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On a Clear Day You Can See Forever Reviews
This is a gem. About an hour was removed from Director Vincent Minnelli's original cut due to the public falling out of favor with big musicals ( Streisand followed this one playing the foul mouthed fetish prostitute in THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT) and is presumably lost. Too bad...
Or "My Fair Dreary". This is one strange musical. A charmless Barbra Streisand - dressed in a succession of truly appalling outfits - barges her way into French shrink Yves Montand's office in order to wean herself off cigarettes. Instead she regresses into a 19th century England. On and on it goes, nothing happens - endlessly, and fatally there is zero chemistry between Streisand and Montand. When we reach the big title song Montand looks extremely uncomfortable. Bob Newhart and Jack Nicholson turn up in thankless roles, and it's very hard to believe this is the work of the great Vincente Minnelli.
I love the story, the costuming and the music. Streisand is incredible.
I knew absolutely nothing about this movie before I checked it out,but it was just too weird for me. Barbara Streisand was too much I loved her outfits) and although I liked Jack Nicholson, this movie really didn't do anything for me. My rating is primarily for the clothes and the flowers. =)
One of my all time favorites.
The best musical movie ever made!
This is a forgotten gem. Barbra Streisand at her most versatile. Vincent Minelli's last film and it has gotten better with age. So good!
Barbra Streisand has the sort of star power that explodes off the screen. So effortlessly lovable and so much a force (with her roaring voice, her palpable charisma, and her slicing comedic timing), she's enough to practically blow anyone standing next to her right off the screen if they fail to out-act her themselves. As a result of her being such a titan of the silver screen, finding a vehicle able to contain her has enforced a career full of movies that remain watchable only because Streisand's in them. The only feature to have spotlighted her correctly is Peter Bogdanovich's glimmering screwball comedy homage "What's Up, Doc?" (1972), which prevails because it recognizes the boldness of Streisand and likens her talents to that of a behemoth of a figure like Katharine Hepburn. No one opposite her is ever going to stand out as much as she does, and that fact's recognized. Even "Funny Girl" (1968), the enduring musical drama that won her an Oscar, struggles due to its run-time and due to the entire ensemble cast being more wet towel than personality driven. Streisand, of course, is larger than life in the movie. "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," her 1970 collaboration with Vincente Minnelli ("Meet Me in St. Louis," "An American in Paris"), suffers from the very same problem that has plagued Streisand's long career: she's astounding, but everyone else seems at a loss as to how to keep up with her. In the film, she is Daisy Gamble, a flibbertigibbet of a post-grad trying to kick her smoking habit. Possessing an addictive personality that ensures that she consumes five packs a day, her vice has become a problem for her conservative fiancee Warren (Larry Blyden), who's intent to marry her but not if she's going to die of a black lung within a couple years. Knowing full well that she's too flighty to quit on her own, Daisy attends one of the lectures of Marc Chabot (a thoroughly wooden Yves Montand), a psychiatrist with a knack for hypnotization. Believing that she could enlist him to essentially put her in a trance and command that she stops puffing smoke so fanatically, she introduces herself and, before long, is the patient to his doctor. But when Chabot accidentally travels too deeply into her psyche, it is unexpectedly revealed that Daisy, in addition to being an airheaded twentysomething, is the reincarnation of Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a sexually confident eighteenth-century social climber that worked her way from poverty-stricken illegitimacy to wondrous wealth in her lifetime. Chabot keeps this discovery a secret. But when he begins to fall for the woman Daisy no longer is, complications unavoidable arise for both him and the girl who sits in his office on a day to day basis. The concept, already trippy enough as it is, is poised to struggle to convince. And yet it works, the fantasy sequences arguably more effective than the ones set in the present day. But maybe that's only because scenes that take place in 1970 are also characterized by actors that aren't Streisand. And those actors, despite mostly being renowned, are so bland by contrast that the second any of them so much as open their mouths we find ourselves already pining to see and hear more of her. When a star acts and sings as magnificently as she does, it's almost unthinkable to sit through a minute in which she's not stealing a moment from another. "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," then, is forthcomingly a little off-center. Since its headliner is so sublime, we're sporadically tricked that we are, in fact, watching a great movie. And we aren't: the story, while sound, doesn't emotionally invest us, and no one not named Barbra Streisand is inviting. It's all rather stagey, too, not unlike the play from which it was conceived. So it's good. But imagine how wonderful it could have been had Minnelli and the film's makers better understood the capabilities of their leading lady and worked with them more efficaciously.
This is all at once ridiculous and clever and gosh darn it, I had a good time. First off, the sets and the costumes in this are amazing. Those floral wallpapers, sheets, dresses, and everything are to die for. Second, the music is surprisingly good- a handful of stand outs, only a couple of cheesy arrangements, maybe one or two forgettable numbers and no real stinkers. And lastly, I loved the plot. It's never trying too hard to be something it's not, and Streisand really manages to play up the camp and fun. I'd love to see some remakes of this that went harder for the unrequited love angle.
Yves Montand stars as a professor of psychiatry who, while demonstrating hypnosis to his class, accidentally hypnotizes Barbara Streisand in the audience. He discovers she is not a student, but was trying to approach him to help her quit smoking ... and she probably has psychic powers. He agrees to help, but under hypnosis, he accidentally regresses her to a past life as an English noblewoman. He continues with these sessions and ends up falling in love with her past persona. Meanwhile, she falls in love with him. This is a weird film. It's a musical, but there's so little music in the film, that it may as well not be. What music there is just serves to stall the plot. Adding to the oddness, Jack Nicholson and Bob Newhart appear in small supporting roles.
whoever wrote that the main character is a chain smoker who wants to quit because she's afraid to fly (because of smoking regulations on aircraft) hasn't paid any attention to this film. She wants to quit because her fiance' is about to land a big promotion and wants to impress his boss at an important dinner. (She does jokingly mention the flying thing but what really gets her to see the hypnotist is her fiance's dinner).
love this musical fantasy
Wonderful story with Streisand redefining herself through several lifetimes. I'm a little surprised Shirley Maclain didn't get this role.
You have to be a hardcore Babs fan to make it all the way through this monotonous adaptation of the equally boring stage play.
This really shouldn't have worked for me: the print we saw was scratchy and missing bits of dialogue. Yves Montand was miscasted and tripping off his accent. Barbara's character would have been annoying and she seemed to be channeling Audrey Hepburn - and Im still not sure if it was in a good way. Yet I cannot deny having a strangely fun and nostaglic time watching this relic of a film from an old-fashioned director working from, what can only be described as a profoundly nonsensical script . Did I say this film is about ESP and reincarnation? Totally bonkers and totally entertaining (probably for all the wrong reasons, but hey, so what?)
I LIKE IT.I LIKE ALL BABS MOVIES.I,M A HUGE FAN.