Funny / Victor/Victoria

• Victoria: How long have you been a homosexual?
  Toddy: How long have you been a soprano?
  Victoria: Since I was 12.
  Toddy: (Beat) I was a late bloomer.
  • Before "Victor's" auditions:
    Andre: (pats "him" on the shoulder) Count, with my connections and your voice, you're going to get rich! And I'm going to get richer!
    Toddy: When can we get started?
    Andre: Here.
    Victoria: (in a woman's voice) Here?! (Catches herself, speaks again in a lower register) Here?
    Andre: Then it's settled, the auditions and performance will be starting in six weeks.
    (Raise glasses together)
    Victoria: (speaks again in a lower register) Here.
    Toddy: (spits up his drink, starts laughing at Victoria's male voice disguise).
• Every single time Norma opens her mouth.
  • Norma being clearly jealous of "Victoria", getting more and more angry as she watches King becoming entranced with "her" — then bursting into rowdy cheers when "she" is revealed to be a "he".
  • King, Norma and Squash's reactions when "Victoria" takes the wig off.
    King: (smile disappears, stops applauding immediately)
    Squash: It's a guy.
    Norma: (smiles, starts applauding and cheering) Yay! YAY!! Aw bravo! Yay!! Ah!! Yay!!
    King: (stunned, looks at the photos of "Victoria" and "Victor", puts two and two together and is left visibly confused and disappointed).
  • Later:
    Norma: You know... I think that the right woman could reform you.
    Toddy: You know, I think that the right woman could reform you, too.
    Norma: Me? Give up men? Forget it!
    Toddy: You took the words right out of my mouth!
  • When she expresses disapproval at Squash staying in the same hotel suite as her and King, and King's response.
    Norma: Does he have to stay in the same hotel room as us?! I can't help but think he'll walk in on us when we're... makin' love...
    King: He'd only do that if he heard something suspicious... Like if I got excited!
    • True to King's word, Squash does indeed break down the bedroom door when he hears King getting excited (with Victoria)
  • King getting visibly annoyed with Norma as she calls to him from the bedroom. He sits there drinking and smoking cigars.
  • When King looks from his window and sees that "Victor" and Toddy are neighbors to his hotel room. The look on his face is priceless along with the instrumental music.
  • When Norma emerges, posing seductively for King and he shoots her an annoyed look:
    Norma: Yoo-hoo.
    King: (looks at her, does a Double Take, then goes back to looking out his window)
  • "I'm hoorny." (pouts lips)
  • Finally, King obeys — then without a word, grabs her, props her over his shoulder and carries her to the bedroom, followed by Norma's surprised yet enthusiastic words:
    Norma: Whoa! Oh, okay. Alright. (Door slams shut)
  • When Victoria and Toddy bid goodnight and we cut back to how King and Norma are doing. The attempt was unsuccessful. King laying in bed looking disappointed and embarrassed while Norma's attempts to cheer him up don't help either.
    Norma: (after sex) Pooky... it's no big deal (raspberries King) It happens to everyone... men, mean. We're lucky... women, I mean... we can fake it if we have to.
    King: (glares at her)
    Norma: Oh, oh, don't get me wrong... I never have with you! Faked it, I mean. With you it's like... pow, pow, pow, like the fourth of July, every time! But just tonight, cause you couldn't... up to now, it's been grand, Pooky, really, really grand, but if there's one thing I know for sure, you can't let it get you, you should excuse the expression, down. You can't think about it, you just gotta put it out of your mind! The more you think about it, the more you worry. The more you worry, the more you think... (starts eating chocolates) Think, worry, worry, think... mm! too soft... It just gets like a vicious cycle! And then, before you know it, you are impudent! [impotent]
    King: (walks into the bathroom irritatedly and comes out holding something white)
    Norma: What's with the soap?
  • When King inflicted Soap Punishment on Norma and her childish Rage Breaking Point afterwards, with her hilariously attempting to kill King and Squash with a sharp prop:
    King Marchand: (being pursued by an enraged Norma, who is foaming at the mouth. Squash gets out of bed) Look out!
    Norma: YOU SON OF A BITCH! (throws a vase)
    Squash Bernstein: Now, Norma...
    Norma: NOBODY PUTS SOAP IN MY MOUTH, NOT EVEN MY MOTHER! (throws a flower pot)
    Squash Bernstein: You're being very childish...
    Norma: I'M GONNA KILL HIM! I'M GONNA KILL YOU TOO, YOU BIG, MUSCLE-BOUND... (throws another flower pot)
    Squash Bernstein: Now, listen you have to learn to control yourself...
    Norma: OH! I'LL KILL... (grabs an ornamental spear and charges)
    Squash Bernstein: Oh, SHIT!
    Norma: THIS IS IT! I'M GONNA KILL YOU...
    (Squash runs into the bathroom with King just as Norma rams the door)
    Norma: LET ME IN THERE!
    King Marchand: You and your ideas! "Why don't you take her to Paris with you, Boss?"
    Squash Bernstein: I just thought she'd help you relax!
