MovieChat Forums > Victor/Victoria (1982) Discussion > Ready to duck, but ...

Ready to duck, but ...

posted 8 years ago by butaneggbert
13 replies | jump to latest

First: I love this movie. What fun. Great costumes, excellent performances, Mancini music - fun fun fun!

But - and here's where I'm going out on a limb: Julie Andrews wasn't a perfect fit for the role. "Miscast" is overstating the case, but I'd like to have seen someone more convincingly androgynous in the role.

Every fiction requires some suspension of disbelief. Broad comedy gets greater indulgence, provided the film is funny enough to sweep the audience along with it.

In that sense, Andrews didn't need to be completely viable in the role of a male. Clearly not - she did a great job, and it was a hit.

But I'd love to have suspended a little less disbelief - that is, seen someone in that role who couldn't have been pegged from two rooms away as a woman in male drag. The whole premise would have been strengthened without someone so decidedly feminine on the screen. For me, I had to keep reminding myself that everyone on the screen was buying this, and that prevented my complete surrender to it.

Imagine if an entire plot centered on how incredibly tall the lead character was, and they decided to cast Linda Hunt. She's a helluva talent, but it taxes the whole effect for us all to pretend she's tall.

Great movie. Somewhere out there, in an alternate reality, is a version where we're just as stunned as the onscreen audience at the astounding gender fluidity of Victoria.

Okay, pile on. ;)

_______________

Nothing to see here, move along.

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

Isn't this always the case? Did you buy Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis
as REAL women and not drag queens? (I didn't); did you buy Dustin
Hoffman as a man who could genuinely convince others he was a REAL
woman and not transgender or a man in drag? (I didn't); did you
believe Streisand's "Yentl" would really fool intelligent people that
she was MALE? (I didn't).

None of these three films really work for me, but they were
successful. To each his own.

[–] butaneggbert 8 years ago

That made me think! Thanks.

Having pondered, I'll tell you why two of those comparisons don't work for me:

In SLIH, Lemon and Curtis were supposed to look ridiculous in drag. The people who didn't see through it were equally silly. It was broad, broad farce, start to finish, where the audience wasn't really expected to empathize with the cartoon figures on the screen. I think that's a different relationship between audience and characters than the makers of V/V were shooting for.

Tootsie struck me differently than it struck you. In fact while I watched it tonight, I asked myself that same question. And what I saw there was the caliber of believability I wanted in V/V. I believe the people on the screen could plausibly at least do a double-take; at least have to look closer. Down the street - yes, I could have seen Hoffman as a woman. Same with Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire: at least conceivable.

It's undoubtedly easier to do male-to-female makeup - you can't make someone more masculine by piling makeup on them. Julie Andrews is all woman. Slicking her hair back and dropping her voice a bit made her look like a woman with slick hair and a low voice - but nothing like a guy. Better to cast someone with a more androgynous vibe to begin with.

Yentl I can't speak to. Streisand makes me break out in a rash and her vanity productions would probably kill me all together. 

_______________

Nothing to see here, move along.

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

Interesting, as "Yentl" is the most convincing of the films we've
discussed.

I loathe "Tootsie", and have always failed to find what makes this
film so endearing. And "Mrs. Doubtfire" made me gag also.

Again, this kind of film just isn't my thing.

[–] justanicknamed 8 years ago

I see 3 main issues here - and I'm not piling on.

First, YOU know she's really a she, so there isn't any surprise ala The Crying Game.

Second, this movie took place in the 1930's. They didn't have the internet or the flood of color picture magazines detailing all of the alternative lifestyles like we do now. There would have been doubt like King Marchand had, but most people wouldn't have seen Victoria up close or in a detailed photograph.

Third, most people see what they are told to see. If they are told that she is really an effeminate looking man, they are going to believe she's really an effeminate looking man.

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

Disagree. Andrews is extremely unconvincing as a male. It should've
been obvious to most that Preston and Andrews' gimmick was attempting
to pass a woman off as a male who impersonates women - for money.

[–] justanicknamed 8 years ago

Again, YOU know she's really a female, so there is no surprise for you ala "The Crying Game." That automatically taints your view and belief of her being a male.

You've also been exposed a whole lot more to tranny's and such just by Bruce Jenner and stuff like that being in "the news" every day.

And,

most people see what they are told to see. If they are told that she is really an effeminate looking man, they are going to believe she's really an effeminate looking man.

I'm talking about the people in the movie she fooled.

[–] butaneggbert 8 years ago

"Tainted view" only carries so far.

