Diabolique (Les Diaboliques)

DIABOLIQUE (Les Diaboliques)         B+ 
France  (116 mi)  1955  d:  Henri-Georges Clouzot 

You can lead a corpse to water but you can’t make it sink.   —Newsweek magazine review 

Made immediately following Clouzot’s  The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1953), both are suspenseful dramas that take a long time getting started, paying plenty of attention setting the scene, introducing the characters, and establishing the various conflicts between the characters.  Actually this film is a throwback to earlier eras, where the stylistic use of shadows and darkness prevent the audience from seeing too much during suspenseful moments, where it’s often unclear what’s happening onscreen until it’s finally sprung upon you at the last moment.  Reminiscent of Val Lewton productions and Jacques Tourneur’s CAT PEOPLE (1942), where the thrill of the picture is the director’s ability to maximize the power of suggestion through shadows and offscreen sound, also the swooning female leads of Cukor’s GASLIGHT (1944), Hitchcock’s own Suspicion (1941), or Polanski’s Rosemary's Baby (1968), where the director delights in tormenting his lead character, often indistinguishable whether it’s real or imagined.  Adapting a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the writing team used by Hitchcock in Vertigo (1958), where Clouzot barely beat Hitchcock in obtaining the rights for this film, supposedly by only a matter of hours, something that apparently irritated Hitchcock, where Psycho (1960) was his jealous attempt to outdo Clouzot, a contemporary of Hitchcock, actually known as the French Hitchcock, whose work was a rival to the Master of Suspense.  DIABOLIQUE with its terrifyingly strange plot twists was a huge box office success, where both utilize famous bathroom scenes.  Both directors were known for their meticulous preparation before shooting, where they knew how it was going to look, storyboarding all their scenes, where the film was largely finished before they ever stepped onto the set.  Hitchcock was so confident of what he already captured on film that watching the daily shoots never interested him.  Clouzot had a different approach to actors, as his wife Véra Clouzot was often his lead, but the intensity and borderline obsession with perfection in filmmaking is something they both share.  Hitchcock relishes wit and humor in his sophisticated thrillers, while Clouzot’s movies are decidedly more bleak and downbeat, but both share a love for the dark and macabre, where ordinary people can be compelled by circumstances to commit despicable acts.       

Set in a small, rundown, private boy’s school owned by Christina (Véra Clouzot), her husband and school headmaster Michel (Paul Meurisse) is abusive and bullying, the kind of mean-spirited and dominating villain that deserves his comeuppance, where Christina is often seen cowering in fear, where one of the other teachers, Nicole, Simone Signoret providing the real backbone, is often seen coming to her side.  Certainly in the tradition of Suspicion, Christina has one of the weakest constitutions of any lead character in the movies, where it’s suggested she’s a former Catholic nun, continually sick and bedridden, complaining of a weak heart, but anyone with a relentlessly vile husband like Michel would have one hell of a migraine headache to deal with all the time.  Apparently, through gossip heard by people working on the grounds, Nicole is also Michel’s mistress, opening the film sporting a black eye. Their affair seems to have gone cold, however, as the two women are often seen commiserating with one another, wondering what they can do about Michel.  While the origin remains a mystery, by the time the audience finds out about it the two have already hatched a plan to do away with the poor bastard, drugging him before drowning him in a bathtub.  Despite Christina’s continual second thoughts, forever beleaguered by every possible outcome gone wrong, perhaps just wishing Nicole would go ahead and get it over with.  But Nicole’s no fool, as she’s much more steady and level-headed than the ever flighty Christina.  The two go back and forth, like arguing teenagers, but finally decide they have to do it over the school’s brief holiday.  No one deserves it more, from the audience’s point of view, where the spectators become willing accomplices to the final grisly act, where it’s not so easy to lug around a dead body and then try to get rid of the evidence, as they do by dumping him in the school’s murky swimming pool which is already a cesspool of filth.  All they can do is return to normal and let someone else discover the missing body, but of course nothing is that easy, as they eventually concoct a plan to have the pool drained but the body is mysteriously missing.  

