A new review of an old favorite

I don't think I've mentioned on this blog before how much of a movie addict I am. I'll see basically any movie that passes a certain threshold of intelligence (i.e. I don't see movies where one person plays five different people, all of them fat; I don't see movies where all of the humor is scatalogical; and, except for Stranger than Fiction, I don't see Will Ferell movies). I'm immensely proud of my DVD library, which is constantly growing.

I only brought a few of my DVDs home from New York for the summer, and last night, for probably the fifteenth time, I watched Victor/Victoria.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, must see this movie sometime in their lifetime. Haven't seen it? Netflix it now. This movie is brilliant, from start to finish.

The premise: Victoria Grant (the amazing, wonderful, stupendous Julie Andrews) is a soprano who finds herself down on her luck in 1934 Paris (to the point where she offers to sleep with her landlord if he'll give her a meatball). She meets Carroll Todd, "Toddy to everyone who knows [him]" (played by the superb Robert Preston only a year or two before his death), a gay night club performer who's just been fired. They become friends instantly and Toddy conceives of a wild plan: Victoria will transform into Victor--the greatest female impersonator in Europe.

Victoria has her reservations at first ("A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?!") but allows herself to be persuaded an in no time she becomes the toast of Paris. Her biggest fan is King Marshan (James Garner, of such fantastic films as Maverick and The Great Escape), a Chicago gangster (in Paris with his bodyguard and moll) who refuses to believe that Victor is a man. He snoops around and discovers Victoria's secret and they hook up. Their relationship is stifled, however, by the fact that she refuses to quit being Victor, and he doesn't want people thinking he's gay. Hijinks ensue.

Why this movie is so amazing: Well, there's the plot, of course, which is brilliant. The screenplay is also a work of art. The film brings together a lot of the talent from the Pink Panther movies (the originals, of course)--Blake Edwards as director, Henry Mancini as composer (there are five or six wonderful songs in the movie that Victoria and Toddy perform, especially "Le Jazz Hot"), and a couple of character actors with small but memorable parts.

A caveat to any who would rent the movie: Make sure you get the 1982 motion picture, not the 1995 recording of the stage production. The attempt to transform Victor/Victoria into an on-stage musical was mostly a failure; the additional songs aren't that great and the performances, even Julie Andrews' (she's in both), just can't compare to the original.

The movie's about 2 1/2 hours long, so make sure you set aside some time to watch it all in one sitting. You won't regret it.

My rating: 4 stars