If you tell me a man is about to walk through that door, and Kim Kardashian sashays in in her usual state of undress, I'm not going to see a man.

The question is, where on that continuum (expect a male, see a male <-------> expect a male, recognize a woman) does Andrews' casting fall?

Your position also doesn't survive my reaction to Tootsie. I found the makeup and costuming absolutely met the bar of creating someone who could conceivably be perceived as a woman. So the standard I favor can be met in modern times, to modern eyes.

And finally: it's not necessary for the audience to see Victoria as a convincing man. It's optimal for us to believe that her audience could conceivably be fooled. That still happens in modern cinema. Albin in full drag as a woman in La Cage was amazingly convincing. I knew that was a man; I could absolutely accept - in the world of comedy, with minimal suspension of disbelief - that the other characters saw her as a very peculiar woman.

_______________

Nothing to see here, move along.

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

Give me a break. Please. Andrews uses a SOPRANO singing voice, has
NO adam's apple, and has a FEMALE figure.

It has zero to do with what I know - the audiences (and financial
backers) would have also. And you know it.

[–] butaneggbert 8 years ago

I'm going to assume that was aimed at justanicknamed.

_______________

Nothing to see here, move along.

[–] elena-28 8 years ago

To me, there was always something about Julie Andrews, as there was in Katharine Hepburn, which felt a little "gamine" - and Hepburn once played a woman pretending to be a boy ("Sylvia Scarlett"). So, for me, the ambivalence between Victor and Victoria was never a problem. In addition, people, from the start of Victor's "birth" are "taken in" by "him", believing him to be a woman; and so, it makes sense, in this particular world, to then see a man when Victoria wishes to manifest that way.

And particularly in this world - in many ways, for me, the Paris of this movie is characterized by the double-faced quartet at Chez Lui - masks on the back of heads, male and female, back and front, front and back. Which is what, and, in the end, isn't it fun to be confused? In this world, for example, Andre Cassell's secretary is as gender-ambivalent as Victor/Victoria.

So far as Andrews' soprano is concerned, again, I found myself willing to play, and so the soprano didn't bother me - in addition, it isn't impossible for a man to sing this high: Alfred Deller and his son Mark were very influential counter-tenors. And here's another one, Russell Oberlin, singing high and low, softly and forcefully, voice, to me, very sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrhTpnZ1Ug

[–] justanicknamed 8 years ago

"Tainted view" only carries so far.

Tainted view carries it the whole way. Think of prequels that are disappointments. Why? Because we KNOW the hero will live because we see him in the original movie(s). We lose objectivity and suspense because we know the secret/ending. That is why the movie "The Crying Game" was such a smash in the day, because no one was expecting he to be a she.

Or think about watching The Empire Strikes Back now. Do you have the same surprise as you first did when you found out the little green creature was Yoda? (Assuming you saw the original movies in the theater when they first came out.)

The question is, where on that continuum (expect a male, see a male <-------> expect a male, recognize a woman) does Andrews' casting fall?

[/quote]

I'm not trying to evade giving you an answer, I just want you to consider this. Kevin Spacey fought to keep his name off of the opening credits of "Seven" because he felt like if the audience KNEW he was in the movie but didn't appear for the first hour, then they'd figure out he was the bad guy.

They couldn't do that with this movie. Andrew's was the star and didn't start off as a female impersonator.

The best I can answer is that there were more than a few times in that movie when she was trying to look like a man where I could see her actually being a slim, effeminate man. That doesn't mean that I thought she was a man, but that is because I knew I was looking at a woman dressing up like a man.

Your position also doesn't survive my reaction to Tootsie.

I wasn't referencing that movie at all. I'm only speaking of V/V.

[–] jawebster2000 8 years ago

I know I am in the minority here, but I thought this was one tedious and God awful movie. First of all, Julie Andrews on her worst day would never, ever be mistaken for a man! James Garner had little to do but make dumbfounded faces. I don't know how much they paid Alex Karras for his part, but whatever it was, it wasn't enough. That last number with Robert Preston was embarrassing. To watch his audience cheer him on was simply unbelievable. I watched the whole thing and towards the end, I kept stopping the DVR to see just how much more time was left. For those of you who have seen this movie many, many times, once was more than enough for me. Sorry I offended anyone! P.S. I did like Lesley Ann Warren though and for me, she was by far, the best part of the entire movie.

[–] almostfm-1 8 years ago

One problem they would have had was that the part requires a wide vocal range, and the number of actresses who have the range she had (pre-operation), can dance, and be a convincing man is probably pretty small.