The two women have held it all together so far, but soon become unraveled by the inexplicable turn of events, driven to near madness by the ever changing circumstances that suggest it’s possible he’s not dead.  One of the kids reports he’s seen him, and is punished dearly for this outburst, as once Michel’s been reported missing, there’s been no other sign of him.  But strange clues start popping up that suggest he may be vowing revenge, but every one turns out empty, especially a missing body dropped in the Seine that matches his description.  Christina’s interest in the dead body attracts the interest of a retired police inspector, Charles Vanel, a pestering, old-fashioned character who always seems to be snooping around, likeable and charming, overly polite and sweetly sympathetic, where his tireless pursuit of following every clue is the likely origin of Peter Falk’s Lieutenant Columbo character, one of the more popular police detectives in American television (1971 – 2003).  The two women are literally driven up a wall, where they unravel before each other as they simply can’t bear the suspense, feeling guilty about what they’ve done, driven to near confession, where each will implicate the other.  Clouzot has a tendency to string along the characters for as long as possible, slowly enveloping them in a web of lies and deceit, where especially with Christina, she always seems on the edge of a mental breakdown, where the shadows surrounding her grow larger, consumed by her ever building guilt and paranoia.  Clouzot goes to great lengths to surround her with less and less light, until eventually she’s literally fumbling around in the darkness, unable to distinguish between what’s real or imagined, growing dizzy from the ideas swimming around in her head.  Simultaneously, Clouzot elevates the irritating use of sound, where creaky doors open, water is dripping, and the sounds of footsteps can be heard, all adding to a growing sense of panic in the air that creates a sense of hysteria.  From the outset, that foul stagnant water in the pool is a symbol of lingering trouble, the kind that can’t be washed away, where long afterwards it will be hard to shake the effects of this movie, where like Hitchcock, Clouzot delights in terrorizing the audience.

The Artist

THE ARTIST               B+                  

France  Belgium  (100 mi)  2011  d:  Michel Hazanavicius         Official site [ca]

Despite the unapologetically nostalgic tone of a silent era film that accentuates Hollywood cinema in its golden age, along with its dashingly handsome and debonair stars, like swaggering silent star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), this film, along with Scorsese’s holiday release HUGO (2011), both eloquently pay tribute to a magical era of early cinema.  Set in the late 20’s and early 30’s, coinciding with the SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) shift from silent to talking pictures, the camera initially adores matinee idol Valentin with cameras and news items following his every move, living in a posh Hollywood mansion with a wealthy socialite wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) who’s too bored with show business that she spends her idle time marking up movie posters with graffiti-like mustaches and goatees, her caustic comment on the whole world of entertainment, rarely uttering a word to her husband.  This dysfunctional portrait of marriage is a satiric comment on Myrna Loy and William Powell’s supposed marital bliss in THE THIN MAN (1934), right down to a theatrical scene-stealing pet dog Uggie, who is a stand-in for Asta and all but steals the picture.  Valentin’s breakfast table scene mimicking the dog’s every move is a classic silent era comedy routine, but his wife couldn’t be bothered to even notice.  Valentin never lacks for a smile, exuding confidence and generosity from the outset, beautifully expressed in a spontaneous moment at a publicity appearance where he is accidentally bumped by a woman who drops her purse while standing in a cordoned off crowd of fans and well-wishers, where at first he expresses rude indignation at the insult, unwanted physical contact, but when he sees what a lovely and charming woman it is (Argentinean actress living in France, Bérénice Bejo, who happens to be the director's spouse), he immediately turns into the gallant gentleman, where their pictures are all over the Hollywood tabloids the next day. 

