41. Barbra Streisand in 'Funny Girl' & Katharine Hepburn in 'The Lion in Winter' (1968)

  

Plot intro...s...

The Lion in Winter

England, 1183. Ageing, cantankerous King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) is concerned about which of his three surviving sons, Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) or John (Nigel Terry) will succeed him. When his estranged, scheming wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) arrives for Christmas celebrations, the court machinations really start to escalate.

Funny Girl

New York, early 20th century. Young, clumsy, sharp-talking Fanny Bryce (Barbra Streisand) wants to become a star of the stage. Insecure about her looks and ability, she often turns to comedy as a crutch. Stage impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (Walter Pidgeon) notices her ability and the film charts her rise to fame as well as her tumultuous marriage to gorgeous gambler Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif).

Paul says...

A winning tie at the Oscars is a rare and notable thing- it has (so far) only happened six times in its near-100 year history. This is the only time it happened in the Best Actress category, and the second and most recent time in any acting category (there was a tie for Best Actor in the '30s). The most recent was 10 years ago in the Best Sound Editing category between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall.

This tie could not have happened to a more dynamic and disparate duo. Hepburn had nearly 40 years of experience under her belt, two Best Actress Oscars (one from the previous year) and a lion-taming personality that kept the men in check (she would repeatedly call out Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins’ late arrivals after a night of drinking during the making of The Lion in Winter). Streisand, meanwhile, was a Hollywood ingenue. Just 26 years old (Hepburn was 61 at this point), she had made a name for herself in music and Broadway, originating the role of Fanny Bryce. But Funny Girl catapulted her to international stardom and now she is recognised, revered, idolised and imitated on the same level as Madonna, Cher, Liza and Dolly. It’s a very satisfying tie between two immensely iconic names.

But, of course, many people (including myself) can’t shake off the age-old question- who should have won? On one level, it’s irrelevant- they both won, they both deserved it, there doesn’t have to be just one winner, deal with it. On another level, it’s fun to analyse. Morally speaking, it should have been Streisand. As previously mentioned, Hepburn already had two Best Actress Oscars and was due to win another in the early '80s. Statistically speaking, however, it should have been Hepburn. Only members of the Academy can vote and membership is achieved through contributions to the movie industry. Funny Girl was only Streisand’s first movie therefore, at first, she didn’t have membership and couldn’t vote for herself. This would have meant that Hepburn would have won by one vote. But Academy president Gregory Peck rather cheekily fast tracked Streisand’s membership and she was able to vote, effectively causing the tie. 

But what do I think? (This question is, of course, why you’re reading this blog, surely). For me, Funny Girl is the superior of the two films. The Lion in Winter is great entertainment, it’s a campy, humour-driven depiction of 12th century England, displaying the dangers and intensity of court intrigue but at the same time mocking how farcical the whole process is. It is far more fun than more ponderous '60s period dramas such as A Man For All Seasons, Becket and Anne of the Thousand Days. It is laden with snarks, put-downs, deliberately convoluted plottings and melodrama. I especially enjoyed the way it depicted life in 12th century castles. Courtiers and servants all jostling, arguing and sleeping on top of each other. Dogs wander and defecate freely and everyone is surrounded by the drafts and darkness of these unhomely Norman castles. 

However, it’s over-long by about 45 minutes and its energy becomes exhausting. About half an hour in you quickly realise that the complicated machinations of the King and Queen, their sons and the King of France are so changeable, with every character being so disingenuous, that you’re not really supposed to know what’s going on- because even the characters don’t. Exactly which son is on whose side, who is lying to whom and why, all of this becomes irrelevant and you’re meant to enjoy the farcical chaos of the film. But without an involving plot, it all becomes cold, uninvolving and a bit pointless.

It also suffers (or benefits, depending on how you look at it) from the fact that Hepburn out-acts everyone. Yes, even celebrated actors Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. She runs rings around them. The film is fine when she is off screen, but it comes to life when she is on it. Whether she is insulting the King, breaking down over her traumatic life, or craftily manipulating, well, anyone, Hepburn epitomises one of the most formidable and powerful women in history.

Funny Girl, meanwhile, is a flawless gem for me. As a musical it’s fine. It gave birth to the song Don’t Rain On My Parade but other than that the music is not especially well known or enduring. But Streisand gives one of the funniest, most charming, most poignant performances I’ve ever seen. Every one-liner hits a bullseye, every act of physical comedy shows incredible talent and expertise (scenes such as Fanny’s ruination of a rollerskating musical number and her own rendition of the ballet Swan Lake left us both howling). And above all, Streisand depicts a woman going through a very powerful growth. 

