The movie version of the Bob Merrill/ Jule Styne musical FUNNY GIRL is notable for only one reason : Barbra Streisand. For anyone fortunate enough to have seen the young singing actress in her signature role as comedienne Fanny Brice, the experience must have been electric. The nearest experience to that event is listening to the original cast album on Capitol/ Broadway Angel which conveys the immediacy of a live stage performance and the power of Streisand's characterization .The film is definitely a horse of a different color. The entire production is geared to showcasing Streisand ( no big surprise there! ) but she seems to be wandering through the movie as if she were starring in one of her early television specials - all supporting performances in the film are just that ; every one else's role seems to have been truncated to give more screen time to the star . William Wyler, one of Hollywood''s greatest directors, leaves no personal stamp on this picture, very odd indeed as he directed such classics as WUTHERING HEIGHTS and BEN HUR. The marvelous music score is pretty much intact, but two of the stage production's greatest songs are missing, THE MUSIC THAT MAKES ME DANCE and the haunting WHO ARE YOU NOW, supplanted by the pedestrian title song (ironically nominated for an Oscar!) and the standard that dramatically closes the movie, MY MAN . As with Rex Harrison's performance in the film of MY FAIR LADY, FUNNY GIRL preserves Streisand's performance for the ages, which makes this film a notable one but not a classic on the order of A STAR IS BORN.
Review of Funny Girl