From this simple coincidence, A STAR IS BORN (1937, 1954, 1976), so to speak, as the lovely lady is Peppy Miller who suddenly lands a job working with Valentin on a picture as a chorus line dancer, nearly thrown off the set by movie mogul John Goodman, the cigar chomping movie producer who blames her for the little stunt which took the actual movie being promoted off the front page, but he relents when Valentin insists she belongs in the picture.  While the two obviously have chemistry, their careers are on different paths, as talkies are the new thing, introducing ambitious young talent like Ms. Miller, while Valentin’s career is all but over, though he refuses to believe he can’t draw an adoring public.  When the stock market crashes and the Depression hits, people show little interest in the way things used to be, despite Valentin’s insistence that he’s an “artist,” not some puppet on a string.  With his marriage on the rocks, his career in ruins, his fortune lost, he becomes a sad and destitute man, still unable to comprehend the chaotic madness of noise associated with talking pictures.  His much more organized silent life seems enchantingly simple, where all he has to do is perform before adoring fans to win their hearts, where he’s a natural born charmer.  Making matters more interesting, the film is actually silent in Valentin’s world, where sound is slowly and cleverly introduced, which others accept, where they eventually live in a world of sound, but Valentin and Uggie remain steadfastly silent.  The film effortlessly walks a fine line between the two worlds, where the unrecognized and distant love between the two stars remains confined to silence. 

The real magic of this film is an old-fashioned romance set against a backdrop of a continual stream of homages to different film eras, where Valentin begins as a 1920’s swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks hero, where his Chaplinesque comic routines or enthralling Fred Astaire dance numbers are utterly captivating, but when his luck fades, he’s a down on his luck fading movie star lost in the decaying psychological cobwebs of SUNSET BLVD. (1950), filtered through the alcoholic doldrums of meaningless despair from THE LOST WEEKEND (1945).  What’s truly remarkable is actor Jean Dujardin’s range of ability in wordlessly conveying each of these tumultuous emotional turns so effortlessly, where his eminent demeanor never slips out of character.  Despite the predictable narrative arc of falling from grace to living a life in shambles, he carries himself with an immensely appealing dignity throughout, where the scenes with Bérénice Bejo simply sparkle and couldn’t be more scintillating, becoming heartbreakingly tender at times, bringing needed poignancy to their relationship.  Labelled crowd pleasing and lighthearted entertainment by critics, that would be misleading, as this is scrupulously well put together, painting a particularly tragic note to fame, which like youth, is fleeting.  The director combines a rare combination of cleverness and craft, where the extraordinary personalities of the superb talent onscreen win out in the end.  While the relatively unknown director is French, one can’t help but think of fellow countryman Jacques Tati, whose enduring silent comedy was set entirely during the unpredictable modern landscape of the present.  Something of a living, iconic anachronism, he spent everything he earned back into his own unfailingly unique cinematic art, crushed by the lack of success at the box office, probably thinking he was something of a failure at the end of his life, while today he is revered as a rare comic genius.  One might have wished for a special tribute paid to Tati, instead there's a curious debt of thanks to Argentinean soccer superstar Diego Maradona. 

A Star Is Born (1954)

George Cukor on the set with Judy Garland in A Star Is Born, 1954

A STAR IS BORN                  A                    

USA  restored version (176 mi)  1954  ‘Scope  d:  George Cukor            

Premiere version (181 mi), initial released version (154 mi)

A STAR IS BORN is Judy Garland’s triumphant comeback after her exile from Hollywood when her MGM contract was terminated in 1950 on the grounds of being unreliable on the set.   Her storied career by this time was well known, a child star who as a teenager was given amphetamines and barbiturates by the studio heads in order to keep her working without interruption so they could keep churning out the pictures and the profits.  In the middle to late 40’s, though still making pictures, suffering from failed marriages and drug and alcohol abuse, she began developing troublesome behavior on the set, moody, unapproachable, depressed, even failing to even appear on many mornings.  Watched closely by many studio heads upon her return, she delivers a gangbusters performance, arguably the greatest one woman show in the history of movies, where despite her unparalleled singing which is given the full treatment here, her voice deeper, richer, and more mature, she is equally stunning onscreen for nearly three hours exposing a deeper side to her character, turning in one of the greatest acting performances ever seen.  True to form, in 1954 the Academy Awards overlooked her performance in the best actress category, instead awarding Grace Kelly the Oscar in the now all but forgotten film THE COUNTRY GIRL.  This film, however, is a remarkable time capsule, a well directed, utterly poignant testament to her phenomenal gifts, given a story with so many parallels to her own life, it captures Garland at the peak of her powers better than any other work, where she is able to maintain her dramatic intensity throughout the duration, which is simply a phenomenal effort, one for the ages, perhaps because she was under such close scrutiny not to have an emotional meltdown.  Recently upgraded to Blu-Ray, improving the sound and the superbly brilliant color, the film was originally released at 181 minutes, but the studio heads immediately thought it was too long, so it was cut to 154 minutes during its theatrical release, where it remained until 1983 when film historian Ronald Harver restored some but not all of the missing footage, including lost musical numbers that existed only in the hands of private collectors, and additional soundtrack material, using still shots while additional dialogue is heard in the background, so that the film now runs 176 minutes.      

