DVDs: Happy Days Are Here Again
A big hit and an enormous personal triumph for leading lady Barbra Streisand, the Broadway musical Funny Girl opened March 26, 1964. That was about a month after the release of Streisand's third Columbia Records solo album.
Now a full-fledged star of recordings and the stage, Streisand, while toiling nightly in Funny Girl, was being hotly pursued by the television networks, with CBS particularly interested following her 1963 appearance on their "Judy Garland Show." On June 22, 1964, CBS announced that it had signed Streisand to a $5 million contract, guaranteeing her complete creative control and the right to do one special a year for ten years.
For her first special, the network envisioned something traditional, with Streisand surrounded by big-name guest stars. But Streisand was calling the shots, and she insisted on a one-woman show. The announcement of the contract and the nature of the first presentation was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism. After all, it remained to be seen whether or not a sophisticated performer like Streisand would attract a large national audience and be able to carry a show with no assistance from other performers. But it was a good sign that her previous television appearances with Ed Sullivan, Jack Paar, David Susskind, and Mike Wallace had attracted attention.
With director Dwight Hemion and musical stager Joe Layton, Streisand rehearsed her special during the day while starring in Funny Girl at night. On a Sunday, the star's one day off from Broadway, a sequence at the Fifth Avenue department store Bergdorf Goodman was shot. Produced by Streisand and her husband, Elliot Gould, for Ellbar Productions, along with Richard Lewine, the first Streisand special, entitled My Name Is Barbra, was telecast on Wednesday, April 28, 1965, in black-and-white.
In the space of an hour, Streisand managed to transform herself from thrift-shop girl to glamorous fashion plate and trend setter. This had a great deal to do with the program's second of three "acts," the one set at Bergdorf's, in which the star simultaneously kidded and indulged in haute couture while singing ironic ditties like "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
The show's first act had her delivering songs of youth and discovery, while the third and final portion was a straight concert, performed before an audience of specially selected New York fans. Watched by thirty million people, My Name Is Barbra proved a Nielsen ratings hit, and the reviews were sensational. UPI critic Rich du Brow called it "a pinnacle moment of American show business, in any form, in any period. She may well be the most supremely talented and complete popular entertainer that this country has ever produced." Variety was suitably in awe of the star's composure: "Her self-confidence, especially for her years and for one so recently come to stardom, is astounding."
Viewed today, My Name Is Barbra must be accounted one of Streisand's finest hours. Backed with superb arrangements by conductor Peter Matz, she's in glorious voice, and demonstrates unequivocally that she is fascinating and talented enough to carry an entire show all by herself. My Name Is Barbra, along with the star's four subsequent CBS TV specials, is now available on DVD, in the nicely packaged, recently released boxed set Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials. For the "Lover, Come Back to Me" number in the concert sequence of My Name Is Barbra, the DVD features an alternate take, one different from the version seen on the earlier VHS release of the program.
Streisand was greatly satisfied by her first exposure to working in television. A notorious perfectionist, she liked the way television allowed her to tape numbers over and over again, as compared with her current Broadway stint, where the sort of perfection she craved was not always attainable. Already less than thrilled with live performing, she liked the fact that she was able to tape most of her first TV special without an audience. And because she had yet to begin her film career, the star also liked the permanence of TV.
My Name Is Barbra won five Emmys. Its soundtrack was parceled out over two Columbia LP releases. At the end of 1965, Streisand left the Broadway production of Funny Girl, taking the show to London for a West End premiere on April 13, 1966. But by that time, her second television special, this one in color and thus dubbed Color Me Barbra, had already aired. Employing the same creative team, the March 30, 1966 program was closely modeled on the first special, another one-woman show in three acts, the final segment again a concert taped before fans.
For the opening sequence, Bergdorf's was replaced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art Streisand was refused access to shoot at New York's Metropolitan Museum, with the star bonding with and even becoming some of the works of art that surrounded her. For "Non C'est Rien," she was a Modigliani painting. "Where or When" was done in the Egyptian room and became a song about reincarnation.
The second act was a circus sequence with ringmaster Streisand surrounded by a host of animals, a number of which caused trouble during the taping a lion escaped its cage, a penguin died from the heat of the studio lights. As was the case with the first special, the star again supervised, not to say controlled, all aspects of the production. The press was invited during the taping in Philadelphia, and New York Times writer Rex Reed filed an interview that depicted Streisand's on-set behavior in a most unflattering light.
In any case, Color Me Barbra was another ratings hit and received five Emmy nominations. In The New York Times, critic John S. Wilson wrote, "She did variations on the formula of her first show and, if anything, topped herself." And indeed, if Color Me Barbra is less surprising than the first special, it's just as vocally thrilling, and, like the first, it's loaded with show tunes.
