Funny Girl
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Movie Reviews of Funny Girl
Movie Review: Hilarious musical based on life of comedienne Fannie Brice
Summary: 5 Stars
Funny Girl (directed by William Wyler) is a hilarious, wonderful musical lightly based on the life of comedienne and actress Fanny Brice. The film version is based on the stage musical that premiered on Broadway in 1964.
Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand) is a Jewish girl from New York City who simply wants to make it as a star. Eventually she makes it all the way to the Ziegfeld Follies and stars in some of Florenz Ziegfeld`s (Walter Pidgeon) productions.
She soon falls in love with a worldly gambler (who she's met before), Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif), and leaves theatre behind to marry him. The rest of the musical follows their rocky marriage and Brice's reemergence into theatre and comedy.
Streisand shines in this movie. In my opinion this is Streisand at her comedic best. Her acting is natural and she delivers her lines perfectly. Her facial expressions are enough to make me laugh. She is a gem. Her character Fannie Brice believes all she has going for her is her humor but Streisand shows us that Brice is so much more than that. She is funny, caring, beautiful and resilient. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants in life.
Every scene in this movie that was meant to be funny is. The "His Loves Makes Me Beautiful" is brilliant and leaves me wondering if they truly could have gotten away with that musical number in the early 1900s. Streisand's character refuses to sing about how beautiful she is and, in protest, shoves a pillow up her dress and pretends to be pregnant in the number.
The "Roller Skate Rag" is also hilarious. It's humorous seeing Brice trying to roller skate and knocking the other skaters down in the process.
The songs and musical score are amazing. The more serious "People" fits perfectly with the rest of the movie. It is one of Streisand's best performances in the film. Also, no one can forget "Don't Rain On My Parade". It's a signature Barbra Streisand song for a reason. She belts it out with enormous emotion and proves to us that no one could ever sing it as well as her.
The supporting cast that consists of Sharif, Brice's mother (Kay Medford), Pidgeon and Georgia James (Anne Francis) complete the movie. Streisand is certainly the break out star in the film but it wouldn't be the same without the rest of the cast; especially Shariff.
After I saw Funny Girl for the first time I listened to the entire soundtrack and found myself singing along to every song. It's my favorite musical and, like Paper Moon, I highly recommend it.
Movie Review: Mrs. Arnstein, Mrs. Arnstein. What a Beautiful Beautiful Name...
Summary: 5 Stars
When Barbra Streisand reprised her role as Fanny Brice in the movie version of Funny Girl, her stardom was cemented. Not only was it a huge hit, but it was loved by audiences, has gone on to be one of her most adored performances, and made her an Academy Award winning actress. Through it all, she deserved every bit of it.
The movie tells a loosely-told story of famous vaudeville star Fanny Brice, and how she struggled for fame and finding the man she loves in the first half, and the second half goes more dramatic, telling how her true love, Nicky Arnstein, threatens to drag her down with him as he digs deeper and deeper into gambling debt and corrupt behavior. The story, if you really pay attention to it, is not terribly deep or original, and in the middle switches from a rags-to-riches/beating the odds in show business story to a more dramatic star-crossed lovers story. But even so , with likeable characters like Fanny, Nicky, Mr. Ziegfeld, and so on, you cannot help but feel involved in their ordeals.
The performances here are all top notch. Omar Sharif brings a perfect amount of charm and shadiness to Nicky, and Walter Pidgeon is delightfully smug and caring as Florenz Ziegfeld. But the performance to watch, without a doubt, is Barbra Streisand as Fanny. She not only balances her comic and dramatic abilities beautifully, but makes us really like Fanny as a friend. She is confident, naive, happy-go-lucky, and vulnerable all at once. She deserved the Oscar more than anyone else that night, and she got it.
Last, but not least, the songs are just magnificent. Almost exclusively sung by Barbra, she is perfectly at home singing all of them, and succeeds in most. She's fun in "I'm The Greatest Star," radiantly sexy in "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You," tearjerking in "People," and, of course, her bravura performance of "Don't Rain on My Parade" (the scene with the tugboat will give you shivers the same way Julie Andrews' scene on the hill does in Sound of Music). Some songs are good, and some songs are great, but no song is mediocre.
I could go on and on, but I want those who haven't discovered the movie yet to find out on their own. Barbra's fans will worship it, fans of musicals will love it, and even those who don't care for either musicals or Barbra Streisand will smile at least a few times. If you haven't seen it yet, don't waste another second.