Much like Michael Powell’s film THE RED SHOES (1948) features a dazzling, uninterrupted 17-minute ballet fantasia in the middle of the film, a spectacular dance called The Ballet of the Red Shoes which features surrealistic and supremely colorful backdrops, creating a truly transcendent film moment, this film has a similar cinematic moment, as the 20-minute “I’m Born in a Trunk” sequence which takes the film to intermission is simply breathtaking, brilliantly edited where Garland’s initial song turns into flashbacks of new songs, new set pieces, all revealing the autobiographical story of her long and arduous career before she was ever recognized in show business.  Garland’s voice is heard throughout the sequence belting out one tune after another, including “Swanee,”  “I'll Get By,” “You Took Advantage of Me,” “Black Bottom,” “The Peanut Vendor (El Manicero),” and “Melancholy Baby,” constantly changing her appearance and her costumes along with new rhythm and tempos, much of it very jazz-like, as it feels extremely stream-of-conscious when she finds herself in everchanging set pieces.  It’s a supreme expression of her talent where the art production behind her actually matches the excellence of her performance, an unbelievable moment in film musicals, where some feel it’s the greatest musical number ever filmed.  Of interest, many film historians don’t even think it’s the best musical sequence in the film.  The most famous is Cukor’s one-take shot of Garland singing “The Man That Got Away” HD 1080p "The Man That Got Away" Judy Garland - A Star Is ... YouTube (4:38) in an intimate, after hours setting that smolders with searing emotional poignancy.  It’s a scene that only Garland could deliver so perfectly, as again the theme has such personal relevance.  That’s what stands out in this film, as these lyrics become her life story.  Every word she sings, she’s lived.  After you see this film, you will be unable to get her out of your thoughts.        

Garland plays Esther Blodgett, a singer like many others that performs as a warm up act for greater stars.  She has the distinguished misfortune of trying to save a famous Hollywood legend, James Mason as Norman Maine, from making a fool of himself as he wanders drunk onstage in the middle of a live performance, where she amusingly makes him part of the act, including cleverly getting him off the stage.  Later tracking her down to the after hours joint where he hears her sing “The Man That Got Away,” he’s completely confident that she has what it takes to be a star.  So after introducing her to a few important people, namely his movie producer Oliver Niles (the great Charles Bickford), officially changing her show business name to Vicki Lester, she does indeed become that star, which she proves in the “I’m Born in a Trunk” sequence, after which she’s a bonafide movie star.  But as fate would have it, her star power is rising as Maine’s is declining even more rapidly, continually making a drunk spectacle of himself, ruining those once-on-a-lifetime moments in her life.  Despite his obvious faults, and that he’s a good generation older than she is, she loves him anyway, thinking her love will make him whole, as she’s forever grateful that he opened the doors for her.  One of their happiest moments together is when she comes home from work and delivers an impromptu song and dance routine on the material she’s been working on all day, “Somewhere There's a Someone,” a raucous satire on MGM musicals, but also her intimate rendition of “It’s a New World” that she quietly sings on their honeymoon, another tour-de-force moment, as the song has a poignant reprise late in the film. 

Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm, and one of the initial scenes that was cut was an early number from “I’m Born in a Trunk” that she sang as a kid with her father onstage, “When My Sugar Walks Down the Street,” a song Garland actually sang as a member of the Gumm Sisters.  Lost forever are scenes of Garland and Mason planning their life together, including the building of their dream house, and a montage of leading role scenes from Norman Maine’s movie career.  One of the previously lost sequences that was wonderfully rediscovered was the wedding proposal which was amusingly caught by microphones during the playback of her song “Here's What I'm Here For,” another is “Lose That Long Face,” a bewilderingly jubilant and effervescent number that she sings and dances as a gamin before and after a heart-rendering sequence about the deteriorating state of her marriage where she breaks down in a dressing room before a masterful segue throws her back in front of a camera, songs that certainly add depth to their developing relationship.  At the premiere of Harver’s film restoration which took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 1983, the audience started applauding when the lost numbers appeared.  Similarly, when I saw this film at the Music Box Theater in Chicago, the audience erupted in applause as soon as Garland’s name appeared in the opening credits, and then again at her first appearance onscreen.    

Despite the length, the pacing of the film never slows, no doubt due to Garland’s appearance and voice which are constants throughout this film.  But mostly what stands out is the genuine effort and dramatic intensity she puts into every scene.  There are very few secondary characters, where Bickford plays a gruff but fatherly producer and Jack Carson plays his typically cynical and personally sneering Hollywood publicity agent.  Tommy Noonan plays Garland’s piano playing lifelong friend, a guy that tells it to her straight.  Other than that, the entire picture belongs to Garland and Mason, whose solid presence driving his Packard convertible likely added a certain stability to Garland’s performance, as in the end, her character’s devoted stand-by-your-man love for him remains her reason for being.  Their beach house on the cliff overlooking the ocean filled with artworks is an architectural masterpiece with one stunning view actually shot in Laguna Beach.  The film is loaded with local Los Angeles landmarks, from film openings at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, award ceremonies and several live performances at The Shrine Auditorium, to shots of the Coconut Grove Night Club, the Santa Anita Park racetrack, even the Beverly Hills Church of the Good Shepherd, as well as various Warner Brother’s backlots.  But certainly this is a timeless film that has been beautifully enhanced by Blu-Ray, as the color saturation on CinemaScope has never been more subtle and boldly luminous, very much appreciated in a musical-sequence-driven film like this, where powerful performances are mixed with small moments of personal intimacy, the kind that come alive in the lyrics of a song.  Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled nerves and personal problems throughout her entire career, which spanned nearly half a century.  Told at a young age by studio execs that she was unattractive, given amphetamines as prescription weight loss medication while still a teen, this deteriorated her self esteem and left her battling with drug and alcohol addiction nearly her entire life.  Garland died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47.  She ranks as one of the greatest stars to ever come out of Hollywood, where her voice alone and song interpretive ability make her singularly unique, but her performances never diminish over time, as despite the sterile artificiality of performing before a movie camera, her intense screen vulnerability makes her a genuine star, as gifted a performer as we’ll ever see, one who has always struck a nerve with the audience.   

Sleep, My Love

SLEEP, MY LOVE             B-                       

USA  (97 mi)  1948  d:  Douglas Sirk

An early and extremely convoluted Douglas Sirk film, where the director seems more driven to implement a stylistic flourish than to create a satisfactory drama onscreen.  Poor Claudette Colbert really suffers here, as her performance is rather amateurish, revealing the traits of a pampered and overindulged society woman who can’t hold her liquor, who’s more interested in being the life of the party than having a serious thought in her head.  That said, her oily sneak of a husband (Don Ameche) is attempting to plan her demise through nefarious means while stealing away with another woman, Hazel Brooks, who hasn’t a brain in her head, whose sole purpose onscreen is to be sultry and provocative, a vampish siren who would make you want to leave your wife, except that despite her scantily clad wardrobe, this woman is a dullard who couldn’t hold anyone’s interest.  She’s like a bad character in the wrong film.  The story itself is much more complicated than it needs to be, attempting to become a mysterious web of deceit, but despite this labyrinth of wrong turns and missed opportunities, there isn’t an ounce of tension or building suspense.  None of the characters are involving, so there’s little interest in whatever the outcome may be, nothing satisfactory, so it’s largely just going through the motions, adding as many signature trademarks in the composition as he can. 

