Home :: DVD :: Art House & International :: European Cinema  

Asian Cinema
British Cinema
European Cinema

General
Latin American Cinema
Victor/Victoria

Victor/Victoria

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $14.99
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 8 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Julie Andrews, has still got it!
Review: This DVD was the second DVD i added to my new and threiving collection after Gladiator (yes i know they don't go together but hey its my collection)As i watched it it reminded me of how i fell in love with Julie 13 years before after watching Mary Poppins. She is smashing and in the "Le Jazz Hot" number WOW! she was magnificent and that voice is stupendas. She has the best pair of legs i have ever seen, and she was in her 40's.

Anyway, thats enough said about Julie Andrews, the best actress and singer that, STOP! Now the rest of the cast. Robert Preston gives a fantastic performance as Toddy the "old queen, with a head cold" and James Garner nearly stole the show with the looks of disbalief and passion for Victoria and when at the end of the Le Jazz Hot number Lesley Ann Warrens face when they discover Shes actually a He is hilarious! I suggest anyone with a sence of humour should by this DVD NOW!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Yes, I'm the great Pretender....
Review: A musical boudoir farce, captivating at times, infuriating at others.

A British singer (Julie Andrews) and an aging homosexual (Robert Preston) are down-and-out nightclub performers in Paris. Hungry and broke, they're desperate for employment until Toddy (Preston) recasts his friend as the female impersonator singer-dancer Victor/Victoria--putting the chanteuse in the unusual position of being a woman who pretends to be a man who performs as a woman onstage.

She is an immediate hit at a local nightclub, where King (James Garner), a gangster from Chicago traveling with his blowsy girlfriend (a Jean Harlowesque Lesley Ann Warren) and his bodyguard, Squash (Alex Karras), sees her perform. King is attracted to Victor/Victoria, but thinks, like everyone else, that she is a transvestite. The burly Squash, meanwhile, watches in amazement as his macho boss apparently loses his yen for beautiful women and becomes attracted to his own kind.

Edwards' film forces audiences to examine their own ideas about gender and sexuality, and that's great. But Andrews, despite looking very Berlin Bowie in her tux, is so safe and sane, she brings no madness of her own to the farce. Everything therefore swirls around a still center--in the film's one good number, "Le Jazz Hot", she climbs a staircase like she has weights on her feet. Nor can she summon any of the impersonator's hauteur or joy to her masquerade. Robert Preston is wonderful--he plays a cliche with such malice and relish, he revitalizes it, and Garner is successful kidding his own past macho image. A platinumed Warren is also quite good, but Edwards makes her dopey sweetness go sour--he humiliates her, especially in a chorus line number that could make a feminist a raging virago.

Will someone please give Warren a role worthy of her undeniable talent? The film's best moments are early on: Andrews warbling for disinterested cabaret owners, or the preparation of Victoria to become Victor. After that, this becomes increasingly coarse and overstated. Edwards directs like a grizzly bear whipping up a souffle. The screenplay was based on VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA, a 1933 German film, first refashioned in 1935 into a star vehicle for the ever-delightful Jessie Mathews, FIRST A GIRL.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Julie Andrews Rocks
Review: Julie could carry a movie on just her voice. Luckily, she uses every thing else, along with the voice, in this one. All the elements come together to make a wonderfully funny, touching story. And let's not forget that voice. Julie sings like there is no tomorrow and after hearing her sing, you will not care if there is. The voice, the story, the acting.... This is pretty close to as good as it gets.....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BEFORE "CHICAGO" THERE WAS "VICTOR ,VICTORIA"
Review: NOW THAT "CHICAGO' IS GOING TO BE IN DVD IS TIME TO REMEMBER THAT THE GREATEST MOVIE MUSICAL BEFORE "CHICAGO" WAS NOT "CABARET" BUT ACTUALLY "VICTOR,VICTORIA"...WITH AN ORIGINAL STORY, GREAT SONGS, AND A FIRST RATE CAST...EVERYONE IS PERFECT IN THIS MOVIE, AND THE DVD IS FIRST CLASS...ENJOY ALL THE FUNNY SITUATIONS AND MUSICAL NUMBERS...AND JULIE ANDREWS RENDITION OF "LE JAZZ HOT" IS AS EXCITING AS CATHERINE ZETA JONES' "ALL THAT JAZZ"...WELCOME TO GAY PAREE (OR PARIS)!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Le Jazz Hot
Review: VICTOR/VICTORIA is a great movie... Nuff' said!! Only flaw...The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't award the Best Actress Oscar to Julie Andrews. What a shame! Best sequence in film? Julie Andrews performing "Le Jazz Hot"... Exhilarating!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Did we watch the same film?
Review: Maybe I'm not sophisticated enough to find this amusing or clever, but I was reminded of Hemingway's statement throughtout "Never mistake motion for action." There is a lot of motion in this film, but it is dying, like fish floundering in those buckets at open-air markets. And with stupendously wooden performances and coincidences so outlandish as to be irritating, I never felt anything above annoyed, and certainly felt more than annoyed in many scenes.