We first meet Fanny, all grown up, when she delivers the infamous line to her reflection “Hello, gorgeous”, which is far more wistful and delicate than when people imitate it (Streisand said it to her Oscar statuette when she received it). Then we flashback to her youth. She’s sharp-witted but blunderous, impulsive and erratic (and hilarious). As heartbreak and maturity sets in, Streisand seamlessly adds in more dignity and tragedy to the performance. Later, when Fanny is fending off reporters who are trying to get the goods on her husband’s arrest, her one-liners are no longer coming from a place of joy and rebellion but from desperation and exhaustion.

So if I were a voting member of the Academy, it pains me to say it, but I’d probably have voted for Streisand. Not that I want to let down my girl Katharine but I think Streisand gives a performance that is truly unique and demonstrates a wide range of talents (acting, singing, dancing, comedy). If we ever do a top ten blog post, I have a feeling Streisand will be in there.

Highlight 

Lion in Winter: There is no particular scene or moment here, I just want to highlight Hepburn’s performance. It’s one of the best of her career (and, considering her career, that’s saying something) and it keeps the film ticking along.

Funny Girl: There are so many scenes and moments to choose from. The Swan Lake scene and Streisand’s beautiful rendition of 'People' get special mentions. But for me, it’s a later scene in which Fanny’s gambling and financially-stretched husband Nicky is given a business proposition. As the friend describes the proposition, the camera stays on Nicky’s reaction, with Fanny covertly in the background reading a magazine. It slowly becomes apparent to Nicky that this proposal is too good to be true and that Fanny herself has orchestrated it. Streisand’s stillness becomes increasingly conspicuous and Nicky’s emasculated anger fills the room. It’s a small but brilliant scene.

Lowlight

Lion in Winter: The length of the film is my biggest gripe. Either they needed a less frantic plot or slice off 45 minutes or so.

Funny Girl: Honestly, the film is wonderful and I have nothing to criticise it.

Mark

The Lion in Winter: 6/10

Funny Girl: 10/10

Doug says...

It’s the age-old question: Katharine or Barbra? You can hear the pitchforks of the adulating gays being sharpened ready for battle from here.

These are two very different films – one is an overlong but refreshingly gritty historical drama. The other is a bells-and-whistles musical with some amazing standards of modern musical theatre ('Don’t Rain on My Parade'; 'People'; 'My Man'; 'Funny Girl') throughout.

I’m delighted to say that Hepburn and Streisand are both phenomenal in their respective roles, and both fully deserving of this shared trophy. I don’t think I can pick a favourite of the two.

Streisand shines as Fanny Bryce in a performance that meticulously recreates the physicality and voice of the legendary comedienne Fanny Bryce. If you want to see the real Bryce, take a gander the early Best Picture winner The Great Ziegfeld where she stars as herself, bowls into a dressing room scene, wipes the floor comedically with everyone else on screen and then sings a very sad song with remarkable pathos.

Streisand has done her homework. The jerky gait, the sharp as a whistle comebacks – they all ring true in Barbra’s capable hands. She then pairs this character study with a real ability to show what Fanny is feeling, underneath the layers of performative comedy. When Bryce hurts, we see it beneath the rictus grin or playful demeanour. Streisand is also very, very funny. One scene where she’s allowed to watch her lover play poker, on the proviso she doesn’t react – we see her fully reacting with sheer nerves and terror, only to switch into a dead-eyed zombie as soon as her lover turns to look at her. It’s comedy perfection, with every single comedy beat achieved beautifully.

All this isn’t even touching on Streisand’s voice which is one of the greatest in 20th century theatre and film. She delicately sings, she belts, she allows emotion to pour through while astounding with her vocal gymnastics. One always feels that she’s taken this career extremely seriously. Not for Streisand’s vocal chords the casual damage of age – even in her 70s and 80s, her ‘instrument’ is an extraordinary beast (just look at her 2016 Netflix special).

So surely it should have been a clean win for Streisand in a virtuoso performance at the centre of a finely balanced and perfectly delivered movie musical? Not so, for here, with a bang and a crash, comes Hepburn with quite a different proposition: an exceptional performance in a very flawed film.

The Lion in Winter is soapy, melodramatic, about an hour too long and doesn’t really know what it wants to say. King Henry II is off shagging the young woman he also wants his son to marry (??), meanwhile his three sons all struggle for power. There’s a full positioning of Richard the Lionheart as gay, a cast including Anthony Hopkins, Peter O’Toole and Timothy Dalton and a lot of people charging around holding flaming torches or brooding on battlements. I do not consider it a particularly good film.

