Official Synopsis
One of the most popular movie musicals ever made is now better than ever on Blu-ray™! FUNNY GIRL follows the early career of stage comedienne Fanny Brice, a role that earned Barbra Streisand the 1968 Oscar® for Best Actress. Only her mother believes Fanny can make it in show business, but when she gets her first break at Keeney’s Music Hall, her hilarious debut gets her hired as a comedienne. Fanny becomes a star, falls in love and marries Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif), a handsome gambler. The film’s many memorable songs include “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and the Streisand classic “People.”
Streisand really owns the screen in Funny Girl. Playing a girl who doesn’t have enough self-confidence to see her own beauty was a real interesting choice for a very young Barbra Streisand, though she knew the material from her broadway performances. This was her first big film, and one that played off of her own strange beauty (I mean that respectfully, as she is constantly surrounded by knock-outs in the movie). It seemed brave at the time that she would take this role as the odd-looking-goofball that didn’t have the beauty of a swan, but sang like a spring song bird.
Because of her experience with the broadway version of the story, Streisand knew how to work it onscreen, and worked it she did. Her dialogue sounds so natural when she’s talking to people. You can see how much she knew Brice and how comfortable she was with the role. For example, when she’s trying to get her first gig (prior to Ziegfeld) and she’s trying to convince the owner of the stage/place to hire her, the dialogue just flows so darn naturally, as if Streisand herself was trying to convince some studio to give her a chance. You literally will forget that’s Barbra Streisand on the screen, which is always a good thing for a film.
Streisand’s own personality and onscreen presence really shows how much she loved the role of Fanny Brice, and how much she believed in the character/real person created for the film. While many stories of Streisand’s difficult personality for making movies (especially this one) have risen up over the years, you simply cannot argue with the results. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for Funny Girl, and deservedly so.
As for the choice of the leading man in this film, there’s some strong chemistry going on when Omar Sharif’s Nick Arnstein is with Fanny. Sharif played a perfectly suave gentleman, and it didn’t hurt that he was a gorgeous young man back in his day. His up and down relationship with Streisand’s Fanny seems genuine throughout the film, and especially when it starts collapsing towards the end of the movie. He develops himself well as a free-floating entity that doesn’t want to be pinned down by a girl (or anyone/anything for that matter). I’m not sure anyone else would have sufficed and taken the role so diligently other than Omar Sharif. Regardless, he and Streisand were a perfect onscreen fit.
Admittedly, I hadn’t seen Funny Girl prior to this 45th anniversary release. I can now add it as one of my favorite movie musicals. It’s an excellent film.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, it was quite good. You can certainly see when the natural shifts to studio lighting, mainly because the film quality gets a bit grainy, but when the movie shifts to the outside — wow! One scene in particular that really stood out in my mind is when Fanny arrives at the train station in Baltimore. The quality of this scene is absolutely stunning. You get little details from the trains, the fabrics of the dresses worn by the Ziegfeld girls really stands out. You can noticeably tell how good the transfer was treated through this very scene. Again, absolutely stunning. The inside scenes aren’t that bad, but they have moments where they’re riddled with graininess. The colorful tone of the film does play well with the HD transfer, though, especially during the marriage opening act for Fanny.
As for the audio, you get it in 5.0 (What?! No bass?! — kidding) DTS-HD and the film comes to you with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Finally, as for the features, here’s what you’re getting:
– Barbra in Movieland
– This is Streisand
Not bad features for a 45-year-old film, though not a ton. Lots of good information and what not. I would have loved to hear some commentary, though. Streisand should make some time to prepare for that on the 50th edition.