When I first heard about this movie, & saw that the real Fanny Brice, Red Skelton, Judy Garland, & all the other greats from this era were in this, I knew I had to see it. I only wish the whole film lived up to the sum of its parts. The star power in this movie would blow anything over.
I think the fault here is that the film comes off as a lot of dis-jointed performances which while well-staged & good, have nothing to tie you to the film & stay interested in it. The great musicals such as 2006's DreamGirls have that kind of thing. As a result, the main interest for someone watching this is to take a DVD of it with a scene menu & go to you favorite performers part in it.
After seeing Streisand play Fanny Brice, it is interesting to see the real woman as she was versus Bab's portrayal of her. This film is lavish & MGM's Technicolor is great as usual. The film just doesn't flow very well which is a shame. It looks like no one wanted to hire good writers for a script.
MGM made this on the presumption that just the stars would put people in the theater seats. I bet it did in it's time, but I only wish it had been done better now.
I think the fault here is that the film comes off as a lot of dis-jointed performances which while well-staged & good, have nothing to tie you to the film & stay interested in it. The great musicals such as 2006's DreamGirls have that kind of thing. As a result, the main interest for someone watching this is to take a DVD of it with a scene menu & go to you favorite performers part in it.
After seeing Streisand play Fanny Brice, it is interesting to see the real woman as she was versus Bab's portrayal of her. This film is lavish & MGM's Technicolor is great as usual. The film just doesn't flow very well which is a shame. It looks like no one wanted to hire good writers for a script.
MGM made this on the presumption that just the stars would put people in the theater seats. I bet it did in it's time, but I only wish it had been done better now.