Product: Funny Girl [VHS] (1968)
Rating: 5.0
The ultimate screen debut...
Hello, gorgeous. Funny Girl is the ultimate Streisand film. Barbra's Oscar winning film debut as the Ziegfeld star Fannie Brice has never been in better form. After a frame-by-frame image restoration and digitally remastered audio, this popular musical packs all the glitter of its 1968 premiere.Ray Stark, son-in-law to the legendary Brice, first began working on a screen biography of his famous mother-in-law in 1948, but Brice herself rejected several scripts. Nearly a decade later, he commissioned a new screenplay from Isobel Lennart. When studios didn't bite, Lennart adapted her script for Broadway, with Jule Styne and Bob Merrill getting the nod to write the songs. Stark tapped a young Barbra Streisand, already a Broadway sensation in "I can get it for you wholesale" to play the Brice. The rest is entertainment history.This DVD presentation is spectacular in quality, but its "Special Features" pale in comparison to those of "The Way We Were." The documentaries "Barbra in Movieland" and "This is Streisand" are almost camp in their approach and scope, and I long for a present-day interview (better yet, audio commentary) with la Streisand that would have put the making of this film in better context. I'm hoping her future films, especially her directorial efforts, include a director commentary and background footage. (Barbra, can you hear me?)That said, Funny Girl is still the centerpiece any Streisand fan's collection. A must have.