Technically, this film heralds much more interest and has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archives, where most of the film takes place in a single location, an outrageously upscale New York City apartment with a winding staircase up multiple floors and a magnificent terrace view of the Brooklyn Bridge.  While the marriage is held together by artificial manners and social grace (separate bedrooms, of course), all a smokescreen to cover up his lustful desires, the film instead follows the nearly always embarrassing behavior of Colbert who finds herself mysteriously on a train without remembering how she got on, causing a great deal of panic, as if she’d been kidnapped by an international espionage ring.  But no, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s just a simple mistake, quite common the film would have us believe, as she has a tendency to sleepwalk, often awaking in awkward situations.  Her husband calms her down with a sedative, finds her a psychiatrist, and has her believing she suffers from nightmares and hallucinations, seeing things that aren’t there, where she’s literally losing her mind.  Colbert’s glamorous outfits, by the way, are off the charts and ultra chic in black and white, and also she has her own indoor greenhouse where she hides herself, which she calls her jungle. But it’s her drunken enthusiasm and slurring speech that keeps her from being taken seriously, as she always appears tilted off center, incapable of rescuing herself, making this another damsel in distress movie.     

Enter TV’s Love That Bob (1955 – 59), Robert Cummings, another smooth talking, out of town friend who has desires of sweeping her off her feet until he discovers she’s already married, but makes sure she returns safely home before realizing afterwards that the husband’s explanation was suspect.  Everything becomes a puzzle that involves an entrenched police detective (Raymond Burr), a murderous husband (Ameche), an unsuspecting wife (Colbert), a femme fatale (Brooks), a blackmailing photographer who disguises himself as a psychiatrist (George Coulouris), the overly inquisitive friend (Cummings), and a couple of unsuspecting household servants who add luster to the lifestyle of a playboy millionaire who’s living off his wife’s fortune.  There’s a ridiculous side show of a Chinese marriage, where Keye Luke, later Master Po from the Kung Fu TV series (1972 – 75), and his newlywed bride break off from their honeymoon and take a sudden interest in detective work by enthusiastically helping Cummings solve the crime.  Joseph Valentine adds some murky, highly expressionist cinematography, blending together doorways, mirrors, windows, and a dizzying staircase, featuring a fabulous set design by Howard Bristol, while Sirk attempts to create a psychologically shifting motif of wanton desire and nightmarish panic, where the ever so smooth Ameche continues to push the buttons that will drive her feverishly over the edge, a variation on a similar theme in GASLIGHT (1944), but the characters here are out of their league when it comes to masterminding a world of deception.  In someone else’s hands this is ordinary stuff, but under the direction of Sirk it’s a fascinating early work, almost cultish, where the images are a lurid style of eye candy that literally pop off the screen.       

Funny Girl

FUNNY GIRL                                                 B+                  

USA  (155 mi)  1968  ‘Scope  d:  William Wyler

I'm the greatest star there is by far, but no one knows it.                 

—Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand)

It has been commonly said that the musical 'Funny Girl' was a comfort to people because it carried the message that you do not need to be pretty to succeed. That is nonsense; the 'message' of Barbra Streisand in 'Funny Girl' is that talent is beauty.          

