First a Girl [VHS]

This film isn't glitzy, it isn't slick, it isn't even in colour. However, none of that matters. Made in black and white in 1935, this British comedy is funny, and filled with an innocence many of us modern and more jaded filmgoers find refreshing. There aren't any special effects, just special, well acted, characters, and musical numbers to rival the American, Busby Berkley extravaganzas of that era. Though this is the precursor to our modern "Victor/Victoria", homosexuality was a "no no" in 1935. Therefore, we're asked to accept, among other things, the idea that a female impersonator is really a straight man who wants to act in Shakespearean plays. Despite great pains being taken, lest we suspect any of the characters of being gay, the film retains the fun aspect of the later "Victor/Victoria", and, without even trying to lower her voice, we find Jessie Matthews believable as a "boy". This is a film made when movies were new, and life was simpler. "First A Girl" is delightful.

Jessie Matthews brings her talent for musical comedy to this tale of a stuggling young actress who pretends to be a man who dresses as a woman. The plot probably sounds familiar to anyone who's seen Victor/Victoria. This earlier version is campier and just as fun as the Blake Edwards film and is recommeded to all fans of old musicals or Victor/Victoria.

This little British-made gem of a film was one of the last movies to be released exclusively on VHS format. Too bad it wasn't one of the first to be released on DVD. It is similar in storyline to Victor/Victoria, but it is different enough that you can watch both and enjoy the comparisons without feeling that you have just watched the same film twice.

Elizabeth (Jessie Matthews) is a British shop girl working in a fashion boutique that caters to the wealthy. She dreams of being a famous entertainer. One rainy day - while wearing the fancy clothes she is supposed to be delivering - she runs into Victor, aspiring Shakespearean actor and actual female impersonator who works the bawdy music halls of London. He is down to his last shilling when he gets a one-time engagement to work in one of these halls. Unfortunately, the rain has taken a toll on his voice and he is unable to take the job. Likewise, Elizabeth has ruined the clothes she was supposed to deliver and can't go back to her job. They forge an alliance for what is supposed to be a one-time thing - Elizabeth will go on as Victor and be a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman so they both can collect the money they badly need. A high-class booking agent sees the act and offers the pair a chance to be the toast of Europe. A reluctant Elizabeth agrees since it does give her a chance at her dream.

The complications arise in France where a princess and her fiance, which she treats more as a lapdog than a man, see her act. The fiance arrives late to the performance and is at first attracted to Elizabeth, whom he believes is a woman performing as a woman. The princess enjoys telling him the joke is on him when she shows him the program that introduces Victoria - the great female impersonator.

The differences between this film and Victor/Victoria are that the princess sees her fiance's attraction to "Bob" and yet wants to prove "Bob" to be a girl, opening up a pathway for a romance between the two, and also the princess starts a romance of sorts with Elizabeth's mentor, Victor. Thus the princess is not the jealous gun moll that Leslie Ann Warren plays in Victor/Victoria. Instead she is a Marie Antoinette-like character that seems to take nothing seriously. There are inplausibilities in both films. In Victor/Victoria the film would lead you to believe that most of 1930's Paris is g ay. In this film no trace of a g ay lifestyle is ever mentioned. Instead Victor is supposed to be a straight man who lives in close quarters with the very attractive Elizabeth and apparently never has an impure thought or act. However, the rather unlikely pairing of Victor with the princess is thrown in just so that the audience is assured of his straightness.

There are several very good Busby Berkeley-like musical numbers in the film as well as some very good and catchy tunes to go along with them.