The premise-a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman-is the same, but Blake Edwards considerably revised the particulars for his 1982 version of this 1935 Jessie Matthews musical, which was in turn taken from a 1933 German romp. Matthews is a stagestruck clerk who loses her job and fills in, in a rather contrived plot development, for female impersonator Sonnie Hale, a would-be Shakespearean actor who's putting on a dress to earn a guinea or two. She triumphs, and soon she's touring a surprisingly location-shot Europe as Victor. Matthews is, as ever, charming, a pleasing singer and a marvelous dancer. But with her constant lipstick and eye shadow and plucked eyebrows, the notion that she could fool all of Europe with her gender is absurd, and the screenplay has to go through some strenuous contortions to correctly match her with the dashing Griffith Jones, whose fiancee, a platinum-blonde Anna Lee, winds up with Hale, who wraps up the movie by doing an elaborate production number in drag, and isn't as hilarious as he thinks he is. It's pretty jolly, lavish by 1930s British musical standards, and a bright showcase for Matthews, but I think I prefer Victor/Victoria, and I think I buy Julie Andrews as a boy more than I do Matthews.
Review of First a Girl