—Pauline Kael

One of the few films that opens with a six minute orchestral interlude and plays with an intermission, where the film up to that point is marvelous, falling flat afterwards in a story that resembles Judy Garland’s career ascent and James Mason’s descent in A STAR IS BORN (1954).  Like that film, an old veteran director, William Wyler (in his only musical), a guy who directed 35 Academy Award winning performances, was brought in to replace Sidney Lumet who had artistic differences, as George Cukor was Garland’s choice, as he was known at the time as an actress’s director.  Cukor was much more successful, but what each film has in common is the explosive performances of the stars, as in this film Barbra Streisand, who also appeared in the Broadway role in 1964, put her name up in lights and proved beyond a doubt that everyone else in the production was secondary, as she was a full blown star, while Garland rose to heights never before reached since THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), and pulls off perhaps the greatest performance ever in a musical production.  Streisand’s career took a similar descent afterwards, but not due to any lack of talent or a deterioration of her performances, but due to her “diva” temperament where her public persona took a nosedive, known for telling everyone exactly what she wanted them to do, where she insisted that things be so perfect all the time until no one wanted to work with her anymore, developing a reputation as a control freak, this despite winning two Academy Awards, one for Best Actress in this film, another for composing the Best Original Song, “Evergreen” from the 1976 remake of A STAR IS BORN, also eight Grammy awards, four Emmy awards, a special Tony award, an American Film Institute award and a Peabody Award, while also recording over thirty Top Ten best selling albums with nearly a fifty year span in between, and is the only artist to release number one albums in each of five consecutive decades.  But due to her partisan activism in the Democratic Party, Streisand made President Nixon’s infamous Enemies List in 1971, just 3 years after the release of this film.  

The story revolves around Fanny Brice (Streisand), a turn of the century vaudeville star whose talent could easily have made her one of the first Talkies’ female stars, but her looks didn’t conform to the Hollywood standards of beauty, which is a theme that opens this film, as Brice has been raised with realistically lowered expectations of her own self image and has profound issues over her lack of what she feels are society’s standards of beauty, claiming “I'm a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls!”  Even in her initial performance as a Ziegfeld Follies girl, her self-deprecating sarcasm, altering the script (without permission), appearing pregnant on a stage filled with Busby Berkeley style beauties, won the endearing affection of the audience, and five curtain calls.   Her never take no for an answer and nothing-can-stop-me determination is what won the hearts of theater companies, where she’s seen singing “I’m the Greatest Star” to an empty theater which immediately wins her a job performing an ensemble singing act on rolling skates, a hilarious skit that veers out of control since she doesn’t know how to skate, an outlandish performance that Bette Midler would immediately replicate on stage with mermaids and wheelchairs.  Her brash wit and non-conformist style are a revelation in a business that is used to tried and true routines.  But what really bowls them over is her voice, as she’s sensational, actually acting out the songs she’s singing, adding humorous asides as if she’s speaking to an invisible character in the song.  In my lifetime, only Judy Garland and her daughter Liza Minnelli, think Bob Fosse’s CABARET (1972) and Martin Scorsese’s NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977), come close to providing the same personal magnetism and electrifying voice on stage. 

Fanny’s onstage performance earns her a backstage admirer, Omar Sharif (an Egyptian born actor who was vilified in both the Arabic and American press for sharing his role with a Jew, including a screen kiss, shot during the deflating impact of the 1967 Six Day War) as gambler and high roller Nick Arnstein, a gorgeously handsome guy in a perfectly pressed suit who lives each day as if it was his last, where his charming and impeccable style is impossible for Fanny to resist.  Nonetheless, as his business calls him to places around the world, nothing serious develops except an initial infatuation, where she sings “People” to Nick with tears of joy in the alley behind her mother’s house on Henry Street in the Jewish slums of New York’s Lower East Side.  Meanwhile, she becomes a blossoming star whose magnificent voice and unprecedented comic timing make whatever production she appears in a smash hit.  But when they meet again, set in a luminous brightly colored red dining room, which includes a bed, Fanny is swept off her feet to the duet “You Are Woman, I Am Man,” which leads to their marriage and firstborn in a montage that stretches no more than 30 seconds.  And when people question Nick’s character, she blows the lid off their objections by belting out “Don’t Rain On My Parade.”  But as her career ascends, Nick has money troubles and he’s too proud to live off her accumulated wealth, ending in a disastrous embezzlement charge where he’d rather plead guilty than create negative publicity that might derail her career.  Streisand is magnificent in this film, as is much of the restored art direction where the eye-popping colors jump off the screen.  Her modernized, bringing the curtain down rendition of “My Man” My man - Barbra Streisand - YouTube (2:38), the only song in the production to be shot on film live, is reminiscent of Garland’s off the charts power and stage showmanship, star qualities that we haven’t seen in nearly half a century since the release of this film.