FILM PICK OF THE WEEK
Director William Wyler’s 1968 film adaptation of the Broadway stage musical which had already made Barbra Streisand a star is a reliably entertaining classic movie that is always a pleasure to return to.
With the publication of Streisand’s autobiography My Name is Barbra last November, the BBC’s screening of this alongside Hello Dolly! is canny scheduling. Loosely based on the life of early 20th century vaudeville comedian Fanny Brice, Funny Girl begins in the years just after the First World War. Brice is by now an established star with the Ziegfeld Follies and is seated in the auditorium before the show. The narrative unfolds in extended flashback as she thinks back over her rise to stardom.
Young Fanny is an energetic, ambitious jobbing chorus girl, living with her loving single mother Rose (Kay Medford) in a warm, supportive community in the Lower East Side of New York. She is convinced that she will become a big star one day, as is her mother, but Rose’s card-playing friends are not so sure – Fanny is funny and talented, but not conventionally beautiful. She nevertheless attends auditions – and she catches the eye of those who can spot her potential as a performer. She makes people laugh and she can certainly belt out a song. Eventually Mr Ziegfeld himself (a great performance from Walter Pidgeon) notices her and puts her in his show. Brice quickly brings her own ideas to the production, she insists on choosing her own songs, which doesn’t always go down well with Ziegfeld. But he is an astute businessman and knows when he is on to a good thing.
Streisand, who deservedly won an Academy Award for her performance, captures Brice’s big personality, absolute self-belief and prodigious comic talent. Much of Brice’s humour was self-deprecating and Streisand plays that sensitively, communicating the vulnerability beneath Brice’s tough exterior.
Omar Sharif is a suave, sophisticated counterpoint as charming professional gambler Nick Arnstein, an admirer of Brice’s work, who was to become her, not terribly reliable, husband (her second in real life, although the film’s narrative erases the first). The scenes between them are lovely – and they have a great chemistry. The brilliant songs are by Jules Styne and Bob Merrill. It is the perfect film to cheer up a grey January day.