Make Me Watch A Musical: Victor Victoria

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This past Tuesday in honor of their 90th anniversary Warner Brothers released The Best of Warner Brothers - 20 Film Collection: Musicals, a big beautiful boxed-set where they selected twenty classic musicals from their archives and smashed them together in one surprisingly affordable place. You can't go wrong with titles like The Wizard of Oz, Cabaret, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Singing in the Rain, Little Shop of Horrors and Hairspray all in one place, ya know? The Munchkins and The Oompa Loompas together at last!

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poll by twiigs.com

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So anyway I had y'all vote on what three films that I hadn't seen before from the boxed-set that I should watch and write about, and you did. You voted. And here we are.

So I kinda started out of order. Sue me. I began with the most recent film you chose, Blake Edwards' 1982 slapdash sex farce Victor Victoria, which starred Edwards' wife, who was kind of well-known on her own, Miss Julie Andrews. I think she played a bunch of nannies or something in the Sixties? Anyway she has a lovely voice, but man can she not pass for a dude.

That's a lot of hourglass for a boy so skinny. To the film's benefit Victor Victoria does its best to shy away from the moments when everybody's supposed to be convinced that Julie Andrews is really a dude - most of the main characters are all in on it or convinced she's a fraud, save Lesley Anne Warren's walking champagne hiccup of a character.

Warren was fun but maybe a smidge too broad; but then she's in a film that uses that phrase "a smidge too broad" as its foundation, mortar, walls and roof. I was shocked that not once did a cream pie fly in any of the many comical fancy people in tuxes and gowns brawls - I suppose Edwards had to show restraint somewhere.

Honestly my best in show would probably go to Alex Karras of all people; he underplayed his character's arc beautifully, and actually gave his coming out moment and thereafter fallout some emotional heft. What could have been nothing more than a sight gag (and I expected it to be just that) tread softly, thanks to his low-key work.

The film looks great - the giant stage-like rooms look straight outta the thirties movies that it's obviously emulating, and the art-deco everything is spot-on.

But no, in the end, Victor Victoria wasn't really for me. Genre shorthand doesn't get on my nerves so much when say it's in a horror movie - Why is that girl going into the basement by herself? Well duh, that's what they do! - but I find myself less amenable to the flights of fancy that propel these things along. I mean, her stage show is ridiculous! Why is she even pretending to be a man for it? The wig-yanking at the end of every number would get tired really really fast, you know? I could go on picking such nits, but they're really beside the point. And I've got two more movies to get to!
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