Blazing Tonsils

By JAY COCKS

FUNNY LADY

Directed by HERBERT ROSS Screenplay by JAY PRESSON ALLEN and ARNOLD SCHULMAN

There is no getting around it; Funny Lady is kind of a kick.

It ought not to have been. The movie is a continuation of Barbra Streisand's first starring vehicle. Like Funny Girl (1968), Funny Lady is gaudy and inane. As before, the star cuts up and camps up a revamped biography of Fanny Brice, here and there belting out a tune as if the lyrics were marching orders. Streisand is still more the enthusiastic personality than dexterous actress. She changes costumes faster than moods, and usually tosses off her lines like a rich girl rummaging through a drawer full of last year's clothes.

None of this, as it happens, makes much difference. Neither does a script that draws its inspiration from every stage musical ever mounted, then defies you to care. What can one make of writing that calls for the leading lady to meet her leading man, survey him coolly as he rushes through his paces, and comment to a friend, "Bobby, this is a shrewd kid"? There are several possible reactions: get huffy, go with it, or be thankful she does not add "He'll go far." Funny Lady repeatedly invites all such responses. The good thing about the movie is the nervy way it proves that they are not mutually exclusive.

It may only be that Streisand has worn us down out of sheer volume and stubbornness, but she seems to have mellowed. She does not act quite so much like the stepchild of Ethel Merman who spent summers with Mae West. When she does come on, James Caan is available to perform whatever deflation is necessary. Caan, who plays the flashy Broadway impresario Billy Rose to Streisand's Brice, stands up well under the painful effulgence of her superstardom. He is a scrappy actor, always looking for an opening, and he finds his full share of them--or makes them. Only Robert Redford in The Way We Were was so adept at keeping his balance. Redford did it by playing off Streisand and cooling her out. Caan goes straight at her, battling for every breath, every inch of screen space.

Ingratiating Delirium. If this cockfight between the stars lends the movie its feisty appeal, its wholehearted trafficking in musical cliches imparts an air of ingratiating delirium. There are the usual lavish numbers--including a reproduction of a Billy Rose Aquacade --staged with a satiric glint by Director Herbert Ross (The Last of Sheila). But the best tune in the show is a ballad (If I Love Again), delivered quietly by Streisand as she stands with a song sheet over a piano. The writers have also supplied a fair number of punchy Broadway wisecracks. Says Caan, proposing to Streisand as he flashes a hulking ring: "I paid retail."

The plot, which matters least of all, has to do with Fanny Brice's later years after her separation from Nicky Arnstein, who did her so bad in the original. Omar Sharif, forever limpid, shows up again as the ne'er-do-well gambler who tries to tempt Fanny away from Billy, but she rejects him. The ending is an occasion for a few tears and a little heartbreak; we well know from all the funny ladies of movie history that happiness does not come with success. Only producers might think otherwise, and they keep it to themselves. qed Jay Cocks

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