Pictured Barbra Streisand. Photo by Tracy Baim
Streisand on DVD
Five films starring Gay Icon Number One, Judy Garland, received a spectacular ad blitz last April when Warner Bros. marked the 60th anniversary of one of Garland's greatest films, Meet Me In St. Louis, with a fabulous two-disc Special Edition. Along with their meticulous restoration of the film, Warner issued other Garland classics for the first time on DVD—In the Good Old Summertime, For Me and My Gal, Ziegfeld Girl, and Love Finds Andy Hardy—all with assorted extras.
Now Gay Icon Number Two, Barbra Streisand, is having six of her movies re-released on DVD. Columbia's box set of The Mirror Has Two Faces, The Prince of Tides and The Way We Were hits the streets next Tuesday while a Funny Girl/Funny Lady box set arrives in two weeks on the 22nd. That same day Paramount is also releasing On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. The good news is that Columbia is bringing back the deleted DVD title, The Mirror Has Two Faces, and Clear Day is being released on DVD for the first time. The bad news is that none of these, aside from The Way We Were, are Special Editions and contain anything new ( even The Way We Were is just a repackage job ) . But I'm a sucker for packaging and it's B.A.R.B.R.A., after all—G.I. #2—so I say Hello Gorgeous to these new releases.
Putting together 1973's The Way We Were with two of Streisand's directorial efforts from the '90s might seem odd, but Columbia doesn't own the rights to Yentl, her first acting-directing film, and the packaging works. That's because this trio of films, aside from Mirror's light comedic tone in its first half, is heavy on the drama and fit well together. Streisand did some of her best screen work as Katie Morosky ( and was there ever a more iconic pairing than she and Robert Redford? ) under the expert direction of Sydney Pollack, and the film has a special place in my heart ( it was the first movie I ever reviewed—for my high school newspaper ) . I still rankle when I think of Barbra's Oscar being snatched away by that bloody Glenda Jackson person. Deleted scenes, a making-of documentary and commentaries by all concerned make this the stand out of the set.
Prince and Mirror—the other two pictures in the group—both have their major pros ( Streisand is a great director of actors, for example—with Nick Nolte, Blyth Danner and Kate Nelligan as evidence of that in the first and Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall in the second ) —and their major cons ( both films shift focus abruptly—Prince into grand high romance away from the much more compelling history of the Wingo family and Mirror from the delightful, ugly duckling comedy in the first half to the florid drama of the second ) . Both movies look and sound great on DVD but I have one question: a Streisand-approved, double laserdisc version of Prince was released by Criterion ( it's now out of print ) that included her full-length director's commentary, deleted scenes and outtakes along with Barbra's vocal version of 'Places That Belong To You' over the closing credits. Why weren't those tantalizing elements included?
For the Funny Girl/Funny Lady release, Columbia is including the brief featurettes 'Barbra In Movieland' and 'This Is Streisand' that were produced to promote Funny Girl, but the extended 'The Swan' sequence and other vault goodies aren't here. Nor does Funny Lady have any extra material but again, for Barbra lovers like myself, having a bookend of these two quintissential performances is a must. It's also interesting to watch the difference between the nascent Barbra of 1968 and the much more assured, tougher Barbra of 1975 back to back.
I'm happiest/saddest however, with the On A Clear Day You Can See Forever release. Happy because Streisand never looked or sounded more lovely than in this 1970 Vincent Minnelli effort. Sad because the many musical numbers excised from the film haven't been restored on the DVD ( check out onaclearday.freeservers.com—a great Web site on the movie for more on that ) . Even without the additions of the deletions ( including a Streisand-Jack Nicholson duet! ) , there's Barbra in those Cecil Beaton costumes, the eye-popping Minnelli color palette to behold in the Royal Pavilion scenes and Streisand's voice, which in my estimation, is at its zenith here. Her renditions of the beautiful Burton Lane-Alan Jay Lerner score are sensational.
All of these are bound to get the Deluxe Diva treatment at some point. Until then, my recommendation is to help yourself to these six sticks o'DVD butter, invite over your fellow Streisanites for a viewing party and look forward to Special Editions of both Yentl, A Star Is Born AND the Streisand TV specials, all promised later this year.
And there's more: Gay Icon Number Three Bette Midler's got a Special Edition of Beaches due this spring.
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Local Screening: Sunset Hall in downtown Los Angeles, a retirement home for political radicals, artists and lefties is the setting for Director Laura Gilbert's documentary Sunset Story. It focuses on the friendship and the 'feisty engagement with life' between Irja, 81 and Lucile, 95. A U.S. theatrical premiere opening Feb. 4th at Facets.
See www.Facets.org .
