Set in 1930’s Paris, Victoria/Victoria is a film that, to quote Wikipedia, “involves homosexuality, transvestism and sexual identity as its central themes”. Something for everyone, then!

The storyline revolves around Victoria, a struggling nightclub singer. On the brink of destitution she encounters ‘Toddy’, a gay, down-at-heel cabaret performer, who comes up with an ingenious scheme to make them both rich.

The scheme involves Victoria passing herself off as ‘Victor’, Toddy’s new boyfriend and a man who just happens to be the world’s best female impersonator! In other words, she’ll be a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Unsurprisingly, the complications begin to arise from the word go.  King, a Chicago gangster, turns up to one of ‘Victor’s’ shows and immediately falls in love. But so sure is he of his own sexuality, he’s convinced that Victor really is a woman and determines to find out.

His determination pays off and they soon end up in bed together – where they’re promptly discovered by King’s bodyguard. But before they get to explain, the bodyguard takes the opportunity to unburden himself of his long-held secret  – he, himself, is ‘also’ gay.

And so the story rolls on: King’s girlfriend finds out about him being in bed with ‘Victor’ and returns to Chicago to ‘out’ him to his business partner and fellow gangster Sal. Sal then turns up and threatens all sorts of nasties if King doesn’t hand over his share of their joint investments as a fraction of their value.

In response, Victoria decides that the pretence is causing too many problems so she reveals her true gender – which leads the nightclub owner to threaten legal action against her and Toddy for fraud.

Needless to say, it all resolves itself in the end but not before some clever exploration of the whole sexual identity issue. And, thankfully, it doesn’t resort to the shallow gay stereotypes often found in other ‘straight’ movies.

Indeed, it puts forward some very positive messages. For example, in one scene King’s girlfriend, Norma, is flirting with Toddy at a party.

“You know,” she says,”I think the right woman could reform you.”

“You know,” replies Toddy, “I think the right woman could reform you too!”