    King Marchand: NEVER help me relax!
    Squash Bernstein: Then send her home!
    King Marchand: Why don't you ever come up with a really good idea?
    Squash Bernstein: For instance?
    King Marchand: YOU send her home!
  • From The Musical:
    Norma: Whatever happened to the real men in this world? I might as well become a nun!
    Gangsters: A nun?!
    Norma: What's wrong with that? My MOTHER was a NUN!
  • Norma escorted by Squash on a train while ranting the whole way about King being hot for "Victor"...then she boards the train (still ranting) and Squash starts walking away, parallel to the train, with Norma keeping pace inside the train (still ranting), stopping at the end and flashing an uninterested Squash.
    Norma: And don't kid yourself!
    (opens coat to reveal underwear)
    Norma: You ain't seen the last of me yet!
    (The porter sees this and falls off platform)
    Norma: Are you okay?
  • King drinking a lot while watching "Victor" perform "The Shady Dame From Seville". Then once "Victor" takes the wig off to the crowds, King is disappointed and tells Squash that they're leaving.
  • "WAIT!!!!....lock the door."
    Norma: (outraged) YOU TWO-TIMING SON-OF-A-BITCH. HE'S A WOMAN!
  • Her meeting with an old friend who just happens to be King's mob boss employer, bursting into tears over King. What pushes it over the top is the friend's face at the end of this exchange.
    Sal: Dumped you for another gal, huh?
    Norma: No, a another guy.
    (Beat, as Sal's cigar dramatically droops)
    Sal: Run that by me again?
    Norma: (instantly stops crying) Okay, there's this Polish fairy, ya see...
• From the Musical, Toddy offers Victoria his flat to stay in.
  Victoria: Ah, no, you've been very kind but...
  Toddy: Relax. I'm gay.
  Victoria: Oh, that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!
• Toddy's matter of fact statement on why he can't be fired: "I can't afford it."
• Squash has just been stranded out in the blistering snow on the balcony outside Victoria and Toddy's hotel room. Sneaking back into the hallway, covered in snow, he encounters the neighbor across the hall.
  Squash: Do you have heat in your room?
  Neighbor: (nods)
  Squash: Boy, you're lucky.
  • Said neighbor has a Running Gag of starting to put his shoes out for the maids, but seeing one of the main cast acting suspiciously and deciding to take them back in.
• The bumbling detective, a Call-Back of Blake Edwards' Inspector Clouseau character.
  Manager: Be careful.
  Leclou Monseuir, I am always careful.
  Manager: That chair is broken.
  Leclou It is? (CRASH!)
  • Of special note of when the Chez Lui manager, upon receiving the bill of services, takes an iron mallet and abruptly smashes the detective's bandaged finger.
• The reprise of ''Shady Dame'' in the finale with Toddy taking Victoria's place.
  Toddy: (to dancers) You were marvelous! And I never want to see any of you again.
  • Supposedly, Robert Preston rehearsed the number exactly once so that the performance would be as hilariously bad as possible.
  • You can see Preston give a half-wink to the dancers on his left, letting them know it's okay to not catch him when he falls.
• The detective gets Labisse the information he needs to have "Victor" arrested for fraud. The cast outwits him.
  Police Inspector: You IDIOT ... that's a man!
  Labisse: That's not possible.
  Police Inspector: Oh yeah? Well when I walked in, the person in that room was naked from the waist down, and if that was a woman, then she was wearing the greatest disguise that I have ever seen!
• A mix of funny and poignancy when Toddy mutters "Oh, God. There's nothing more inconvenient than an old queen with a head cold." Followed by a Match Cut of Toddy blowing his nose and a car horn.
• When "Victor"/Victoria goes to punch a spectator and accidentally punches King in the face instead. His immediately look of shock and him covering his mouth with both hands as he gasps and realizes what's happened:
  "Victor": I am so sorry!
  King: (flattered, dazed) So am I!
• When the owner of the bar realizes that the note-hitting "Victor" is actually Victoria in disguise, then he ducks in cover to narrowly avoid being hit with a chair that breaks some alcohol bottles behind him:
  Waiter: ("Eureka!" Moment) COCKROACH!
• When King asks Victoria where she wants to go for a date that night. She tells him she wants to go dancing. Smash Cut to them sharing a slow dance together while Victoria's in her disguise as "Victor". Even funnier, the camera slowly pans out to reveal that the couple are in a gay bar surrounded by many gay male couples dancing. While King looks on visibly uncomfortable.
• After Squash comes out to King, King comments that he still can't believe "the roughest, toughest, son-of-a-bitchin' football player I ever saw" is gay. Squash replies, "Listen, boss, if you didn't want the guys to call you 'queer', you got rough, tough, son-of-a-bitchin' football player." Moments later, the still-agitated King collides with another man and impulsively offers to settle it in the ring. The other man snootily takes him up on it through a translator.
  King: "He'll be deLIGHTed to oblige," who does he think he is?
  Squash: Guy Levois, the French middleweight boxing champion. [King turns around with an Oh, Crap! look.] But don't worry. He's gay.

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