Funny Girl

Loosely based on the life of Fanny Brice, Funny Girl tells the story of the young Jewish girl’s rise to becoming the star of Zeigfeld’s Follies through her comedic talent, not necessarily her looks.  When I say loosely, I mean the film takes a lot of liberties leaving out many events in Brice’s life and the character becomes more iconic Barbra Streisand than anything else.  I would not consider this a biopic, but rather a musical inspired from Brice’s life.

Fanny’s only aspiration is only to become a star, but everyone can see that her looks may hold her back.  She works hard trying out for any part out there, even if she has no idea how to roller skate, she’ll do it.  Through some blunders, she realizes that her main talents are singing and comedy.  However, when she is picked by the great Florenz Zeigfeld (Walter Pidgeon) to become one of his famed Follies, she sees that she might be a fish out of water.  With a daring and unconventional surprise, she propels herself forward into stardom.  Along her way to the top, she meets a handsome gentleman who makes his fortune by gambling, Nick Arstein (Omar Sharif).  He’s a dreamboat who wants to give Fanny everything she’s ever dreamed of, it seems too good to be true for this rising star.

This is the kind of musical that’s so wonderfully quirky and utterly full of Streisand, most are likely to either love it or hate it.  I was surprised how much I loved it, perhaps my closeted Glee fan status helps this out quite a bit.  If any Gleeks have not seen Funny Girl, it’s essential to many references throughout the show.

Streisand’s Fanny was a little annoying at first, but she really grew on me.  Even better, I always thought she was at her best while singing.  Best of all, many of the songs are wonderfully funny in a surprising way.  In the red private restaurant scene, the duet between Nick and Fanny had me cracking up with lines like, “Isn’t this the height of nonchalance, furnishing a bed in restaurants?”

What I loved about Fanny are her reasons for becoming a comedian.  Her legs are too thin to be a chorus girl and her nose doesn’t make her a typical beauty queen.  She knows this, and in that ornate, perfectly Zeigfeld bridal finale full of fair and practically perfect women, Fanny turns her lead role on its head at the last minute, knowing exactly how to win over the crowd.  Her comedic genius stems from a defense mechanism, and it works perfectly for her.  Over and over throughout the film, it’s intriguing to see how Fanny uses her funny girl talents to ease the pain in tough situations.

Now, when you look at the Oscar history records and see that Streisand tied for best actress with Katharine Hepburn, there is something to keep in mind.  Streisand was a voting member of the Academy that year and, of course, voted for herself.  I don’t blame her, who wouldn’t do that?  I drove over an hour just to hold the Oscar that later went to Jeff Bridges.  But to vote for yourself, and knowing that that one vote tied you once with the great 4 win, 12 nomination Hepburn, it feels like an awkward joke.  It’s like being a freshman who invited yourself to a senior party.  After all, this was Streisand’s very first film.

“Who told you you’re allowed to rain on my parade?”

The Prince of Tides

For a while, The Prince of Tides is a film with potential.  The central character, Tom (Nick Nolte) is called upon by a psychiatrist to recount his family’s troubling past after his twin sister, Savannah (Melinda Dillon), attempts suicide, for a second time.  Back home, he and his wife are having marriage issues and their three daughters are slowly growing old enough to see the wedge between their parents.  Through psychiatric sessions with Susan (Barbra Streisand, who also directs the film), Tom recalls some painfully repressed memories from deep within.

The most poignant scenes are Tom’s flashbacks to his childhood.  These are testimonies of the physical, emotional and verbal abuse he, his siblings and mother suffered from his father.  They show the hierarchy of the family, and how it shifts as we see the children grow.  While the mother is mostly helpless, Tom’s older brother Luke becomes the only one able to challenge the domineering father and protect the rest of the family.  It seems Tom has always been lumped in with the women, being the younger son and suffering one tragic night that the family promised to never speak of again.

All those things could make this film a great depiction of soul searching, recovering from a horrific past and what’s left of the broken family helping each other rise up from the ashes of a terrible childhood.  But all that is pushed to the background when a love affair kindled between Tom and Susan becomes the main focus.  Not only is this an unethical way to treat a patient, but this stirs up after Tom’s most heartbreaking and shocking revelation.  Frankly, I found the whole love story very unsettling.