Movie Review: FAB treatment to a Musical Classic! Barbra shines!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been waiting for this new version of FUNNY GIRL since the announcement of a possible 30th Annivesary release back in 1998. I am glad Columbia waited and perfected the necessary to present this fabulous version with restored picture and sound. I went to see the limited re-release at the Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC on 9/8 (albeit we had a hack of a projectionist who was a last minute substitute for the regular one that didn't show up). This road-show edition adds back the Overture in its full version (as heard on the Quad copy of the soundtrack album vs. the edited on on the Stereo album and CD), the Intermission and second act music, as well as the Exit music over new credits regarding the restoration after the regular credits. The new technicolor print is glorious. Even on the big screen, the clarity was unbelievable. Watching the heartbreaking MY MAN at the end on the DVD, I actually for the first time saw the tears coming down Fanny's face as she sang....that's how much clarity.The Widescreen edition lets you see the entire spectrum which make some scenes more logical vs. pan-scan. The songs and incidental music is the best quality, even surpassing the digitally remastered CD issued a few years ago. From what I understood originally, I was expecting a "deleted scenes" section or "director's cut" version that would show some outtakes, specifically 3 scenes (early in the film where Nick just lost a fortune, moved into a tenament, learned he just made another bankroll and went back to a swanky hotel; the full 9 minute or so SWAN LAKE sequence; and a scene with Anne Francis in the Arnstein apartment telling Fanny off just prior to the part where Fanny is on the phone, hangs up and her mother asks he if she ever butted into her life). These did not make it on the DVD or recut into the film. However, there are the treats of 2 pre-opening featurettes on where they filmed the train depot sequences and Don't Rain on My Parade, as well as another featurette called THIS IS STREISAND. You will also be amazed that in the beginning, after a montage of scenes from the film, an animation of lights come up recreating the marquee that you see in the beginning of the film, then listing your choices. The new bright-pink box also makes sure "you see it". Fans of this film, and novices wanting to see it for the first time, don't bother with a VHS. Get this one!
Movie Review: "He's got polish on his nails."
Summary: 5 Stars
The ultimate showcase for an actress, Barbra Streisand's highly publicized film debut in FUNNY GIRL met every single expectation and then some. The film was the highest-grossing film of 1968, and it's very easy to see why. The film has many great qualities: It's expertly directed by three-time Academy Award winner William Wyler (the finale of the "Don't Rain On My Parade" number is just as astonishing as the chariot race in Wyler's BEN HUR), the storyline is extremely compelling, Omar Sharif is an incredibly suave and charismatic leading man, the supporting players are perfectly cast (particularly Kay Medford, Lee Allen, and Walter Pidgeon), and the song score (primarily by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill) is first-rate. However, virtually everything that FUNNY GIRL has working for it would be worthless without Barbra Streisand's absolutely phenomenal performance. I honestly cannot think of enough good descriptive adjectives to do justice to her amazing performance in this film. She handles drama, comedy, music numbers, and tearjerking sentiment with equal aplomb, and she does it all better than any actress before or since. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had no choice but to honor her with the Oscar for Best Actress (in an extremely rare tie with academy favorite Katherine Hepburn; only the second tie in Oscar history to date), it is a performance that is nothing less than perfect.
About the DVD: Columbia-Tristar has done an excellent job in bringing FUNNY GIRL to DVD. The restoration of the original source elements may have taken nearly three years to complete, but it was time well spent - the picture quality is gorgeous! Sure, there are a few nicks on the print, but the color, sharpness, and virtually everything else is nearly flawless. Quite possibly one of the best vintage transfers yet. The sound is also excellent, and while there are no new features included (only vintage featurettes - I expect we'll see a special edition re-issue in the future) the menu design is fantastic.
Movie Review: Groundbeaking Classic -- Well Worth Another Look!
Summary: 5 Stars
We has the good fortune to see the newly restored version of FUNNY GIRL on the big screen last month. There were 6 of us in our group (3 men & 3 women) and we all loved every minute of it. The colors in the new print are fabulous, the soundtrack is enhanced, & Barbra is even better than you expect her to be. So here's my question: why was there so little hype for the theatrical re-release of this wonderful film?!?!?I sent this question to the Internet Movie Database & I was told that FUNNY GIRL was "not a groundbreaking movie or even an important one."
Well, now, let's just look @ this a little closer. Watching it again for the first time in 30 years, one thing that amazed me was how deliberately Wyler had framed Streisand's famous nose. In many scenes, her face is shown in profile against a dark background, so that "the bump" is very pronounced. This actually occurs when she's singing PEOPLE, her big "romantic number."
We are used to hearing that De Niro & Pacino changed the standard of on-screen beauty & made "ethnic" stars acceptable, but it should now be clear that the bulldozer that broke this barrier was Streisand. There she is, surrounded by gorgeous chorus girls, but no one can have any question about who "the star" is.
One final comment: FUNNY GIRL was originally released in 1968, in other words about 5 years before the first publication of MS Magazine & the dawn of the Women's Movement. But here's this woman asserting herself & taking control. Framing her on that tugboat, & sending her plowing right in front of the Statue of Liberty is the most aggressive declaration of reaching out for the American Dream that I know of -- in what other country could a woman even dream of such a thing?
With all due respect, I suggest folks take another look @ this film before thinking they can consign it to the dustbin of history. I can't wait to add the DVD to my permanent collection!!!