However it is watchable, for one very simple reason: Katharine Hepburn, in one of the best performances I’ve seen from her. Do you love Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones? Of course you do. Well, here’s her predecessor.

Hepburn’s Eleanor of Acquitaine is ferocious. She is determined that her favourite son will be king. She wants to be free of the imprisonment her husband keeps her in. She also wants – above all else – to make him hurt. Eleanor in this play veers between jovially making all those around her terrified, and showing her vengeful teeth in full howl, and god does Hepburn lean in. She’s jealous, angry, upset, scared and powerful.

Hepburn manages the whole thing with ease – from the triumphant beginning to the triumphant end. Her husband and sons may be bruised and aching but she sails back to prison laughing. It’s exceptional – to manage the flood of feelings and the way she manipulates everyone around her and make it all seem feasible and gripping.

I think we’re all aware Katharine Hepburn is one of the greats – particularly this late point in her career where it feels like she did a Meryl Streep (post Devil Wears Prada) and re-entered the cinematic arena more able to showcase her own individual skills. This film cements her as one of the most amazing talents working in this era – and she does all that without changing her accent a jot. An American Eleanor of Acquitaine? Sure!

Highlight

Funny Girl: Barbra’s ability to capture Fanny Bryce is just wonderful – particularly her performance of the standards Bryce herself used to sing. It’s a gorgeous tribute from a-then upcoming legend to a historical one.

The Lion in Winter: There’s so many lines that Hepburn elevates through her performance, but this exchange stuck out, beautifully delivered with so much rage, fear and pain:

Henry II: Is it rich, despising me? Is it rewarding?

Eleanor: No – it’s terrible.

Henry II: Then stop it!

Eleanor: How? It’s what I live for!

Lowlight

Funny Girl: I do miss the comedy in the second half when it becomes more of a romantic drama.

The Lion in Winter: The film itself isn’t very good. It’s a shame as when Hepburn isn’t on, the quality and engagement drops hugely. 

Mark

Funny Girl: 10/10

The Lion in Winter: 5/10 

Best of the Rest: Barbara Stanwyck in 'Double Indemnity' (1944)

 

Plot intro

Smooth-talking insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) goes to the home of Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) to sell insurance to her unpleasant husband (Tom Powers). Walter is immediately smitten with Phyllis, who is intelligent, beautiful and trapped in a loveless marriage. They grow closer and begin to have an affair. Then they do what all cheaters do - plan to take out a massive life insurance policy on Phyllis’ husband and murder him. But Walter doesn’t bank on the investigations of his tenacious boss, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), or the secret machinations of Phyllis herself…

Paul says...

In the year of Double Indemnity’s release, Barbara Stanwyck was the highest-paid actress in the US. The American Film Institute’s list of Greatest Actresses places her at number 11, and also lists her character, Phyllis Dietrichson, as the eighth greatest villain in cinema. Meanwhile Double Indemnity itself is listed as the AFI’s 29th greatest movie and it is considered one of the earliest and most quintessential examples of the film noir genre. So even if you’ve never heard of her, it’s evident that Stanwyck in Double Indemnity is a seminal point in movie history.

Explaining the plot of Double Indemnity can almost undersell it. Even the title, a legal term involving insurance payouts to spouses after a death, is dull as dishwater. How many people do you think would want to watch a thriller about….insurance? Surely film noirs usually involve private investigators, gangsters, sexy vixens with hidden secrets and microfilms tucked away inside avian statuettes? Indeed, Double Indemnity features not a shred of the mafia, law enforcement or a hitman. Walter and Phyllis’ insidious plot is only unravelled by Walter’s boss Barton because the insurance company is stingy and doesn’t want to pay the double indemnity that Phyllis is after. Barton isn’t on a one-man crusade to unveil a murder, he just can’t afford the insurance pay out.

So why is Double Indemnity so exciting? Well, quite frankly, I think that’s down to Barbara Stanwyck herself. The film begins portraying her as the downtrodden, trapped victim of a loveless marriage. When she and Walter start to discuss the prospect of murder, the writing very much emphasises that this is coming from a place of desperation. Stanwyck is delicate, hesitant, and vulnerable. So it comes as a real shocker both character-wise and performance-wise that Phyllis turns out to be the villain of the piece- this crime ain’t her first rodeo. When her chequered and dubious past comes to light, she subtly changes into the conniving femme fatale synonymous with Film Noir. The change is striking but gradual. As an audience, you transition from supporting her to being frightened of her, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this transition occurs in the story-telling- and that takes real acting skill (and a brilliant script).