When the end mercifully arrived (is this movie six, or is it seven, hours long?), and I was supposed to laugh at Robert Preston playing Julie Andrews, I watched in a combination of shock and awe. Who would find this funny (apparently many people, judging by the reviews here). And who would try such a stupid scene? Blake Edwards hit the big time with some wonderfully talented people helping him, but this sterile, phony, insincere and stupid film is a waste on all levels.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Entertaining!
Review: This movie is an intelligent and entertaining commentary on gender roles. It plays like a house on fire up until Victoria falls in love, then it gets all soft-focus. But it still totals up as good entertainment.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman!
Review: Sounds confusing? Well, it is. Gender-bender stage act is the bases of this hilarious comedy loaded with extraordinary performances.

Victoria (beautifully plaid by Julie Andrews) is a performer who can not seem to get a job. Right as she is about to be evicted from her apartment and starve to death, she meets a cabaret performer (Robert Preston) recently fired from his nightclub. As the friendship strikes between them he comes up with an idea that could bring fame and fortune to both of them: Victoria should dress and introduce herself as Victor who happens to be a female impersonator. Thus we have Victoria pretending to be Victor impersonating Victoria. As if that was not complicated enough, add to this a mobster (James Garner) who is convinced that Victor is actually Victoria, and his short-fused floozy (Lesley Ann Warren, who is by the way brilliant) who thinks her mobster boyfriend is gay for falling for Victor and you've got non-stop action and laughter.

Truly one of a kind film. You will laugh from start to end.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is a must have movie
Review: I don't buy many movies. So often when buying a movie, it sits on the shelf, gathering dust. Once you've seen it, you're bored with it and not interested in seeing it again. Victor/Victoria doesn't fall into that genre. There are scenes that you'll want to watch over and over again and they are funny every time. You'll find yourself singing along with the award winning music. Not only is the script great, but the actors are the best, Julie Andrews and James Garner.

What is the movie about? Simply, Victoria, a starving soprano, meets up with Toddy who convinces her she can make it big if she pretends to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Le Musical Comedy Hot!
Review: Is she a women pretending to be a man, pretending to be a women? Blake Edward's hilarious gender-bender has Julie Andrews impersonating a count, who is hired to perform as a female impersonator in a posh Paris nightclub circa 1920's. If you think it sounds confusing, it does, but so magnificently pulled off that one hardly minds stretching the mind to believe that anyone could ever mistake the fabulous Ms. Andrews as anything but all woman. The musical numbers are as hot as the comedy. Robert Preston plays Toddy, a gay impressario who is destine to make "Victor" the toast of Paris. James Gardner is a big time bootlegger who discovers the truth and falls in love with Victoria. Leslie Ann Warren is a hilariously, if at times grating, dumb blond.
Warner Brothers has done a wonderful job remastering this DVD. Colors are warm, rich and vibrant. For the most part, details are sharp. The newly remastered 5.1 stereo mix thunders across in the musical sequences and is very ambient throughout. Not much in the way of extras but oh, what a treat to see and hear this fun loving flick as never before.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 8 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates