IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

When people decry remakes and the lack of originality in cinema today, I feel compelled to point out that remakes are nothing new and they aren’t necessarily bad.  Many movie classics, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) were not the first film versions of those stories.  The best remakes are usually another stab at a story that didn’t work well on film the first time around, but there have been examples where a great remake was made of a film that was excellent in its first incarnation.  One such example is Blake Edwards’ Victor Victoria (1982).

It will probably come as a surprise that the popular Blake Edwards comedy starring Julie Andrews was actually the fifth film version of an original story by German writer/director Reinhold Schünzel.  The original film, Victor and Victoria (Viktor und Viktoria, 1933), was a German-language musical comedy produced at the end of the Weimar Republic, shortly before Adolph Hitler became chancellor of the nation.  The film received very little exposure in the United States at the time, and screenings have been rare ever since.  However, it is now easy for new audiences to view the Weimar original thanks to Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray and DVD release of Victor and Victoria this month under their Kino Classics imprint.  I recently viewed the film for the first time myself via the new Blu-ray, and I found it to be an absolute delight.

Renate Müller stars as Suzanne, an ingenue who hopes to find fame on the musical stage, but fails to impress producers during open auditions.  As she is leaving the audition, she (literally) bumps into and befriends Victor (Hermann Thimig), a ham actor, who boasts of his stage successes.  In truth, Victor is unemployed, except for a novelty act where he performs in drag as “Victoria.”  Suffering from a cold, Victor convinces Suzanne into taking his place as “Victoria” in order to avoid losing the paycheck.  Thinking Suzanne is an incredibly convincing female impersonator, an agent (Aribert Wäscher) signs her to a lucrative contract for a international tour, accompanied by her “manager” Victor.  When the tour reaches London, things get complicated for “Victoria,” due to her attraction to a dashing gentleman (Anton Wohlbrück).

Fans of Victor Victoria (1982) will find many surprises in Reinhold Schünzel’s original.  The story takes place in Germany and London (where oddly everyone speaks German) versus the Paris setting of the Blake Edwards film.  While both films include musical sequences, Victor and Victoria is more of an operetta, where characters burst into song out of the blue.  Alternatively, Victor Victoria (1982) only includes diegetic songs, performed in the theatrical setting.  However, the biggest difference between the two films is the handling of the homosexual possibilities of the narrative.  While Blake Edwards’ film includes multiple gay characters (most notably Robert Preston’s “Toddy”) and uses the cross-dressing plot to create homosexual confusion, Schünzel’s film contains almost no gay content.  All of the characters in Victor and Victoria (1933) identify as “straight,” and the only suggestions of homosexual overtones are a couple of instances where female characters find “Victoria” attractive as a man.

While the two films are quite different, they are equally delightful.  Reinhold Schünzel’s film is well-directed, including impressive panning shots, montages, and effectively staged slapstick; and his screenplay is clever and funny.  While the script avoids the homosexual implications of the narrative, it does delve into complications unexplored in the later film, such Suzanne’s difficulty in changing in a shared male dressing room and in trying to stay in character while getting a shave in a barber shop.

The performances are an interesting mix of comic styles.  Hermann Thimig, as Victor, does most of the physical comedy heavy-lifting with a very broad performance full of mugging, twitches, and pratfalls.  Whereas, Anton Wohlbrück expertly underplays his scenes.  In the lead, Renate Müller trods the middle-ground between them.

If I was to rank my preference between Victor and Victoria (1933) and Victor Victoria (1982), Blake Edwards’ film would pull slightly ahead, mainly due to the fact that the Henry Mancini score is more memorable than the songs of Franz Doelle.  However, there is no reason to choose between the two films.  Both are extremely enjoyable musical comedies, and Kino Lorber has done a service to cinephiles by giving us the opportunity to get acquainted with the German original.

Germany/B&W-99m./Dir: Reinhold Schünzel/Wr: Reinhold Schünzel/Cast: Renate Müller, Hermann Thimig, Friedel Pisetta, Fritz Odemar, Aribert Wäscher, Anton Wohlbrück (as Adolf Wohlbrück)

For Fans of: If you love Blake Edwards’ Victor Victoria (1982), I think you’ll find it interesting to see the origins of the story.  Schünzel’s film should also appeal to fans of pre-code musicals, especially those directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

Video: Kino Lorber recently released Victor and Victoria (1933) under their Kino Classics imprint.  The source of the video is a 2012 2K digital scan from the best available surviving elements by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation.  The film elements do not appear to have been digitally cleaned up, so some scratches and other defects do appear from time to time.  However, the image is sharp with good contrast; and the audio is clear and well-defined.  The subtitles are also easy to read.  In short, while not perfect, Victor and Victoria looks and sounds good for a film of its vintage.  This is likely the best home video presentation that the film will ever receive, so collectors should not hesitate in picking up the disc.

There is only a single special feature included on the disc:

• A film-length audio commentary by film historian Gaylyn Studlar

Streaming: At the time of this review, Victor and Victoria was not available as a digital stream on any of the major subscriptions services.  However, it is available for digital rental on Kino Lorber’s own streaming service, KinoNow.com.

More to Explore: Another delightful, foreign, pre-code musical that I would recommend is Le Million (1931) by director René Clair, which is available on DVD from the Criterion Collection.

Trivia: Renate Müller was one of the most popular stars in Germany during the 1930s.  The reason she is not better known to audiences today is because her career took a downturn shortly after Victor and Victoria, when the Nazis came into power.  Her relationship with the new government was poor, because she had a Jewish lover and she refused to appear in propaganda films.  She became addicted to morphine, and she died suddenly on October 7, 1937, at age 31, from a fall from a hotel or hospital window (accounts vary).  The reason for the fall is shrouded in mystery, and it has been attributed to multiple causes including epilepsy, suicide, and murder by Gestapo officers.

For More Info: Germany’s Weimar Cinema period is covered in several books, including Weimar Cinema 1919-1933: Daydreams and Nightmares edited by Laurence Kardish and Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933 by Hans Helmut Prinzler.