Funny Girl (1968) – 4*

Dir: William Wyler/ Writer: Isobel Lennart/ Cinematography: Harry Stradling

Babs ponders her next move (image: JCT FlickrCC)

Don’t tell me not to fly, I’ve simply got to.
If someone takes a spill, it’s me and not you.
Who told you you’re allowed to rain on my parade?

Barbra Streisand is feisty, New Yorker, and would-be music hall singer, Fanny Brice. Omar Sharif plays sexy, sultry, gambling playboy Nick Arnstein.  The Funny Girl roller-coaster ride whips through the trials and tribulations of Fanny’s life, stopping only for one infectious show tune after another.

Despite the long running time (155 mins) and the fact Omar really can’t sing (he’s so charismatic he carries it off), I was hooked. An unexpected delight that stays with you long after the decidedly non-fairy tale ending. Fab-u-lous!

* Adapted from the play by Isobel Lennart

Movie Pieces review rating for Funny Girl: 4/5
IMDb entry for Funny Girl

High Society (1956)

Dir: Charles Walters / Writer: John Patrick / Cinematographer: Paul C. Vogel

Grace and Frank hit the good times (image: wikicommons)

Second time lucky?

Frothy remake of 1940 film The Philadelphia Story, this time with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in the roles made famous by Hepburn, Grant and Stewart.

Society gal Tracey Lord is getting married in the morning to dull but respectable oilman George Kittredge…as long as her scheming butcharming ex-husband C.K. Dexter-Haven doesn’t get his way. Dex’s meddling, the constant presence of gossip hacks and copious amounts of champagne lead to a night of hi-jinks and a morning of recriminations.

What’s fundamentally changed from original to remake is the addition of the musical element. While the songs – including ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ and ‘Well, Did You Evah?’ –  are superb, they add a touch of whimsical sentimentality to what was previously a hard-edged tale of spiky relationships.

Tough or tinkling – whatever your preference there’s a version for you. This one might not be it.

Rating: 3/5
IMDb entry for High Society

Oklahoma!

Dir: Fred Zinnemann. US. 1955

Oklahoma! (image: nz563n Flickr CC)

Scary movie

Musicals, in my book, should be something that warm the cockles of your heart. They should lift your spirits, brighten dark days and transport you to a world where everything is that little bit shinier. A big ask but one that even the cheesiest musicals (Mama Mia) usually deliver on.

It’s up there on those lists of classic musicals; praised for its use of colour, its cast and, of course, for those Rogers and Hammerstein songs. There’s a certain level of expectation that comes with a musical. So imagine the recoil factor when the uninitiated is presented with Oklahoma!‘s storyline.

We’ve got Laurey (Shirley Jones) as a stubborn miss who won’t admit to liking down-to-earth cowboy Curly (Gordon MacRae), Laurey’s dimwit friend Annie who can barely restrain her sexual impulses and flits from man to man and Rod Steiger as Laurey’s ‘hired farm-hand’ Jud – a man of brooding spirit and vicious murderous intent who happens to have taken an unhealthy interest in our heroine.

Throw in thinly veiled threats, arson, murder, stabbings (one attempted, one achieved) and surreal dream sequences involving bawdy dancing girls and strangulation, and it soon becomes clear that we’re not in Kansas anymore.

From the off, I found the songs and the action overly ‘hearty’ – a simplistic and stagey way of emphasising the rural world (good) v. urban developed world (bad) theme that shapes the film. And while Shirley Jones is no Judy Garland (who is?), the familiar magic of the musical would usually have brought me under its spell. This time, though, the glorious Technicolor™ and relentless cheery veneer just can’t overcome the grimness of that plot…

Rated: 2.5/5
IMDb entry for Oklahoma!

Rent

Dir: Chris Columbus. US. 2005

Rent (image: freelancing god FlickrCC)

Brother, can you spare a dime?

It must have seemed like an inspired decision to use the original Broadway cast and a seemingly untouched script for the film based on the 90s hit musical.  And yet, unfortunately, it works about as well as lead diving boots.

A decade has passed since the original stage show and the thirty-something cast, unsurprisingly, find it hard to bring the necessary youthful freshness and optimism to their roles as a group of artists and actors living in New York dealing with poverty, drug addiction and Aids.  Time has not been kind to the subject matter either – nothing is more dated than the recent past – and the way the issues Rent deals with are presented are in serious need of an update.  What once seemed compelling and vital now seems horribly stagy up on the big screen.

As Chicago showed, it’s more than possible to create a good film from a musical but it requires an understanding that what works on stage is unlikely to play well on film.  The script could have done with a good polish and the running time – a wearing 135 minutes – is simply self-indulgent.  Veteran director, Columbus, seems to have lost his way in the cutting room.  Only Rosario Dawson as Mimi and the world-famous Rent soundtrack add some sparkle to proceedings but there’s too big a job for either to leaven the dreariness.

Rated: 1/5
IMDb entry

Beyond The Sea

Dir: Kevin Spacey. US. 2004

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee (image: wikimedia CC)

Can Spacey’s syrup* please take a bow?

Spacey attempts to revitalise the tired bio-pic formula by structuring Beyond The Sea (aka The Bobby Darin Story) as a series of flashbacks linked together by fantasy dance sequences in which Bobby and his child self trip the light fantastic.  It’s an unusual conceit but, cheesy and mawkish, it jars with the more sleazy rags to riches parallel storyline.

The young Bobby scenes are particularly grating – a Disney-esque chorus line sequence where ‘Young Bobby’ and his family dance down a ‘mock’ New York street being a real low point.  The later scenes are more interesting – the set and costume design combining to give a compelling backdrop to the 50s and 60s pop star lifestyle.  They also have a more interesting narrative following the love story between Darin and teen actress Sandra Dee (although Spacey is at least 15 years too old to be the slick young playboy and next to Kate Bosworth it really shows).

A self-indulgent waste of acting talent from the usually restrained Mr. Spacey.

* [Cockney rhyming slang: syrup of figs = wig]

 

Rated: 2/5
IMDb entry