First a Girl

Sparkling musical comedy about a shop girl who pretends to be a boy in order to perform on stage as a female impersonator.

This British adaption of the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria (later remade as Victor Victoria and similarly reworked in Shakespeare in Love) sees a shop girl pretending to a boy in order to perform onstage as a female impersonator.

Lead performers Jessie Matthews and Sonnie Hale were a successful screen partnership in 1930s British cinema, and this is their most polished collaboration. Victor Saville’s film mixes its clever conceit with risqué comedy and impressive song-and-dance numbers to thoroughly entertaining effect.