If Tom had been played by any less talented actor than Nick Nolte, this film would have been intolerable during the more intimate scenes with Streisand.  At some moments, my husband and I just groaned and cursed the film every time Streisand’s face was attempting some sort of emotion.  The only thing that kept us from clawing out eyes out was the camera graciously cutting back to Nolte, who was convincing and had won over our hearts.  His performance brings out a raw feel to deeply repressed pain.  Between his vulnerable moments, he uses his southern boy charm and wit as a shield.  At his best moments, he can turn that wit on it’s head and pin people against a wall in the most amazing way.  They way he can hold that violin hostage was amazing.

The biggest mistake of this film is letting the affair take over.  No one wants to see Barbra Streisand in heat.  I began to wonder how exactly she was directing herself, was she trying to be sexy, vulnerable, lonely, fragile or just terrible?  Having never read the novel by Pat Conroy, I don’t know to what extent the character of Susan is needed, or how prevalent the romance is.  Somehow, I feel that the novel focuses on Tom’s family and their issues better than the film does.  What a shame.

“TV’s broken you son of a bitch.  Now you can watch your kids blow out their candles.”

Hello, Dolly!

Before seeing this film, I believe my only other encounter with Hello, Dolly! was in WALL-E.  For me, that’s not a bad thing.  Meeting Hello, Dolly! out of context didn’t make me put any outside influences on WALL-E.  However, as I watched Hello, Dolly! I did think of WALL-E a few times, and when I think of that lovable robot, I can’t help but smile.  But it wasn’t just my association with WALL-E that helped me enjoy this film, most everything about it was just endearing and whimsical.

Now, I had my doubts.  As I popped in the disc, I prayed I wouldn’t have another My Fair Lady reaction.  It’s so much nicer to enjoy musicals.  When that It Takes a Woman song started up, with all it’s oozing sexism, I was preparing myself for the worst.  Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Crawford started singing Put on Your Sunday Clothes and I was all smiles.  That happy feeling only grew throughout the film.

The story goes that Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) is a well-known matchmaker who’s got a business card for everything.  She’s been hired by Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau) to find a suitable husband for his niece and a wife for himself.  Thing is, Dolly has her heart set on Horace but doesn’t know how to tell him or how to get him out of a date in New York with the lovely miss Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew).  When she hears Horace’s under-appreciated employees are sneaking off to New York, she tells Cornelius (Michael Crawford) and Barneby (Danny Lockin) to find Irene and Minney (E.J. Peaker) and take them out on the town.  Dolly will handle the rest.

One of the things that makes this film so infectiously happy is all the wonderful color.  It seems to be early summer, with all the trees a healthy green and the sky always a clear blue.  That train to New York is so colorful and full of singing people, you’d think it was destined for Disney World.  When the big song and dance scenes come together, all the costumes seem to make a pastel rainbow of frills, lace and feathers.  The parade scene with all the floats, music, costumes and even a pig was just lovely.  The Oscar for art and set direction was well deserved.

The scene with all the dancing waiters had to be one of my favorites.  The simple gag of gluing fake food to a tray so the waiters could flip and twirl without spoiling dinner is wonderfully affective.  The bit where a customer picks a fish from a tank, then a lobster, and then a duck as it flies off the tray with a waiter ready to shoot the selection in mid air put me in stitches.  It is all so wonderfully absurd but done with such style and fantastic elegance that it’s simply charming and a great laugh.  And when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the whole scene is topped off with a Louis Armstrong cameo.

Thing is, I do not understand why Dolly has her heart set on Horace.  Sure, he’s rich, but he’s also stingy, grumpy, loud and impatient.  Something in his voice reminded me of Mr. Magoo, perhaps the bulbous nose furthered that image.  The way Matthau yells at Streisand throughout most of the film may not have been all an act.  Rumor has it, that he detested Streisand, saying that she “had no more talent than a butterfly’s fart.”  He even refused to kiss her at the end and instead a simple camera trick was used while he kept inches away.

Hello, Dolly! is a simply enjoyable film.  I cannot deny that my toes were tapping to the beat.  Everything is so fun and bright like a summer day.  I’ll admit, it’s not my usual taste in film, but if it was the only video tape I could find in a post-apocalyptic world, it would be a great find and would keep my spirits up.

“Put on your Sunday clothes,there’s lots of world out there…”