Great torch song
William Wyler was a remarkable diverse director and the main reason I viewed this movie. Best moment for me was Stiesands redintion of the song My Man. It is a heart tugger and a great torch piece.
shareI liked the song when I was 14! Now I realize how demeaning it was for the great Fanny Brice (and Streisand) to sing it. She sings "All my life I'm just a spare, but I don't care." The rest of the lyrics emphasize how she's debasing herself for a jerk who cheats on her and doesn't even love her.
I liked "Funny Girl" as a teenager but now I see the character as an enabling" and "co-dependent" type who sacrificed her own happiness for a guy who didn't deserve her.
And all because he was handsome? Fanny Brice was so talented, she deserved a far better man.
I just saw the movie for the 25th time the whole movie was a big act of fiction, In reality she divorced him when he got locked up the second time. And they were not even married when he got locked up the first time. He was married to someone else. She came to her senses after his bout in Sing Sing and was ready to be sent to Leavenworth, He was a gangster. See the movie is produced by Brices daughter's hubby. I believe there was no way they were going to let the real dirt about her father come out. The song is a great song, but in the context of the movie it was enabling. I find a lot of torch songs are.
A little tidbit is that the song People the show stopper was originally written for Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol. And it was not submitted in time so the song writers who also wrote the songs in Funny Girl use for the movie.
That's true...the producer did "clean up" Arnstein for this movie. Also, Fanny had been briefly married as a teenager so why was she portrayed as an innocent virgin when she met Arnstein?
Yes, he was married to another woman when they met and his previous wife sued Fanny for "alienation of affection!"
What irritates me now about the movie is how Fanny keeps saying she's ugly and he's "beautiful." She kept saying how lucky she was to have him...and he was a jerk!
It's sad that the talented Miss Brice spent much of her life cowtowing to a criminal like Arnstein. She deserved a better man. Someone who would have treated her with respect, as an equal. She was the first great woman comedienne and he treated her like dirt!
The movie makes me uncomfortable because she's so submissive to him and so grateful for his attention.
Fanny Brice's rendition of "My Man" was different from Streisand's, whose version was more histrionic and all-stops-out. And check out Streisand's 1965 TV special My Name Is Barbra for a dry-run of the movie's "My Man."
"Stone-cold sober I find myself absolutely fascinating!"---Katharine Hepburn
I always sang - All my life is just despair.
shareActually the lyrics are 'all my life is just despair'.
Patricianolan999, the lyrics are "my life is JUST DESPAIR, but I don't care...." NOT my life is just a SPARE.
Fanny wasn't the extra tire in the trunk.