First a Girl

First a Girl
	Film poster
Directed by	Victor Saville
Produced by	S. C. Balcon; Michael Balcon
Written by	Marjorie Gaffney
Based on	an original screenplay by Reinhold Schünzel
Starring	Jessie Matthews
Music by	songs:; M. Sigler; A.Goodhart; A. Hoffman; musical director:; Louis Levy
Cinematography	Glen MacWilliams
Edited by	Al Barnes
Production; company	Gaumont British Picture Corpn. Ltd.
Distributed by	Gaumont British
Release date	7 November 1935 (London, UK);
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

First a Girl is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews.^[1]^[2] First a Girl was adapted from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria written and directed by Reinhold Schünzel.^[3]^[4] It was remade as the 1982 American musical comedy Victor Victoria starring Julie Andrews.^[5]

Plot

Shop girl Elizabeth (Jessie Matthews) is delivering costumes to a theatre where popular female impersonator Victor (Sonnie Hale), is about to open in a new show. When the star unexpectedly falls ill, Elizabeth is drafted in to take Victor's place, as a man impersonating a woman. To everyone's surprise, she and the show are both hits, and Elizabeth finds further success on a concert tour of Europe. But how long can she keep up the pretence of being a man?

Cast

Jessie Matthews as Elizabeth
Sonnie Hale as Victor
Anna Lee as Princess Mironoff
Griffith Jones as Robert
Alfred Drayton as Mr. McLintock
Constance Godridge as Beryl
Eddie Gray as Goose Trainer
Martita Hunt as Madame Seraphina
Donald Stewart as Singer

Critical reception

BFI Screenonline wrote, "Of all the Matthews/Hale collaborations, this one seems the most polished and even-handed. A huge success at the time it was released, First a Girl is possibly the quintessential Jessie Matthews musical and certainly the most enduringly amusing for a modern audience."^[6]

References

↑ Sennwald, Andre. "New York Times: First a Girl". NY Times. Retrieved 20 July 2008.
↑ "First a Girl (1935)".
↑ "Victor/Victoria (1982) - Articles - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
↑ IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024736/
↑ "Victor/Victoria (1982) - Blake Edwards - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.
↑ "BFI Screenonline: First A Girl (1935)". www.screenonline.org.uk.

External links

First a Girl on IMDb
First a Girl at the BFI's Screenonline

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[NY_Times-1] Sennwald, Andre. "New York Times: First a Girl". NY Times. Retrieved 20 July 2008.

[2] "First a Girl (1935)".

[3] "Victor/Victoria (1982) - Articles - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.

[4] IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024736/

[5] "Victor/Victoria (1982) - Blake Edwards - Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related - AllMovie". AllMovie.

[6] "BFI Screenonline: First A Girl (1935)". www.screenonline.org.uk.

Films produced by Michael Balcon
1920s	The Rat (1925) The Sea Urchin (1926) The Triumph of the Rat (1926) The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926) The Mountain Eagle (1926) Blighty (1927) Downhill (1927) The Rolling Road (1927) Easy Virtue (1927) One of the Best (1927) The Vortex (1927) A South Sea Bubble (1928) A Light Woman (1928) The First Born (1928) The Wrecker (1929) The Return of the Rat (1929) City of Play (1929) Taxi for Two (1929) Woman to Woman (1929)
1930s	Jack's the Boy (1932) I Was a Spy (1933) It's a Boy (1933) Friday the Thirteenth (1933) Princess Charming (1934) Evergreen (1934) Red Ensign (1934) Along Came Sally (1934) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Car of Dreams (1935) First a Girl (1935) Me and Marlborough (1935) The 39 Steps (1935) Stormy Weather (1935) Things Are Looking Up (1935) The First Offence (1936) Tudor Rose (1936) The Man Who Changed His Mind (1936) Secret Agent (1936) Where There's a Will (1936) Windbag the Sailor (1936) Doctor Syn (1937) A Yank at Oxford (1938) The Gaunt Stranger (1938) The Four Just Men (1939) Cheer Boys Cheer (1939)
1940s	Let George Do It! (1940) The Proud Valley (1940) The Ghost of St. Michael's (1941) Ships with Wings (1941) Turned Out Nice Again (1941) The Big Blockade (1942) Went the Day Well? (1942) The Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) My Learned Friend (1943) The Foreman Went to France (1942) Undercover (1943) The Bells Go Down (1943) San Demetrio London (1943) Nine Men (1943) For Those in Peril (1944) Champagne Charlie (1944) The Halfway House (1944) Fiddlers Three (1944) Dead of Night (1945) Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945) They Came to a City (1945) Johnny Frenchman (1945) The Captive Heart (1946) The Overlanders (1946) Hue and Cry (1947) It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) Frieda (1947) Against the Wind (1948) Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) Another Shore (1948) Scott of the Antarctic (1948) Train of Events (1949) Passport to Pimlico (1949) Whisky Galore! (1949) A Run for Your Money (1949) Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
1950s and 1960s	Cage of Gold (1950) The Blue Lamp (1950) The Magnet (1950) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Pool of London (1951) The Man in the White Suit (1951) Mandy (1952) The Cruel Sea (1953) The Maggie (1954) The Night My Number Came Up (1955) Touch and Go (1955) The Ladykillers (1955) The Long Arm (1956) Barnacle Bill (1957) The Man in the Sky (1957) The Shiralee (1957) Dunkirk (1958) The Siege of Pinchgut (1959) The Scapegoat (1959) The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961)