JUST ONCE IN A LIFETIME?

Who’d have guessed Barbra Streisand’s début in movies would also be her one unequivocal smash musical success? Though not originally conceived with her in mind (some wanted Anne Bancroft, then Carol Burnett, then Eydie Gormé), Funny Girl on Broadway became a Streisand vehicle on the strength of her comic abilities, which, while sufficiently mimicking Fanny Brice’s, have their own zinger style, and for her powerhouse range as singer. On screen, the emphasis on star building is even more strongly felt; the production is a giant catapult for propelling a phenomenon into the stratosphere, with studios pinning hopes on her to bring renewed life to movie musicals. (After The Sound of Music, the dismal responses to Camelot, Doctor Doolittle and Julie Andrews’ Star! spooked everyone, and then came the crash & burn of Darling Lili, Sweet Charity and the Clint Eastwood/Lee Marvin Paint Your Wagon.) When Babs belts out “My Man” at the conclusion of Funny Girl, there was nary a doubt a savior had arrived. Here’s the voice meant to wipe out concerns over all the lazy scripting in most musicals. Strange are the fates: in the same year a better musical was made—Oliver!—and in just a few short years Babs’s glow as the “greatest star” would dim. Other than for the idolatrous male panters, her Mae Westy Dolly, her stewardess-clad nincompoop in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, her contempt in Funny Lady and her repulsive, frizzy-haired Esther in A Star is Born increasingly fractured audiences; she became annoying. (In the golden-toned Yentl, her dedicated sincerity is guard against being called annoying.) For all of his heralded talents, and patience with the raring-to-helm star, director William Wyler’s rather sloppy with her dramatic moments in Funny Girl—for example, she’s sitting down on a couch, flipping through a convenient magazine pretending not to listen when Omar Sharif’s crookster Nicky Arnstein is being offered a job. It screams for the 91st retake, in recognition of the insider label “90 Take Wyler.” If catty for the Harvard Lampoon to honor her with 1968’s Natalie Wood Award as Worst Actress, it isn’t altogether undeserving: in re-viewings the grating factor in the performance escalates. (She also grates in some of her nonmusical movies.) Using Egyptian Sharif as Arnstein is audacious casting; condemned by the rug-eating critics, he’s appreciated as cushion, absorbing much of her lippy cutesiness and, fortunately, Wyler and scripter Isobel Lennart had little control over what he could do very charmingly in a recording studio. Irish Catholic Kay Medford is the mother of the star (though many of us who get a kick from her schtick prefer her landlady in the Debbie Reynolds-Tony Curtis potboiler The Rat Race); Anne Francis a wise-cracking Ziegfeld girl; reliable Watler Pigeon as the famed Broadway producer. Huge roadshow hit: in Chicago, it opened and ran in 35mm at the United Artists for 35 weeks, moved to the Michael Todd for 17 weeks, then to sister Cinestage for an additional nine. Filmed in Panavision, with 70mm blowup, which the Palace booked for seven additional weeks, sans hardticket.

Oscar win: best actress. Nominations for best picture, best supporting actress (Medford), best cinematography, sound, film editing, song (“Funny Girl”), score for a musical picture.

Only after the threat of legal action by producer Ray Stark to force Babs to fulfil her contract did she reluctantly do Funny Lady. The star’s palpable disdain on screen is the only inducement for foofs to suffer grind and bear. Trapped in a virtual theatrical sandbox for middle-aged malcontents, she’s exerting a processed climaxing to the flunky juke box recordings and sinks as low as she ever has with the RuPaulian “It’s Gonna Be A Great Day,” so atrociously choreographed we hopelessly wait—because we’ve been set up—for her to walk off the stage in a big huff of profanity. Following right after is her backstage Mama Rose version of “How Lucky Can You Get,” the closest she’ll ever get to Gypsy. At end she’s wearing a fright wig with a top-mounted set of eyeholes, forecasting some of Guillermo del Toro’s grotesques in Pan’s Labyrinth. More on the making and extensive cuts here. In Panavision, with 70mm blowup, non-roadshow.

Oscar nominations:. best cinematography, costume design, sound, best song (“How Lucky Can You Get”) and best music—scoring original song source and/or adaptation.

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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com 

Text COPYRIGHT © 2002 RALPH BENNER (Revised 6/2021) All Rights Reserved.