After back-to-back TV triumphs, it was perhaps inevitable that the star would have a failure, and that was pretty much the case with her third special, The Belle of 14th Street, completed just before Streisand left for Hollywood to film Funny Girl and aired October 11, 1967. Unlike the first two specials, which were previously released on VHS, this third special gets its first home-video release in the new DVD set.
Belle of 14th Street was a conceptual piece, a salute to the golden age of vaudeville, recreating a turn-of-the century performance and featuring songs and costumes redolent of the period. It was also a departure from the formula of the first two specials in that the star was surrounded by guests. The principal one was an unusual choice for a musical special, dramatic actor Jason Robards. Veteran song-and-dance man John Bubbles did a number, and also present was Lee Allen, who would appear in the Funny Girl film. And then there was the "Beef Trust" chorus, consisting of a group of considerably overweight ladies.
The show allowed the star to play both Miranda and a flying Ariel in a sequence devoted to The Tempest, and to perform a duet with herself, simultaneously appearing as a German chanteuse and a young boy in her audience. But the only segment that really came off well was the star's closing solo concert, featuring such period-suggestive songs as "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and "Some of These Days."
Viewed today, The Belle of 14th Street ranks as an interesting experiment, a brave if wrongheaded attempt at something different. It fared poorly in the ratings and with critics, with Jack Gould in The New York Times dubbing it "an embarrassing entry." Unlike the first two specials, The Belle of 14th Street was never repeated, and a planned soundtrack album was cancelled. But by the time the show was aired, Streisand was too busy filming Funny Girl to waste much time bemoaning the disappointment.
Her fourth special was actually taped prior to the telecast of Belle of 14th Street, on Saturday evening June 17, 1967. It was recorded during a one-night-only, free, outdoor concert in the Sheep Meadow area of New York's Central Park. Already in pre-production for Funny Girl, the star flew to New York from Hollywood just for this event, which drew the largest audience ever assembled in Central Park, 135,000 people.
As the basis for a television special, this one presented two aspects not to the star's liking. Because it was a one-shot event, she could not redo numbers until they were perfect. And she apparently received a death threat just prior to the concert, so had to be pushed out onto the stage, reportedly performings with a good deal of trepidation that's not remotely evident on the telecast.
Solving the first problem was the fact that the resulting CBS TV special, entitled A Happening in Central Park, represented only the best hour of material culled from a two-and-a-half-hour event. Shot with seven cameras, the concert included many songs from her standard repertoire, along with a couple of new ones and a few rarities, like "Value" from her forgotten off-Broadway flop Another Evening with Harry Stoones.
A Happening in Central Park wasn't telecast until more than a year after the concert. It was finally aired by CBS on September 15, 1968, the delay strategically planned to coincide with the premiere of the Funny Girl film. Although Streisand probably still didn't forgive Rex Reed, the critic called the program "a triumph."
As with the first two specials, Streisand's comic monologues haven't aged as well as her music. But with glorious performances of such show tunes as "I Can See It," "I'm All Smiles," and "He Touched Me," A Happening in Central Park is the best record of the young Streisand live in concert, and, as such, is an invaluable document. It's to be regretted, though, that the DVD release includes no material that wasn't telecast and previously found on the VHS release. A couple of bonus numbers would have been nice.
Like Belle of 14th Street, Streisand's fifth CBS special, Barbra Streisand....and Other Musical Instruments, has never before been commercially released on home video, although years ago, there was a bootleg version for sale in stores. Taped in London over an eight-day period, the special was directed by Dwight Hemion, who had done the first two Streisand specials. This was another experiment, built around the notion of international music, and with the Streisand voice heard in conjunction with exotic instruments and ethnic sounds. In the "World Is a Concerto" sequence, household appliances like a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine supplied "musical" accompaniment. And even her hit songs "People," "Second Hand Rose," "Don't Rain on My Parade" were given a new sound with accompaniment from unusual instrumentation.
There was one guest star, Ray Charles, and Streisand's duet with him was one of the show's better moments. The finest moment, however, was the star's solo rendition of the House of Flowers song "I Never Has Seen Snow."
Musical Instruments received moderate ratings and mixed reviews, with New York Times critic John J. O'Connor calling it "overproduced, over-orchestrated, and overbearing to the point of esthetic nausea." Telecast on November 2, 1973, one week after the opening of The Way We Were, Musical Instruments aired at a time when the star had already moved on on disc to more contemporary pop music. With this program, the initial phase of Streisand's CBS contract was over, and Streisand, now a major film star, chose not to renew the contract.
The new DVD boxed set of Streisand specials includes no new bonuses. The only extras are the three brief introductions to My Name Is Barbra, Color Me Barbra, and Central Park by Streisand that were seen on the VHS releases of those titles. Still, it's good to have all of the early TV specials released as a single unit and looking so good, and they come complete with a booklet featuring extensive background notes. These specials are, of course, a must for Streisand fans, but they will also be of value to those interested in discovering what made the young Streisand explode on the scene with such force.