect would be lost in a heartbeat.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older