Victor/Victoria

In 1934 Paris, Carroll "Toddy" Todd, an aging gay performer at Chez Lui in Paris, sees Labisse, the club owner, auditioning a frail, impoverished soprano, Victoria Grant. After her failed audition, Victoria returns to her hotel room to find herself evicted, unable to pay rent. That night, when Richard, a hustler with whom Toddy is romantically involved, comes to Chez Lui as part of a straight foursome, Toddy incites a brawl. Labisse fires Toddy and bans him from the club. Walking home, he spots Victoria in a restaurant. She invites him to join her. As neither of them can pay for the meal, she dumps a cockroach in her salad to avoid paying, but it escapes and mayhem ensues.

The duo runs through the rain to Toddy's, and he invites her to stay when she discovers the rain has shrunken her decrepit clothing. The next morning, Richard shows up to collect his things. Victoria, who is wearing his suit and hat, hides in Toddy's closet. When Richard opens the closet door, she punches Richard, breaks his nose and kicks him out. Seeing this, Toddy is struck with the inspiration of passing Victoria off as a man and presenting her to Andre Cassell, the most successful agent in Paris, as a female impersonator.

Cassell accepts her as Count Victor Grazinski, a gay Polish female impersonator and Toddy's new boyfriend. Cassell gets her a booking in a nightclub show and invites a collection of club owners to the opening. Among the guests is King Marchand, a Chicago gangster, and his ditzy blonde moll Norma Cassidy and burly bodyguard Bernstein, a.k.a. Squash. Victoria is an immediate hit, and King is smitten, but he is shocked when she is "revealed" to be a man at the end of the act. King, however, is convinced that "Victor" is not a man.

After Norma violently attacks King during a quarrel, he sends her back to America. Determined to get the truth, King sneaks into Victoria and Toddy's suite and confirms his suspicion when he spies her getting into the bath. He invites Victoria, Toddy, and Cassell to Chez Lui. Another fight breaks out. Squash and Toddy are arrested, along with many of the club clientele, but King and Victoria escape. King kisses Victoria, pretending that he does not care about Victoria's gender, leading them to get together.

Squash returns to the suite and catches King in bed with Victoria. King tries to explain, but then Squash reveals he himself is gay. Meanwhile, Labisse hires a P.I., Charles Bovin, to investigate Victor. Victoria and King live together for a while, but keeping up her deception strains the relationship to the breaking point, and King ends it. Back in Chicago, Norma, still angry over being dumped, tells King's business partner Sal Andretti that King is having an affair with a man.

At the same time that Victoria has decided to give up the persona of Victor in order to be with King, Sal arrives and demands that King transfer his share of the business to Sal for a fraction of its worth. Squash tells Victoria what is happening, and she shows Norma that she is really a woman, saving King's stake. That night at the club, Cassell tells Toddy and Victoria that Labisse has lodged a complaint against him and "Victor" for perpetrating a fraud. The inspector tells Labisse that the performer is a man and Labisse is an idiot.

In the end, Victoria joins King in the club as her real self. The announcer says that Victor is going to perform, but instead of Victoria, Toddy masquerades as "Victor". After an intentionally disastrous, but hilarious performance, Toddy claims that this is his last performance.

The vocal numbers in the film are presented as nightclub acts, with choreography by Paddy Stone. However, the lyrics or situations of some of the songs are calculated to relate to the unfolding drama. Thus, the two staged numbers "Le Jazz Hot" and "The Shady Dame from Seville" help to present Victoria as a female impersonator. The latter number is later reinterpreted by Toddy for diversionary purposes in the plot, and the cozy relationship of Toddy and Victoria is promoted by the song "You and Me", which is sung before the audience at the nightclub.[2]

1. "Gay Paree" – Toddy (music composed by Henry Mancini)
2. "Le Jazz Hot!" – Victoria (music composed by Henry Mancini)
3. "The Shady Dame from Seville" – Victoria (music composed by Henry Mancini)
4. "You and Me" – Toddy, Victoria (music composed by Henry Mancini)
5. "Chicago, Illinois" – Norma (music composed by Henry Mancini)
6. "Crazy World" – Victoria (music composed by Henry Mancini)
7. "Finale/Shady Dame from Seville (Reprise)" – Toddy (music composed by Henry Mancini)

Occasionally, Victoria and Toddy sing "Home on the Range" when they are in the hotel.

The film's screenplay was adapted by Blake Edwards (Andrews' husband) from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria written and directed by Reinhold Schünzel from an original story treatment by Hans Hoemburg. According to Edwards, the screenplay took only one month to write. Julie Andrews watched the 1933 version to prepare for her role. The film had been planned as early as 1978 with Julie Andrews to star alongside Peter Sellers, but Sellers died in 1980 while Andrews and Blake Edwards were filming S.O.B. (1981), so Robert Preston was cast in the role of Toddy that originally was envisaged for Sellers.

The costume worn by Julie Andrews in the number "The Shady Dame from Seville" is in fact the same costume worn by Robert Preston at the end of the film. It was made to fit Preston, and then, using a series of hooks and eyes at the back, it was drawn in tight to fit Andrews' shapely figure. Black silk ruffles were added to the bottom of the garment to hide the differences in height. The fabric is a black and brown crepe, with fine gold threads woven into it, that when lit appears to have an almost wet look about it.[3]

• Cross-dressing in film and television

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Victor/Victoria

• Victor/Victoria at IMDb
• Victor/Victoria at the TCM Movie Database
• Victor/Victoria at AllMovie
• Victor/Victoria at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Victor/Victoria at Box Office Mojo
• James Garner Interview on the Charlie Rose Show
• James Garner interview at Archive of American Television