#nick arnstein

I decided to take a break from musicals with serious themes and have a little rest (and feel much, much better, yes, thank you Herbert), so, I’ve watched “Funny Girl”. And yes, for first about hour and a half it’s a lovely old thing: a very talented Jewish girl with not traditionally beautiful face (big nose) who tries on all roles she can finally get her chance to get a real role and she uses that chance and gets not only the job but also a handsome and rich courter. She develops her career and her relationships, everything’s wonderful, (I guess, spoilers start here) she gets married and gets a daughter but doesn’t quit theatre and gets even more successful but then… Her husband gets in a lot of trouble, debts and so on. However, he doesn’t want her to help him with money (even though she has that money), so to all that troubles he adds something criminal (I actually didn’t get what exactly) and doesn’t even want to defend himself and consequently gets imprisoned for eighteen months and he also wants a divorce, because he doesn’t want to “run a race he can’t win”. The movie ends with him being released out of prison meeting her and her singing a song about “her man”. Wow. That’s not what I expected of an old musical the plot of which is based on Barbra Streisand’s nose. I’ve heard one song from this musical – the most famous – “Don’t rain on my parade” and it’s very good. There was one very strange moment – “You Are Woman, I Am Man”, because, on the one hand, it was funny, on the other hand, it was so sexist! (Well, I understand – it’s very old.)