Films A to Z

First a Girl

Runtime:
92 min.
Year of Production:
1935
Country:
UK
Director:
Cast:
Jessie Matthews
Sonnie Hale
Anna Lee
Griffith Jones
Production Company:
Berlinale Section:
Retrospective

The fashion salon employee Elizabeth dreams of a stage career, the small-part actor Victor of a bright future as a Shakespearean mime. Both dreams fail miserably at the artists' agency. Victor will have to continue to appear as a female impersonator. When Elizabeth loses her job and Victor his voice due to a cold, the young woman stands in for him. She puts on trousers and now plays a man as a woman playing a woman. Her performance becomes a huge success, which leads "Victoria" and her "manager" to stages all over Europe - until an English princess becomes suspicious in France and wants to find out the truth during a trip to the Riviera ... The British remake of Reinhold Schünzel's Viktor und Viktoria is a revue film with many dance and song numbers, in which the sexual confusion of the original takes a back seat to other show values: the glamorous locations on the Mediterranean, the elaborate stage sets, which the film architect O. F. Werndorff, and the extravagant creations of costume designer Joe Strassner, who had previously worked as a fashion designer on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm and as a couturier for Ufa.

BIOGRAFIE Victor Saville

Born September 25, 1895 in Birmingham, England, UK, Victor 's first involvement with the film business was as manager of a small theater in Coventry. In 1936, Saville set up a company under his own name (Victor Saville Productions) with the noted screenwriter Ian Dalrymple as his partner. They made several features for Alexander Korda at Denham Studios, including South Riding (1938), often cited as Saville's best film. He then moved to Hollywood where he acted primarily as producer. He did direct one more A-grade film, Green Dolphin Street (1947), though the artistic failure of a miscast biblical epic, The Silver Chalice (1954), hastened Saville's eventual retirement from the industry.

FILMOGRAFIE Victor Saville (selection)

1957 My Gun Is Quick   1954 The Silver Chalice   1954 The Long Wait   1952 Affair in Monte Carlo   1951 Calling Bulldog Drummond   1950 Kim   1950 The Miniver Story   1949 Conspirator   1947 If Winter Comes   1947 Desire Me   1947 Green Dolphin Street   1946 The Green Years   1945 Tonight and Every Night   1943 Forever and a Day   1940 The Earl of Chicago   1938 South Riding   1937 Storm in a Teacup   1937 Dark Journey   1937 Action for Slander   1936 It's Love Again   1935 First a Girl  1935 Me and Marlborough   1935 Loves of a Dictator   1934 Evensong   1934 Evergreen   1934 The Iron Duke   1933 The Good Companions   1933 Friday the Thirteenth   1933 I Was a Spy   1932 Love on Wheels   1932 Faithful Hearts   1931 Michael and Mary   1931 Hindle Wakes   1931 The Sport of Kings  1931 The Office Girl  1930 The W Plan  1930 A Warm Corner   1929 Kitty   1929 Armistice  1929 Woman to Woman   1929 Me and the Boys   1928 A Woman in the Night   1927 The Arcadians  

Victor Saville @IMDb
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