Funny Lady
by Claire J Rottenberg
"Funny Lady," released in 1975, was a sequel to the
very successful "Funny Girl." In this film, Barbra
Streisand again played Fanny Brice, but this time
around her male lead was James Caan as Billy Rose.
The screenplay, written by Jay Presson Allen and
Arnold Schulman, is very loosely based on Brice's
relationship with Rose. "Funny Lady" had a strong
supporting cast, including Roddy McDowall and Ben
Vereen. Omar Sharif repeated his role as Nicky
Arnstein, but he only had a few short scenes in the
film.
"Funny
Lady,"
although somewhat successful, did not reach the
critical success of its predecessor, "Funny Girl."
It received five Academy Award nominations,
including two for its musical score, but it did
not win any Oscars.
The score from "Funny Lady" is average, with no
exceptional songs. Five of the songs were written
specifically for the film by John Kander and Fred
Ebb. Most of the other songs had lyrics or music and
lyrics by Billy Rose. One of Kander and Ebb's songs,
"How Lucky Can You Get," was nominated for an Academy
Award.
"Funny Lady" is a fairly good movie with some very
funny scenes. Especially entertaining is the section
of the film that shows Billy Rose's first disastrous
production of his first show. The storyline is weak
and knowledge of Fanny Brice's relationship with
Nicky Arnstein (from "Funny Girl") is necessary to
understand some of the scenes in "Funny Lady."
One of the strong points of "Funny Lady" is the
excellent cast. James Caan and Barbra Streisand
worked very well together. Caan's performance is
believable and even his singing is surprisingly good.
Streisand overacted in some of the scenes but her
singing of some of the songs is outstanding.
Particularly beautiful is her rendition of "More Than
You Know, " written by composer Vincent Youmans with
lyrics by Edward Eliscu and Billy Rose. Also
delightful is Ben Vereen's dancing to "Clap Hands!
Here Comes Charley."
If you've seen and enjoyed "Funny Girl," you will
probably also like "Funny Lady." So, pick up a copy
today and relax with Barbra Streisand and James
Caan.