It is this manipulation of the characters and the audience’s feelings about them that makes Double Indemnity so entertaining. It doesn’t need glamorous escapism and impossible characters to tell its story- this is a tale of insurance fraud and murder that builds in intensity and could, genuinely, happen. The eventual unravelling of the murder plot thanks to various breadcrumbs dropped by the writers earlier in the film displays tight and thrilling story-telling.  

I will say, however, that occasionally its age shows. Walter and Phyllis meet, fall in love and decide to murder Phyllis’ husband within the first 20 minutes of the film which seems like a very drastic conclusion to come to. Also, dialogue in Film Noir is hilariously over-written, especially the voiceover narration. At one point the main character is pontificating on the prospect of murder being like the smell of buttercups. I’m not sure what drug the writers were on at this point but I want some.

If you’re not familiar with Stanwyck’s work, this is arguably her best known and a great example of her skills (it was her third of four Best Actress Oscar nominations). I also recommend the slightly more melodramatic but no less entertaining Sorry, Wrong Number. 

Interestingly, she was also a dedicated Republican, who supported the MPA, an organisation designed to seek out and blacklist Hollywood actors with Communist sympathies. It’s hard to judge her for this based on modern values, but the MPA has also been alleged to have antisemitic, isolationist and pro-Jim Crow sympathies. Plus it was supported by actors such as John Wayne who had some insanely Trumpian views on racial integration, so make of that what you will.

Highlight

I didn’t manage to talk about him much, but Edward G Robinson’s performance as Barton Keyes rivalled Stanwyck’s in my opinion.

Lowlight

The script made us laugh at times when I don’t think it was meant to. Not a good sign.

Mark

8/10

Doug says...

Barbara Stanwyck isn’t a name well-known to me and (I imagine) many others. She’s one of the parade of Golden Age actors who won acclaim at the time, but with the passing of years, that vital Oscar win seems to be the only way actors get real lasting glory - their names still mentioned in lists of previous winners. That Oscar win eluded her, despite multiple nominations. 

This is considered one of the earliest (some argue the first) example of film noir, a genre where it feels like Tennessee Williams writes the lush, heavy narration and Alfred Hitchcock is in charge of lighting and sound. Director Billy Wilder gives the sense of inventing the genre on the hoof - there’s a feeling of innovation and experimentation here that is thrilling. It’s worth noting this was one of the first in a directing career that is nothing short of extraordinary; he directed Sunset Boulevard, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, The Lost Weekend, The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch. The man was talented. 

It’s exciting when we watch a film that is at the beginning of a movement - we also saw it recently with Julie Christie in Darling. There’s a sense of scrappiness, pulling it together and trying out new ideas that is missing in later film noir. Here Wilder is focusing on tension, pace and drama - familiar facets like the slightly overwritten narration and the femme fatale are here, but they feel more organic than in other films of the genre. 

The film is driven by two superb performances. Edward G Robinson as Barton Keyes is probably the best thing in it, his delivery of a small, beta-male type who obsessively sniffs out insurance-scammers is gripping. We never underrate him, and he becomes the driving force against our two anti-heroes, never wavering in the search for truth. It’s worth noting that while the company itself simply wants to avoid paying out too much money, he seems driven by higher, less financial motives - he wants to see justice. It’s a terrific, subtle performance and a brilliant driving energy throughout the production. 

The other great performance is that of Stanwyck’s. At first I wondered how on earth this bland and sappy character was given so many (metaphorical) roses by critics and audiences. That’s Stanwyck’s art here, she gives us a wishy-washy woman and then very slowly peels back layer after layer until the final scene when we watch her prepare to shoot her lover, readying a gun under her chair. Even the way she moves in this final scene shows us that she has always been this cold, villainous woman performing blandness so she is never seen. I particularly liked the scene when they off the husband and the camera focuses on Stanwyck’s emotionless face as you hear her husband being throttled off-screen. It’s superb physical and inner character work at play and while I wouldn’t put it in my top performances of all time (and indeed she was beaten here by Bergman in Gaslight which IS in my top performances), it’s worthy of being remembered. 

Really though, more than Stanwyck, this film for me is a tribute to director Billy Wilder and his astonishing oeuvre. The fact that he consistently got exceptional performances from his actors is testament to his clear talent, along with his exploration into new styles and themes, means he must be one of the Golden Age greats.  

Highlight

It’s wonderful to see film noir right at the beginning with all the elements being created rather than dropped in as tropes. 

Lowlight

The film does drag in parts in the second half, I think there’s so much plotting that was done, I was a bit impatient for the finale. 

Mark

7/10