Review of Victor Victoria

I really enjoyed this cross-dressing musical comedy from the early 1980s - it's a remake of a German film from the early 1930s. Julie Andrews is really great as the eponymous Victor/Victoria, a woman singer who becomes successful by pretending to be a female impersonator. I can't help thinking how much she looks like David Bowie (I've broken with my blog convention by posting a still rather than the film poster).

There is plenty of positive depiction of gay relationships, and the gay and cross-dressing characters aren't there to suggest decadence, as they are in other films of this genre (Cabaret comes to mind); they are just people with their own lives and loves.

I suspect the film was ahead of its time - it won several awards and was nominated for others, but I don't think it made much money.

Watched at home via Chromestream, having been obtained from those good old informal distribution networks.