To the Victor

If you have seen and enjoyed Victor/Victoria, you might want to take a look at First a Girl. Made in England in 1935, this is actually a remake of the German 1933 Viktor und Viktoria. It stars Jessie Matthews as a shopgirl who wants to be in show business. She meets Victor (Sonnie Hale), a wannabe actor who is really a female impersonator. When he loses his voice, he gets Jessie to impersonate him as man  impersonating a woman. Of course, she is a great success, and goes on to tour Europe.

In Monaco, she meets Griffith Jones, a gigolo to a princess. He falls for her before he finds out that she is really a man (not really), and the game is afoot.

The musical numbers are frothy, the comedy is light and amiable, and the stars are rather sweet. Sonnie Hale is a bit of an Edward Everett Horton, but not at all gay as the female impersonator who never even looks at Jessie that way. Jessie doesn't look a bit like a man when she is out of (or into?) drag, but she has a lovely way of swaggering around with her hands in her pockets, acting "manly". You can really see where Julie Andrews got her style in the later movie.

And speaking of nice little comedies from the black and white days, we recently watched One Big Affair (1952). It starts out with a tour group in Mexico City, which looks like a pleasant modern city, Chicago maybe. The tour is run by Gus Schilling, another Edward Everett Horton type, who keeps rushing everyone around. One member, Evelyn Keyes, gets left behind when they set out for Acapulco.

She meets up with lawyer Dennis O'Keefe, who is bicycling to Acapulco and trying to stay out of trouble. But the police think that she has been kidnapped, a Mexican orphan boy thinks that they would make him good parents, he loses his wallet, and other merry mixups occur.

This isn't a great movie, but it is immensely likable. Someone called Dennis O'Keefe's films "cheap and cheerful", and that sounds about right. This movie reminded me a lot of The Big Steal, with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. One Big Affair is not as good by any means, but seems to take the same kind of joy in rambling about Mexico. Evelyn Keyes (the girlfriend in Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and the wife in The Seven Year Itch) has a certain something - she's a little old to be an ingenue, but perfect for a single teacher from Pomona on a package tour of Mexico. O'Keefe has touch of the comic Robert Montgomery - a bit puffy and dissipated but full of charm.

Also, only 80 minutes long. We enjoyed.