in 1930s Paris, the audition scene of frail, impoverished
soprano, Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) whose high-pitched, sustained
note shattered a wine glass
the restaurant scene when Victoria dined with flamboyant,
gay, middle-aged cabaret singer Carroll "Toddy" Todd (Robert
Preston), and to avoid paying for the meal, released a cockroach
and then told the waiter ("I'm sure it wasn't your fauIt that
your saIad had a cockroach in it") - and caused complete havoc
the plan of opera singer Victoria Grant and "Toddy" to
pass Victoria off as "Count Victor Grezhinski" - a Polish
drag queen and Toddy's new boyfriend: (Victoria: "A woman pretending
to be a man pretending to be a woman?")
the over-the-top character of ditzy, wild, uncontrollable,
coarse, sex-starved blonde moll Norma Cassady (Lesley Ann Warren)
with her irksome voice ("Kiiiiiiiiing! Pooooooooookie!")
- and with her Chicago mob associate boyfriend and nightclub owner
King Marchand (James Garner); in bed, she tried to warm up to King,
but he was unable to have sex with her anymore - she tried to assuage
his feelings of inadequacy, with a long malaprop about his impotence:
("Pookie. It's no big deaI. It happens to everyone. Men, I mean.
We're lucky. Women, I mean. We can fake it if we have to. 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.
Just tonight, because you couldn't get it. Up till now it's been
grand, Pookie, really, really grand. And 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. I mean, the more you think about it, the more you worry. The
more you worry, the more you think. Think, worry. Good stuff. Worry,
think. It just gets Iike a vicious circIe. And then, before you know
it, you are impudent"); and then she asked as he returned to
the bedroom from the bathroom - completely vexed by her and ready
to wash her mouth out: "What's with the soap?"
Norma's defiant reaction when cut loose by King
and sent back to America - forced onto a train by King's bodyguard
Mr. Bernstein (Alex Karras) aka Squash, when she opened her robe
to reveal her skimpy bra, underpants, and stockings, and was yelling: "Thinks
he can just push me around! Thinks I'm just gonna hop on the next
boat for the States and that'll be that! Well, you've got another
thing coming Mr. Big-shot Fairy Marchand! 'Cause Mrs. Cassidy's little
goil Norma ain't gonna take this one lyin' down! And don't kid yourself!
You ain't seen the last of me yet!"
- causing a distracted boarding passenger to stumble off the platform
also Norma's saucy, sexy song-and-dance "Chicago,
Illinois" number with other showgirls in baby-doll underwear
Victoria's show-stopping production number "Le
Jazz Hot" in a black gown with stringy bat-wing sleeves and
a rhinestone headdress when she revealed herself as alter-ego male
Victor by ripping off her headdress
and Norma's hilarious one-liner when she thought she
was to be assaulted by clothes-stripping Victor/Victoria Grant: "Wait
a minute...lock the door first" - and her reaction to Victoria's
true sex that she screeched at King: "You two-timing son-of-a-bitch!
HE'S A WOMAN!"
the scene of hilariously miscast and in drag Toddy
performing "Shady Dame From Seville" in place of Victoria,
and his jokingly bitter riposte to his chorus line when finished
and claiming it was his last performance: "You were marvelous
- and I never want to see any of you again!"