Movie Review by Greg Goodsell
“Here, maybe this will keep you away from strange men,” Billy Rose Jimmy Caan), the harried husband of Broadway star Fanny Brice (who else -- Barbara Streisand) says as he hands her a wad of magazines to read before he departs on a business trip. “Are there any other kind?” Brice - Streisand replies without missing a beat. This is just one of the thousands of myriad pleasures had in Funny Lady, the 1975 sequel to Funny Girl in 1968, which introduced Streisand to an eternally grateful movie-going audience.
As the title implies, Funny Lady sees vaudevillian Brice as sadder and much wiser to the ways of the world. Dumped by her no-good first husband Nick Arnstein (the recently departed Omar Sharif), left with a daughter to raise alone, Brice is on shaky ground as Flo Ziegfeld closes the curtain on his latest production at the height of the Great Depression. Brash hustler Billy Rose (Caan) offers Brice his services to mount the lavish musical “Crazy Quilt” with her in the lead. An inexperienced producer, the over-produced spectacle (which includes a live buffalo!) flops terribly – until Brice wises Caan to showmanship. They retool the show, and it’s a big hit. Wedding bells ring for Brice and Rose, but life is complicated …
Where to begin? Knockout musical production numbers, lavish costumes and sets, hilarious routines – and not a misstep found anywhere. Along with Singin’ in the Rain (1951) Funny Lady can be recommended to those who don’t necessarily like musicals.