ReneaVeneriStewart Barbara Streisand makes this movie! She is elegant, romantic, and often funny . The movie highlights the ups and downs in the romance of Fanny Brice and Nick Arnstein. Further it includes some mature thematic material, such as dishonesty and marital trials. The romance includes Nick's smooth seduction of the innocent and naive Fanny Brice and hints of his promiscuity. I absolutely love how the producers told the story of the most important and influential producer in the history of the Broadway musical Florenz Ziegfeld.

Hitchcoc Of course, this is contrived Fanny Brice. If one looks back on her rise to fame, it is quite different than that portrayed here. No question, however, that she was the top female performer of her era and that her rise had bumps and bruises. Enter Barbra Streisand to play this role. She of the big voice and personality. She, of course, is not classically beautiful, but one puts that all aside when one hears her or sees her. This is the perfect casting. What carries this along are the songs and the production numbers. "Don't Rain on My Parade" is one of the most perfect expressions of a song ever to appear in the movie. The more subtle songs that progress the plot and the love story make it a lot of fun. A really fun musical with a sensational talent.

Blake Peterson "Show me an actress who isn't a personality and you'll show me a woman who isn't a star," declared Katharine Hepburn when asked about her smashing screen persona. Humble, no. Correct, yes. Take any legendary performer — Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe — and you will not only find a terrific actor but also a presence that could interrupt the breathing patterns of an entire room just by walking through a door. And if you don't inspire that same breathless room to immediately bow down in a we're-not-worthy Wayne's World dramatization, then you probably aren't a star.Fortunately for us, fortunately for Funny Girl, but unfortunately for the self-proclaimed icon herself, Katharine Hepburn, Barbra Streisand just so happens to be a star — a star that, incidentally, matched Hepburn's explosive performance in The Lion in Winter so well that the two ended up tying for the Oscar win. Now that Funny Girl and The Lion in Winter are nearly a half-century old, it's probably safe to say that Hepburn and Streisand are unofficial gods of the entertainment industry; but Funny Girl is the more important film, introducing the world to a new voice, a new actress, and yes, a new personality.In the years since Funny Girl, Streisand hasn't lost her bewitching zeal, but only a few of her following films have captured the same sort of youthful gusto of her debut. The early days of Babs, with roles in What's Up, Doc? and The Owl and the Pussycat, bring lasting joy. Like many actresses that appeal to the Broadway inclined crowd, she is more fun to watch in quickly-paced adventures in comedy than sappy behemoths like The Mirror Has Two Faces. Funny Girl is a snapshot of everything we've come to admire about Streisand — that immediate likability, that one-million- miles-an-hour comedic timing, those dramatic chops, and that voice. You can bet that the film itself is given the standard Hollywood musical treatment — but what isn't standard is the girl from New Yawk with charisma the size of Alaska and Texas put together.Funny Girl is technically a true story: its leading character, Fanny Brice was, in fact, a famed Ziegfeld girl, and she was, in fact, married to Nicky Arnstein. But Streisand is such a ball-of-fire that we aren't paying much attention to Brice's accomplished (and melodramatic) life. Streisand demolishes every confine a characterization can bring. She's not so much playing Fanny Brice as she much as she is Fanny Brice. She doesn't act out a scene; she is the scene.I suppose for the sake of a plot summary I should cover the basics so you know what you're getting into. The film travels across the life of Brice from the early 1900s to the beginnings of the 1920s, detailing her whirlwind (and lasting) relationship with show business and stormy marriage to gambler Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif). There's comedy and music and tear-jerking and romance and overtures and more hoohas that come along with the big-budgeted movie musical genre; Funny Girl has all the makings to become an epic production of the Sound of Music class. But Streisand keeps the film from getting whisked away into unremarkable giganticness. The film is about her, not its supporting characters, photography, or set design. Roger Ebert noted that everything other than Streisand is mostly flat. While this is partially true, I think, on the other hand, that if Streisand wasn't the star, suddenly the supporting characters, photography, and set design would seem bigger-than-life, extraordinary even. But she's like a blinding light from outer space running around a soundstage; you can only wonder why the items surrounding her don't spontaneously combust.I'm not a part of the devoted fan base that refers to Streisand exclusively as "Babs" and lists "Evergreen" as their theme song, but I am a part of the fan base that recognizes her as one of cinema's most unique and versatile actresses. Funny Girl is a loud and proud musical, and Streisand is the microphone. Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com

Syl Okay I don't know much about Fanny Brice's life. This movie is quite a tribute to the Funny Lady that had a funny face. In this film, Barbra Streisand earned her Academy Award for playing Fanny Brice from aspiring singer to comedienne and singer on stage. Fanny's brash talent for singing and comedy go hand in hand at a local stage hall before she makes it big with the Ziegfield Follies. The numbers are big splashy musical numbers with lots of dancing, costumes, and scenery. This film has a first rate cast with Omar Sharif playing Fanny's love interest, Nick Arnstein; Walter Pidgeon as Florenz Ziegfield; Lee Allen as her friend, Eddie Ryan; and others to mention. This film has great sets, costumes, and art direction but I felt it was missing something and that was the script. The script was weak without the singing and it could have been better. Anyway, it's a great classic film.